(February 6, 2016 at 2:30 am)God of Mr. Hanky Wrote:(February 5, 2016 at 9:30 pm)Aractus Wrote: Okay, so sometimes people comment that I'm "too anti-American". Well I have good reason. Some of the shit that they do has far-reaching consequences.
Feel free to add your own points.
- The USA starts wars. They're the most war-hungry nation on the planet.
- They are the worst first world country in their handling of income inequality.
- Companies based in the USA extort people. This includes so-called "copyright trolls" and other companies like PayPal that freeze accounts without warning and keep all of their client's money.
- Prostitution is still prosecuted, and pornographers have not been forced to provide a safe work-palace, despite the enactment of a new law in California.
- Minors can be tried as adults - something not done in any other first world country.
- Criminal prosecutions are excessive.
- They trigged the GFC because they allowed predatory behaviour in the corporate banking world.
- Because they have corporations that are based on distributing creative works, they fight to keep copyrights and patents at unreasonable lengths, in measures that only benefit publishers and not artists or researchers.
- They believe they can dictate to other sovereign States how they should behave, and what policies they should enforce.
What, do you mean we're almost as bad as the British Empire would have been if it had lasted through today, in a world where King George III wasn't an idiot?
EDIT: Oh, pleeeEEEEEZE!!! This shit comes from Australia, that penal colony of the British, which depends on the rest of the world to defend it from multiple hostile cultures which surround it, and was even worse in their regard to the dignity of native human life than the US was 150 years ago? I agree with Julian Assenge, but don't go pretending that you are naturally better people just because your country has never been in the position to become the monster which you despise. On this, Jared Diamond absolutely nailed it - it's geographic factors which make a culture what it is!
Just reading this thread for the first time, the British did send many convicts to Oz. this is true, but we sent far more to the US.
If we had a "penal colony," that title would be better served if given to the US.
Just saying.
You may refer to me as "Oh High One."
