> you can’t be serious about this.
Of course I am. It's fundamental.
> when has the truth mattered in the u.s. in recent times?
To whom?
You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. In the West you can drink as much as you want freely, under the CCP even attempting to drink the wrong water will get you locked up or worse.
That's a huge difference. It's a matter of fundamental values, and beliefs about the very nature of what it is to be human, and how to live our lives together in stability and happiness.
> in the u.s., companies control the government and people.
The rich write the laws in the U.S.A., this is evident if you study the behavior and history of Congress. From the POV of realpolitik the essential control feature differentiating the Old Totalist from the Modern Western regimes is the axis of denial and permission. In the old imperial system you did what you were supposed to and didn't do anything else, everything was restricted and you needed the Emperor's permission wipe your nose. In the New World you can do whatever the hell you want but if you go off the rails you get jerked back.
The Western system allows for faster evolution. Time will tell whether that leads to thousands of years of stability. We know that the Totalist system always collapses and then has to be rebuilt after a period of chaos and anarchy. Literally dozens of kingdoms and empires have arisen and then fallen across the whole of Asia for thousands of years.
The Western permissive system is a new thing under the Sun.