741–750 of 891 posts
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Well, this gives me license to be angry at all US voters then.
Not just voters. You don't need to have voted to be doing something about what's happening in your country. You should blame Americans - all Americans - for what is happening over there.
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Totally agree. But tbf you look at modern media and these things are still perpetuated. Just look at violence done on camera and off camera in TV shows and to whom. Which jokes are made and about whom - many don't even notice because it's so acceptable to treat a class, gender, etc a certain way that it doesn't even cross anybody's mind.
To be actually fair, the notion that OP's comment was referring to only men is entirely left to the reader to decide. Women can be SA'd in prison by other prisoners, and additionally have to contend with the petty humiliations from guards taking unnecessary sexual turns that they wouldn't with men.
Nor should a description of prison SA be considered an endorsement.
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The common people are responsible for the actions of their government in a democracy, are they not? The issue is that Iran isn't a democracy, it's a theocratic dictatorship — the people are explicitly not able to be responsible for the actions of their government.
The US is a democracy. The common people are responsible for the actions of their government in a democracy. The US killed 400+ Million people in the past two centuries. Therefore I hate all Americans.
I have trouble believing this is true by any definition that leaves any large group of people unhated.
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This is the exact same argument Bin Laden used for 9/11; that the US civilians were culpable due to their votes and taxes supporting what the US government was doing.
Correct! And he hit a nerve laying this logic bare, which is exactly why The Guardian took the unprecedented and absurd measure of removing his manifesto from a decades-old article when it went viral a year or 2 ago. Lest the populace get to see things for what they are. At the same time unmasking their veil that despite their pretenses, they're just as much of a capital interests-captured rag as their "competitors".
I'm not the "both sides are the same" kinda guy, but we realistically only have choices between Democrats and Republicans here, and I'm not convinced things would be meaningfully different in the ME if some US elections over the past 50+ years had gone the other way.
As a personal example: I was eligible to vote in my first US presidential election at age 19, in 2000. I did not vote for Bush. He still won, and still started a war with Iraq under false pretenses. I was utterly powerless to change those events.
So I'm not sure what nerve was hit here, because, "I'm going to attack regular folks in another country because I don't like what their government is doing" is still just as cruel, cold, and ineffective, regardless of the targeted country. Ultimately bin Laden failed: US foreign policy in the Middle East has not changed in ways that I expect he'd be happy with. Perhaps his consolation prize is that, due to the reaction to his attacks, the US is a lot less freer than it was before; not only did the government use it as an excuse to curtail freedoms, but the actual citizenry started prioritizing some higher measure of safety and security over freedom. But I don't think that makes the world a better place, even if bin Laden might have considered that particular aspect of things a success.
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So you vote AGAINST the guy at power, and you're responsible? Broken logic.
how did their feet vote? The last time (and current time) a president was in power that I didn't agree with (and didn't vote for), I left. As a citizen, I can't fully escape taxes, but I will be my darnedest to reduce my taxable burden when I don't approve of the government.
And even for people with the means to do so, I personally think that's too much to ask.
>Iranian IPs are blocked here, due to your decision to arm Russia with drones so that they can indiscriminately massacre civilians. The "your decision" in that response is really off-putting. I know the law is what it is with sanctions like this. However, it is a failing of basic human empathy to blame other common citizens of a country for the actions of their government while we almost certainly do not endorse all…
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If your government started doing something you don't agree with, would you renounce your citizenship and move to another country? What would be the threshold of bad things that would be required for you to do that? I think I do have such a threshold, but even as bad as things are in the US right now, I'm still here. Maybe that makes me a bad person. Maybe not; I'd like to think not.
Also just consider that we can't all be responsible for everyone else in the whole world. That's just not possible, and not reasonable to ask of anybody. Someone living paycheck-to-paycheck, in a tiny apartment, trying to feed their kids, afraid of getting evicted or being unable to put food on the table... that person does not have the mental or emotional bandwidth to be concerned about people in Iran suffering under US sanctions.
Even someone of higher financial means... what should they care about? Should they care about Iran? Ukraine? Palestine? Those are the ones in the news right now at least. But dig a bit deeper and you'll find a bunch of other places where their government meddles in politics and war. Do we need to care deeply about those, too?
Human psychology is not built for global scale. Honestly, if we could get all humans to care deeply about their local and regional communities, I would think that would be a huge win. Getting everyone to care deeply about people halfway across the world, and constantly consider them in their life decisions? That's a pipe dream.
> In countries where people didn't vote, you can always go back in history to find a moment where people either did agree to let a certain faction run their country (religious revolution), or allowed an authoritarian regime to take all power slowly by neglect and doing nothing.
I think at this point you've really jumped the shark. Using Iran as the salient example here, do you truly believe that some 30 year old living in Iran is responsible for a regime that was installed before they were born?
When you grant access/resources to expats of a hostile country, you have to limit them as if they were agents of the foreign country. Even if they like your country, you make them vulnerable to threats of torture/imprisonment of their loved ones back home.
Most educated Iranians hate their government. The problem is that a revolution isn't easy when the government has all the guns, and the military & revolutionary guard remain loyal, and have no problem with shooting masses of innocent civilians to retain their power. Sanctions that worsen things for ordinary people really isn't going to change much in countries like this. It would be much more productive to try turn t…
People always say stuff like this, but from my pov it doesn't matter what the populace thinks. They are directly supporting their government with everything they do. They are producing goods and services, they are the army, they are the government, the people are the country. They have the power to choose who rules them if they want to. Nobody else does. Iranians are responsible for Iran's actions just like Russians…
Iran had a democratic government. That democratic government voted to do something against Britian's economic interests. In response America dissolved it's government.
If I lived in a nation where any government instability would be used by wealth foreign powers who didn't care if I lived or died, I would also be hesitant in brewing any anti-government fervor.
You can't hold them wholly responsible when they don't even have the power of true self determination.
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Does that affect the reasoning? Even though I think it is profoundly wrong, I am not going to risk 20 years in prison for something realistically nobody is going to care about.
First they came for the Communists, [..] https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin-nie...
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Does that affect the reasoning? Even though I think it is profoundly wrong, I am not going to risk 20 years in prison for something realistically nobody is going to care about.
> nobody is going to care about Obviously untrue. Iran has 90 million citizens, and multitudes of that number do care out of principle. I am not trying to change your mind, but hope you would be more precise in your language next time to describe why you don’t care.
Petition for change, sure. Complain in public. Protest. But don't martyr yourself for nothing.