I heavily dislike comments that try to insinuate that China, the one party state, the state where those who speak out against their government are often disappeared or 'change their mind' soon after (Alibaba CEO being a good example), and honestly could go on and on here, is the same 'evil' as the U.S.
I see that the parent was flagged and removed and that's fine, when I posted this the comment was still fresh. But I do feel that with how often this nonsense gets posted here, one should be allowed to refute it. I'm sorry if you saw this as 'feeding a troll' but I truly do see comments like those of OP on this site often, and it should be okay to refute them, less people start to believe its true simply because they see it on a daily basis.
Comments like your GP comment don't refute anything—they only feed more of the same generic, endlessly repetitive dispute. Angry platitudes directed at each other by opposing sides are not interesting. In such situations, especially when it's a classic flamewar topic, the only thing it makes sense for HN users to do is walk away. Chalk it up to people being wrong on the internet and let it go. The internet is wrong about everything anyway, and neither you nor I nor anyone else can fix that.
Of course that's not easy, but we all need to work on learning the skill.
the problem is that the US is not just "not perfect" the US is a weird twist between a "first world"(1) state and a failing state. Between being a bacon of democracy, and a country you can't rely call full democratic anymore.
(1) I don't like the terminology but it convais the point.
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To elaborate:
For something between 15% and 50% of the population the US is a failing state, failing in healthcare, economics/job availability, safety, chances to get the right you have by law, political representation, protection for governmental/police overreach, projection from company overreach, ..
Also a political system which in practice only allow a two parties is fundamentally non-democratic (more like oligarchy).
To name some points. (There are more).
Sure, China is way worse wrt. many of the points mentioned above.
Which puts the EU in quite a bit of trouble it's in different ways dependent on both the US and China, but at the same time many of it's values do not sign with either of them and both try (in different ways) to force some of their views on the EU.
