[wolverine876]

It's plainly fallacious to say there is no difference in corruption, conduct, and outcomes of different governments and different forms of government. To say 'all governments are corrupt' is the same as saying 'all people are violent'; but some are murderers, some got in shoving matches with their siblings when they were 12, and there is the entire range in between.

[bakatubas]

Well it’s hard to say at the scope of world powers. Maybe small, local governments there’s less. But let’s be honest here, and consider the atrocities of yesteryear. They span the gamut, and they span democracy through authoritarian regimes. The only difference is how it’s conveyed/portrayed to citizens, and how quickly /easily it is for any single party to gain control of a nation.

I agree that some systems are better than others, and there is still hope for better ones to come. But let’s not kid ourselves into believing China has done anything terrible that the USA has not already done in spades.

[wolverine876]

These 'it's all the same' arguments are obviously false, beyond the meaningless truism that 'nobody's perfect!'.

> it’s hard to say at the scope of world powers

No it's not, at all. Some governments and forms of government are far more corrupt than others. Nobody compares Sweden or the US with Russia or Nigeria.

> They span the gamut, and they span democracy through authoritarian regimes. The only difference is how it’s conveyed/portrayed to citizens ... let’s not kid ourselves into believing China has done anything terrible that the USA has not already done in spades.

Nobody's kidding anyone; unless you look back centuries, China does things - such as in Xinjiang, Tibet, Hong Kong, Tienanmen Square - that the USA never does. There's no comparison. The USA is not about to round up the populace of a region and put them in torture and reducation camps.