[threeseed]

US is a stable democracy with an independent media and judiciary. And Trump’s unpopularity (~60%) means that his world view is not shared by the majority of Americans.

So this idea that it is not that secure/free because of a minor uptick in racism is ridiculous. China is routinely kidnapping and torturing anyone who disagrees with them - citizen or not. And we still don’t know where many missing journalists have ended up.

[AsyncAwait]

> independent media

Actually the mainstream TV & newspaper media are overall owned by a very few holding companies and there's plenty of stories of people being subtly or overtly pressured to either change tune or be forced off the air if they ie spoke extensively against the Iraq War pre-invasion.

[threeseed]

They aren’t directly controlled by the government though.

And you have plenty of organisations like NPR and PBS which are truly independent.

Also anyone can create a news site or blog without worrying about it being blocked.

[umanwizard]

PBS and NPR are in fact directly controlled by the government. It’s interesting that those are your two examples of gold standard independent media.

[threeseed]

They are both independent non-profits which rely on a mix of private and public funds.

Not sure through what mechanism you think they are directly controlled.

[pishpash]

The state-controlled CPB exerts significant influence via funding and the FCC via regulatory reach. This isn't theoretical. Whether that's "direct" control or not is in the eye of the beholder, but people have accused media in other countries of being not independent under similar circumstances.

Personally I think anyone can live in their own fiction as long as they are not hurting anyone else, but to consider a strategic resource like the media as being truly independent in any country is naive. You're literally missing an entire world if you do not look outside your home country.

[selimthegrim]

No, you’re thinking of VOA and stuff that used to be under erstwhile Broadcasting Board of Governors

[minerjoe]

> aren't directly controlled

Why control things directly when you don't have to?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird

[AsyncAwait]

> They aren’t directly controlled by the government though.

No. They're controlled by multinational corporations with clear profit motives and conflicts of interests and thus tend to be biased in favor of those industries.

In China you have state dominance so you have state controlled media, in the U.S. you have corporate media. That's not independent media, just the other side of the same coin.

And if your argument is "they don't control the army", the military industrial complex means they don't have to do so directly.

[pm90]

The US is neither a stable democracy (incredible levels of partisanship and voter suppression) nor does it have an independent judiciary (justices even in SCOTUS mostly vote around party lines on issues of voting ie power). The most popular media network is Fox News which is openly subservient to the President.

The uptick or racism is not minor either. Racism has been embedded in the American way of life and the fight against it has been long and painful. Being a minority in the US is absolutely a huge risk factor.

> China is routinely kidnapping and torturing anyone who disagrees with them

American police kill a lot of citizens, and incarcerate a large number of mostly POC.

And the current POTUS has repeatedly said he won’t leave office even if votes out, and has speculated openly on staying in office beyond term limits. So please don’t give me crap about China when our country is at the precipice of losing its status as a Democracy.

[kilroy_jones]

One can be critical of China and the US at the same time. Difference being is only in one of those two countries can you open to do both.

I find these 'but the US' responses to be particularly unhelpful as they attempt to frame things very much in the vein of China's own 'do not meddle in our internal affairs ' rhetoric.

[pishpash]

Those responses aren't rebuttals, but rather disbelief in the intellectual honesty or humanity of whatever is being debated. In short, people don't actually give a shit about other countries or how their people live, but they use the inferiority of others to make themselves feel superior. That's all exceptionalism really is.

[fermienrico]

Tell that to hundreds of thousands of Indian, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Philippino, Taiwanese, etc immigrants that work here in the tech industry.

I am a little bit speechless at all this vile of anti-US propaganda. It is insane.

[ahelwer]

As a Canadian living in the US: it really isn't. The US wants to believe it isn't a dumpster fire but beyond its natural beauty (literally the Chinese name for America means "beautiful country", of which I'm jealous because the Chinese name for Canada is Jianada) and high salary there are so, so many reasons why it is not a very desirable place to live. Institutional racism and a comically horrible healthcare system are some examples. Many Americans are quite delusional about this.

One big benefit of living there is you won't be bombed by the US military, I guess.

[fermienrico]

> One big benefit of living there is you won't be bombed by the US military, I guess.

US Military bombs Canadians living in Canada? I didn't know, source?

[ahelwer]

Pretty easy to imagine this happening to control access to fresh water & arable land as climate change progresses. The corn belt is shifting north.

[kortilla]

Fresh water doesn’t come from Canada for most of the US. Additionally, it’s not nearly to the point of being a war-worthy resource. There would be plenty of water in California if farmers just paid for it the same way everyone else does.

California grows a lot of water-expensive crops (e.g. almonds) because legacy farmers don’t pay anything near what residents, commercial, or new farmers do. That would rebalance quickly and obviate the need for any invasion if we just dumped wasteful “water rights” and instead priced water like any other rivalrous good (e.g. govt auctions).

[fuvkthisguy]

Come on now. You're being deliberately obtuse.

[fermienrico]

Exactly, throwing around "US Military bombing everyone" is a hyperbole seeded with deep prejudice and anti-US sentiments with no objective backing. The question raised was to show the absurdity of this argument.

