[mseebach]

Without defending the NSA excesses, the difference is in the repression, not the monitoring. There is little evidence that the NSA monitoring was used for repression of citizens, and even less evidence of the sort of repression that was rampant in the Soviet bloc.

[olifante]

nice blindfolds you have there. Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, the largest prison population by far among rich countries, institutionalized rape, drone executions without a shred of legal process, militarized police and you're still making excuses for what was not so long ago the beacon of modern civilization and democracy.

[p1esk]

Now compare things you mentioned with a social climate where the entire country is one big prison, North Korea style.

Can't imagine life like that? Yeah, I thought so.

[Zigurd]

Do you think that people who want fundamental change in the US are not harassed and repressed, and their activities criminalized?

[Macsenour]

I don't feel repressed in any way and I have the freedom of speech, by law, that repressed people do not. Comparing those two is an insult to those that lived in the Soviet era.

[Zigurd]

You are advocating for fundamental change in America? Or just some tax cuts?

Mostly, things are under control here: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/princeton-scholar-demise-of-...

[mseebach]

Did you seriously just link to an interview in very popular, US-hosted website with a US-based (presumably tenured) professor at one of the best universities in the world (did I mention US based?) in which he lays out in great detail his public academic research on how he considers the US an oligarchy -- as evidence of repression and harassment of those advocating for fundamental change?

Do you understand the words repression and harassment? Do you understand that if he had ventured into such research (much less published it, much much less been interviewed about it in a publication), he (and his wife) would at best have lost their jobs. Probably reassigned a new flat of the sort described in the article, in a remote area (docile academics often enjoyed access to privileged accommodation). Worst case, re-education in a Gulag.

The fact that the US isn't by a long shot perfect doesn't make it Soviet Russia.

[Zigurd]

> ...doesn't make it Soviet Russia.

High standards.

[mseebach]

Moving goalposts.