If that's what you characterize the US government as, I can only imagine what you characterize some of the other governments around the world. Particularly, from the millions of us who migrated to the US legally and willfully and who are very VERY grateful to this country for providing the opportunities people like myself could only dream-of in our former countries.
As Stephen Miller loves to remind us, we had the first net emigration in decades this year. They're rounding up legal immigrants and putting them in concentration camps where they're dying because they're being denied medical care.
Many (most?) governments around the world strike no terror on other countries. They don’t go around invading other countries, nor sanctioning them on the basis of belief, nor using their soft/hard power to exert pressure at a global scale.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m grateful for many things the USA has done, and for the inventiveness and generosity of its people; but let’s not pretend like their government(s) have been the kindest or most terror-free in the past decades.
The USA can be both a good and bad thing. And terrorism, by definition, is a bit of what they do abroad.
A lot of that has to do with the fact that they simply do not need to. Many of these countries rely on allies such as the United States to maintain that aggressive posture for them and offer them the opportunity to remain militarily neutral.
How many of these millions only had to migrate to the US because the US destroyed their countries with war, economic sanctions, covert CIA operations, or other attacks?
I don’t know, how many? You are the one throwing blanket statements.
I’m from Latin America and it’s 100% the fault of some of our own corrupt governments and us people living in those places.
Emphasis on “some,” because countries like Chile, Costa Rica, Uruguay and lately Argentina and El Salvador are showing that less government intervention in economic matters and a zero-bullshit policy on crime is how you turn things around to something that reminisces a somewhat livable country.
It really is not the fault of the US that Mexico has drug gangs that kill people at random. It's not the fault that Pakistan and India are nearly at war forever. It's not the US fault that many countries support and require female genital mutilation. The US is not as evil as you think.
> It really is not the fault of the US that Mexico has drug gangs that kill people at random
This is a direct result of the "war on drugs" perpetrated by the US.
The other two are genuinely not the fault of the US, but bringing up two examples where the US wasn't the source of the problem doesn't exactly contradict the original claim.
The war on drugs definitely didn't cause the drug trade or the murders. If anything it's the fault of leftist US government stance on drugs that weaken border security and allow drugs to get in (and therefore fund more drugs to be produced). And besides all that, the drug trade has been going on for far longer than you know. And including the murders.
> Which is partly or mostly our fault.
It does contradict the original claim because it's 3 examples of things we didn't cause - and he said "mostly our fault". If it takes 3 seconds to think of things we didn't cause, then the world's craziness is not mostly the fault of America. Mostly the US has a hand in stopping communist governments where the citizens are kept as slaves.
> The war on drugs definitely didn't cause the drug trade or the murders.
Have to stop you right there. The “war on drugs” absolutely has created the conditions for the drug trade and the murders. If you criminalize a large part of the economy, then only criminals will profit from it. If we had sane drug policy, there would not be the profit that attracts these criminals. Additionally, the US intelligence services (and other nations) have a long documented role in cultivating the drug trade for diverse reasons: for profit and paying for operations, for control of regions, and to provide a reservoir of violence to disguise or facilitate their work.
The only way to stop it is to regulate it. We’re almost there. Read the history about the war on drugs. David Musto has a great book about it, The American Disease: Origins of Narcotic Control. It was never designed to stop it. Its goal from the beginning has been to criminalize “undesirables”
> The war on drugs definitely didn't cause the drug trade or the murders
You should be a lot less confident in your opinions. The war on drugs required violent interventions against drug production in Mexico, which directly created militarized, violent drug cartels.
Example: pressured by the US, Felipe Calderón launched Operation Michoacán in 2006 with U.S. backing and funding. He deployed tens of thousands of federal forces. Mexico has recorded more than 463,000 homicides since that declaration of war on the cartels, a huge increase.
Just look at the data.
> and he said "mostly our fault". If it takes 3 seconds to think of things we didn't cause
He said "mostly" because he knows there are counterexamples, so providing counterexamples doesn't contradict his point.
> Mostly the US has a hand in stopping communist governments where the citizens are kept as slaves.
This is such a genuinely undiscriminating statement that I can't help but categorize it as dumb. I don't usually say this, but you need to stop listening to propaganda and pick up a few actual history books. Until you do, any discussion is pointless, because you're so stuck in your ideology that facts can't penetrate the bubble.
That's really all I have for you. It's up to you to fix yourself.
Has it occurred to you that there are history books that both back what I am saying and what you're saying? Which ones are handed out in a leftist college?
If you don't see an issue with the White House constantly posting straight up Nazi memes then that's on you. There's also plenty immigrants in Europe who vote for fascists, so? Turns out you can't just leave your "former" country behind like an old coat, it's still your upbringing and horizon. You are grateful "to the country", but what does that mean while also shrugging off what the people in "the country" are saying? What is left of "the country"? A bunch of papers, rights and money, opportunities for you; let the goons roam and fill their warehouses, keep children, even infants in despicable conditions, because you (think you) have nothing to fear?
So you neither acknowledge nor disagree with any of that. As if it's nothing. I would if you don't care when it falls to fascism, it's not your home. You gave up your "former" country and you're not being a fellow country person in your new one, either, kinda like you don't really show up to this conversation, but worse. Since what you say has no substance it's as if you didn't say it in the first place. It just took up space and time, for nothing. Does that answer your question?
> whose centre is firmly to the right compared to the rest of the world.
Not really, no. Most of the world is under authoritarian regimes that would be seen as more right leaning. Most democracies are also right leaning. What characterizes the US is being extremely capitalistic and pro-corporations
I would agree that's true for Y Combinator, but my experience in the HN _community_ for almost a decade now has suggested that the heavy anti-American sentiment started right around the start of the current administration.
It's always a bit upsetting to me when people conflate criticism of aspects of a country (like its government) with being against that country. I would rather say that it shows that people are pro that country and want it to do better.
Fair enough. I do have a specific sentiment in mind, though, and it's not the constructive kind, which I very rarely see anymore. I would classify "anti-American sentiment" as sentiment which is against the Western culture that has predominated since the founding of the country.
But it's a slippery slope. If someone love America and wants a revolution to turn it into something historically unrecognizable, does that still make them pro-America? I would say no.
America has the most progressive tax system in the world. There is no other country where the ultra rich pay such percentage of the tax burden. Fuck off with this "Left in the US is center in Europe" bullshit. The EU wishes they were as left as us in a lot of areas.
edit: Because this is HN and a lot of you are learning this for the first time:
US: $60k salary leads to $50k take home pay, then a less than 10% sales tax
Denmark: $60k salary leads to $38k take home pay, then a 25% sales tax
All that money you're losing in Denmark is paying for you shittier healthcare.
Welcome to a small taste of being outside your echo chamber.