There is a lot of shit wrong with America. But, seems like people are getting more nationalistic and throwing away logic, reasoning, objectivity, rationale and common sense - most importantly self introspection of tribalism that is going on these days.

Folks - the world is getting more inwards looking. Be careful if your psyche falls into the trap of nationalism. It will cloud your judgement and pretty much everything with it.

I am seeing this, frankly, a lot from our friends in EU. Authoritarian governments want the west to fragment and cause infighting amongst themselves. We must use facts, truth and integrity. Our democracies is at stake. It is unfortunately, not going to go well with this type of climate exasperated by Coronavirus travel restrictions.

We are heading to the wrong direction.

[plandis]

Why live in the US if you dislike it so much? Why are you willing to live in a “dumpster fire”?

[ahelwer]

Currently: high salary and partner is in medical residency for the next number of years. After the only candidate who actually wanted to fix your ridiculous healthcare system dropped out of the presidential primary, my desire to continue living here has dropped precipitously. I'll probably end up moving back to Canada before long, or some other country that doesn't literally drive you slowly insane.

[kortilla]

Curious, as a high salary earner, you must have good health coverage. Do you still feel that the Canadian healthcare system with it’s infamous delays, etc is better?

[cbsks]

Oh, I definitely would. The only things keeping me here is my job, and my wife’s job, and my family, and my wife’s family, and my friends, and my wife’s friends, and my daughter’s friends...

Moving countries isn’t easy. Sometimes you just gotta find a part of the dumpster that isn’t on fire and do the best you can.

[xenihn]

I agree with you in regards to the delusion. People in the EU are so much happier and have better quality of life in comparison with your average American. Working in tech is one of the most valid reasons to remain in the United States. We still have the best salaries, job opportunities, and employers. That might change someday, but it's still the case.

[vangelis]

Thankfully facts are facts. It doesn't excuse anything China does though.

[FpUser]

>"It doesn't excuse anything China does though"

True, it does not. But who is the judge? The idea is that you have your own backyard cleaned before barking about someone else. Otherwise you just do not have that high moral ground to speak from.

[wcarron]

It's really not. It's not propoganda, either. It's the truth.

[thefounder]

You don't know what you are talking about until you live in a communist country. Just making a joke at the wrong time about the "emperor" could put you in jail for a long time. U.S has its flaws but you can't compare it with China. See how the minorities are treated there(i.e the muslims) and the talk about racism in the US

[SECProto]

Don't make a bomb joke in a US airport either!

They weren't comparing the US to China, they were explaining the flaws with American democracy/judiciary/media. The US is not a shining beacon to be held up in those categories compared to eg New Zealand/Germany (proportional representation), Denmark (judicial independence - the US doesn't crack the top ten[1]), or most of the rest of the West (see how far you have to scroll in press freedom rankings to find the US [2] - they have very weak media ownership rules, and while the media is free from a lot of govt limitations, it's free to be biased and partisan as hell)

Or just watch the opening from the Newsroom. [3]

[1] https://worldjusticeproject.org/sites/default/files/images/2...

[2] https://rsf.org/en/ranking_table

[3] https://youtu.be/VMqcLUqYqrs

[thefounder]

Offending a politician and making bomb jokes in airport are different things in US but not in China. This is pretty much my point.

Of course they were comparing US with China, implying the US has its own flaws and shouldn't lecture China. That's like saying US had its own racisim in 1930 so it had no right to interefere in Nazi Germany's internal policies.

US may not be a shining beacon of democratic values but it's a country that can do something about China's rise as a world super power(unlike Denmark, NZ or Germany).

[kortilla]

> So please don’t give me crap about China when our country is at the precipice of losing its status as a Democracy.

I’m not sure you know what the phrase “at the precipice” means, but the US isn’t even close to losing it. The separation of duties between the state and the federal government in conjunction with the branches of government means that even a fully compromised election for one of the positions cannot take the whole country.

By what objective criteria do you classify it as “on the precipice”?

[pm90]

By the objective criteria that the current POTUS retains his office despite ample, credible evidence of committing impeachable offenses. By the objective fact that he continue to commit more such offenses routinely and Americans seem almost numb to how unusual it is anymore. The precipice is the upcoming election, which if the current POTUS wins, will signal the de facto end of Democracy in the US, as he and his cronies will consolidate their power and forever remake the institutions that are supposed to keep democracy functioning (Federal Agencies, Judiciary, Education, EPA etc).

[kortilla]

Nope, only one of the parties thinks that the president should be impeached and removed. This isn’t an entire party (House and Senate) going rogue either. The polls are similar across the entire population.

> keep democracy functioning (Federal Agencies, Judiciary, Education, EPA etc)

Democracy existed before the EPA, the department of education, and essentially every other federal agency. Consolidation of ever more power at the federal level is antithetical to democracy anyway - the federal govt is a republic of democratic states.

> which if the current POTUS wins, will signal the de facto end of Democracy

You’re saying that if he wins a democratic election, it will be the end of democracy? That just sounds like sour grapes over an asshole being picked.