Being manipulated into wars for profit is a functioning democracy for you? Guess what, democracy doesn't just mean "citizens making decisions, period", it means "citizens making informed decisions" at the very least. I wonder if any country in the whole world is a "real" democracy in that sense, but the US sure as fuck isn't. It's not even running.
> It's not really a compelling argument to point to a random list of bad things about America then say "it's just like Stalinist Russia."
Then point to where someone said that? Let me quote it:
The kicker is a comment that juxtaposes the logo with a warning illustration saying "Know your communist enemy" with a nearly-identical logo, presumably implying an evil enemy from the Cold War, which we have become.
An enemy. Not "just like Stalinist Russia". Nobody was even talking of Stalin... Yes, the Soviets were also an enemy to their own people, but I read the above as the US slowly but surely becoming an evil enemy to others. That your population even is for letting people rot in Gitmo (not because there is even a shred of evidence against them, but because they might "turn terrorist"), or don't terribly mind extrajudicial killings, by drone or otherwise, or aggressive wars doesn't even matter. That it's (in your eyes) a functioning democracy isn't relevant either: it's like the Nazis aren't excused by everybody voting for Hitler or screaming for total war. If murder of foreigners is somehow less wrong to some, then that doesn't make it less of murder, it makes it worse in my books. And while you could quibble about scale, I would respond that if a friend of yours killed 1 person, you would probably not want to be their friend anymore, at all - instead of saying "at least it wasn't 10, 100 or 1000". Also, the US is not stingy when it comes to scale or brutality, either.
> It's not really a compelling argument to point to a random list of bad things about America then say "it's just like Stalinist Russia."
Then point to where someone said that? Let me quote it:
The kicker is a comment that juxtaposes the logo with a warning illustration saying "Know your communist enemy" with a nearly-identical logo, presumably implying an evil enemy from the Cold War, which we have become.
An enemy. Not "just like Stalinist Russia". Nobody was even talking of Stalin... Yes, the Soviets were also an enemy to their own people, but I read the above as the US slowly but surely becoming an evil enemy to others. That your population even is for letting people rot in Gitmo (not because there is even a shred of evidence against them, but because they might "turn terrorist"), or don't terribly mind extrajudicial killings, by drone or otherwise, or aggressive wars doesn't even matter. That it's (in your eyes) a functioning democracy isn't relevant either: it's like the Nazis aren't excused by everybody voting for Hitler or screaming for total war. If murder of foreigners is somehow less wrong to some, then that doesn't make it less of murder, it makes it worse in my books. And while you could quibble about scale, I would respond that if a friend of yours killed 1 person, you would probably not want to be their friend anymore, at all - instead of saying "at least it wasn't 10, 100 or 1000". Also, the US is not stingy when it comes to scale or brutality, either.