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by bradlys 274 days ago
Who is "you"?

The US government doesn't reflect the majority of Americans, at all. It reflects capital interests - which the majority of Americans are not. Majority of Americans are laborers.

2 comments

Maybe I'm wrong but it sounds like a generic "you", not talking about you specifically https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_you
it was voted in by majority, no matter what mental gymnastics you do.

People either voted, or decided that their vote was worthless enough.

Out of available US presidential, House, and Senate candidates, there is essentially no realistic electoral outcome where the people put into power will lift Iranian sanctions.

Representative democracy doesn't mean that every possible policy could be enacted by some realistic configuration of elected representatives, even if any particular policy is supported by a majority of the electorate.

>Representative democracy doesn't mean that every possible policy could be enacted by some realistic configuration of elected representatives, even if any particular policy is supported by a majority of the electorate.

that is only true if you flatten your system to two parties.

> that is only true if you flatten your system to two parties.

Again with the "you". "We" did not flatten anything into anything; we were born into an unfair and broken system that we have no power to change.

This is also true of Iranians.

People are pointing out the hypocrisy of demonising Iranians for the actions of their government while insisting that Americans are unwilling victims of theirs.

I'm not demonizing Iranians. I have no beef with them whatsoever.
Huh? This is a completely different thing.
blame English language on lack of distinction between plural(referring to 'your society' in this case) and singular you. I don't think that's a hard concept to grasp.
No, this has nothing to do with English grammar. I understand that you are using "you" in the plural, here. What I reject is the premise that "Americans" is an identifiable group that is collectively responsible for any particular thing, extending to people who never supported or voted for that thing.

This is a philosophical disagreement, not an issue of language.

But you know that in this case it’s true since the discussion is about the US in particular. So this “enlightened” take is really just snide time wasting.
Who voted on this issue and how many options did they have (on this issue)? The answers are "approximately zero" and "just one". There was no choice when it came to this issue.

Our western "democracies" aren't nearly as democratic as people like to believe.

Whether to have sanctions against Iran has never been on the ballot in the US.