The US breaks their own laws and international laws when going after individuals who embarrasses the US government, including deploying the military if it suits them.
It is a bit like when telecom companies sent bribes to terrorists in order to gain telecom contracts. It not that they intend to do bad things, but occasionally they have to break the law when law stands in the way.
You believe the usa is a democracy? Despite high barriers to voting and the fact that in three federal executive elections in recent history the State gave power to the candidate that lost the popular vote?
Despite the fact that the State allows for bans on women's healthcare despite the majority of population supporting guaranteed access to women's healthcare?
Despite the fact that the State has criminalized marijuana despite the fact that the majority of the population wants it decriminalized?
The USA is not as authoritarian as some places. Obviously that is true. It's a pretty good place to live, comparatively. But don't aid the State in grasping more power. What a terrible end to the American experiment, I predict: PATRIOT act type laws passing again and again while the people allow themselves to be distracted by culture war. History repeats itself except this time the intelligentsia aren't participating voluntarily for self gain, it seems many of them (here) are letting fascism just get away with it because, I dunno, maybe they see themselves on the side of the arbitrarily decided "big tech" actor in the culture war?
Who knows. To me it just seems a repeated pattern of fascist-tilted ideologies coopting contradictory pro worker and nationalist rhetoric and responding to all criticism by retorting that there's no alternatives but ${somePlaceNobodyWantsToLive} so we better just accept things as they are.
Are they though? Bernie Sanders wasn't even allowed to debate as a popular presidential candidate because he didn't have a corporate sponsor or Super PAC funding.
If voters are only choosing amongst candidates put forth by the establishment, and the establishment relies on funding and support from special interests, then democratically elected is somewhat different than democratically selected, isn't it?
I wasn't referring to the executive branch of the US government, in fact that branch has been chosen by state appointed electors and not individual citizens since its beginning.
First, I only wrote "if you think...", so I did not attribute any opinion onto the OP.
Second, however, there is good reason to believe that OP might hold that opinion, since OP wrote about how the purpose of some actions of the American state, via the American Justice Department, were to "enforce rigid authoritarianism". Whose rigid authoritarianism could that refer to in this context, other than an alleged US-American one?
You are correct that I think the USA government is an authoritarian one, insomuch as it is very reactionary or at least conservative, and engages in incredible acts of authoritarianism and imperialism.
I don't think it's anything like authoritarian regimes, wherein a single individual (DPRK) or party (PRC) maintains absolute power. However, it is authoritarian in its representation of its single interest: billionaires and corporations (which famously have personhood in the usa and are explicitly granted political power via legislation).
I wish you wouldn't take a bad faith interpretation of my position by strawmanning me as if I'm claiming the usa is like the DPRK. I'm not alone in my viewpoints, and considering the rise of leftism in the usa, at the very least you would be well served to pay attention to what we're saying if nothing else so you aren't blindsided by a sudden wave of anti-establishment blowback. Read Cory Doctorow's "Radicalized" for some fun fiction on the dangers of laughing away criticism of the problems in the usa as just silly disaffected leftists who aren't "realistic."
In any case I doubt what I'm claiming, if you take it in good faith, is really all that controversial.
Do you want to live in a country where you could be churned through viciously unfair court systems for potential years because you used JavaScript to access APIs that you didn't know were intended to be accessed only by humans through web browsers? Because that's happened to people in the usa.
Do you want to live in a country where you could go to jail for fixing your own tractor, or iphone? That's what the American government is leaning towards.
Do you want to live in a country where human rights aren't guaranteed if the State can pick a demographic trait about you that renders you inhuman in certain situations? The USA is doing that right now to women and their bodily autonomy, and transgender people for same.
Do you want to be a target when you travel because your government armed revolutionaries and then radicalized them against The West by pillaging their country for natural resources? This America has done uncountable times.
So why deny reality? Don't you want the usa to be a better place? You don't have to be a communist to think so. You can simply want the things I mentioned to go away. There's no reason America can't just be a milquetoast capitalist state with whisps of socialism in their healthcare and transportation industry like plenty of nations across the world. Why assume that's a slippery slope to whatever scary thing you think I believe?
