The US is the only country with codified freedoms from the government. Every other country has rights given by the government to their citizens. The US may suck every now and then, but the US constitution is one of the best things in human history. It protects us from governments like the UK that don't think they have any limits to control their citizens.
The US Constitution also guarantees birthright citizenship, but that doesn't mean the government will actually respect that right. The US Constitution only holds as long as people are willing to defend it.
U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts
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Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts
#722Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts
#723Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes but no, post WW2 the UK was one of the most liberal places in the world. Somehow things took a turn in the past two decades or so. And then around the 2020s the decline started to rapidly accelerate. The stories that have come out lately are really insane.
Economic decline fuels resentment towards immigrants and minority communities. Government becomes increasingly repressive to keep tensions from boiling over into riots and perhaps worse. This is why countries are obsessed with growth - many things can be papered over with sufficient growth.
Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts
#724Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes but no, post WW2 the UK was one of the most liberal places in the world. Somehow things took a turn in the past two decades or so. And then around the 2020s the decline started to rapidly accelerate. The stories that have come out lately are really insane.
the UK has been ahead of the US on anti-liberal policies for the past decade or more. bexit came before the trump election
Also, to be clear, are you using anti-liberal in the American political sense of the world liberal (i.e. progressive), or in on the classical liberal sense (which has some overlap with small-l libertarianism within US political circles)?
Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts
#725Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts
#726Earlier quoted context omitted.
I dont think that is actually true in those cases. Relations with China were pretty cosy till they did a 180 around the second Bush administration and started all that Wolf Warrior diplomacy, 9 dotted line stuff, Hongkong crackdowns....... Regarding Russia, nobody really cared at all till it was absolutely impossible to ignore. Putin seems to think that he needs the west as an enemy to bolster his standing and power.…
> Relations with China were pretty cosy till they did a 180 around the second Bush administration and started all that Wolf Warrior diplomacy, 9 dotted line stuff, Hongkong crackdowns....... No, relations with China were warm right up through the end of the Obama administration and into Trump's first term. That's why the first approach China took to the Biden administration was to hope for straightforward normalizati…
Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts
#727Earlier quoted context omitted.
Australia does a great job of enacting wacky authoritarian policies in the last 5 years; It would make sense to use them as a staging ground. Does any specific legislation come to mind?
Social media ban for under 16s is the latest half witted idea enacted by the government here.
Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts
#728Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The US is the only country with codified freedoms from the government. This is not true, both because it’s not the only one[1], and because the constitution hasn’t prevented state censorship in the US[2-4]. > It protects us from governments like the UK that don't think they have any limits to control their citizens. How would it do that? The US constitution has no power over the UK. [1]: https://worldpopulationrevi…
> and because the constitution hasn’t prevented state censorship in the US[2-4] That the constitution hasn't been upheld to a perfect standard all the time doesn't mean it doesn't codify freedoms. Also, precisely what the standard is isn't universally agreed upon and changes over time.
Freedom being “codified” doesn’t mean much when it’s trivial to violate it both directly and indirectly.
> What the standard is isn’t universally agreed upon.
The First Amendment is very explicit about what the standard is: “[…] or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
The government has many tools to violate precisely those rights, and both sides of the political spectrum have exercised them.
The society and political environment that created the Constitution are far in the past, and we should stop pretending that modern US shares its spirit. Instead, we should look around to learn from the success of other countries.
Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts
#729I felt an obligation to excessively site stuff here, because I find it bemusing anybody in tech can take such articles or topics at face value.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes
[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction#By_the_U...
Re: U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts
#730Earlier quoted context omitted.
Economic decline fuels resentment towards immigrants and minority communities. Government becomes increasingly repressive to keep tensions from boiling over into riots and perhaps worse. This is why countries are obsessed with growth - many things can be papered over with sufficient growth.
Call me crazy, but it seems probably unwise for any nation to be perpetually operating under "we're a bad recession away from ethno-nationalists starting a race war" as a default state of affairs.