"facts" with zero sources and an argument which could easily be dismissed/interpreted as stereotypical US centric argument.

You can simply use Google and check the facts out for yourself, it's common knowledge (children even learn this data in school in the EU). There were no sources in the comment I replied to either. Someone also replied with one of these sources. How can my argument be US centric when I'm European and have never even visited the US?

I was explaining why your comment was likely downvoted, it's clearly not common knowledge (hence the downvotes) and the fact someone else provided sources for you doen't absolve your comment from lacking them.

> How can my argument be US centric when I'm European and have never even visited the US?

You don't have to be from the US for your post to sound US centric. It sounds exactly like every other "USA is da best! The east is inferior in every way. We have zero problems." argument which is found everywhere online, especially on sites with a large proportion of US users (like HN).

> the fact someone else provided sources for you doen't absolve your comment from lacking them

The comment I replied to had no sources as well and yet it isn't downvoted.

> It sounds exactly like every other "USA is da best! The east is inferior in every way. We have zero problems."

Actually my comment says the exact opposite, it says that at least the western part of the EU is less corrupt than the US. Do you realize that I said the west [of EU], not the west as in the US? You're the one who is thinking US-centric after all, thinking that when someone says "the west" they mean the US even though it's in a sentence that talks about parts of EU, this possibility didn't even occur to me - that's how foreign it is to me.

> The comment I replied to had no sources as well and yet it isn't downvoted.

Read it again. It stated much less confidence in those baseless claims, inviting sourced rebuttal. You claimed to be "obviously" right without any sources, and apparently you were not.

Edit: also, complaining about downvotes, especially without even trying to admit mistake is considered as a bad behavior here.

"You can simply use Google"

That kind of hand-wavy stuff doesn't fly here. If you're going to make a claim like "EU Countries are more corrupt than the US", YOU have to provide a credible source for that claim.

If you make a claim, you provide source to back it up.

Telling people to go and verify for themselves a claim that you made is just lazy and disingenuous.

I replied with common knowledge to a comment that had no sources as well. Why the comment I replied to is not being downvoted?

Your comment has been flagged by American political correctness.

Correct. On average, EU and US have about the same corruption, at least according to the Corruption Index 2017 [0]

[0] https://www.transparency.org/news/feature/corruption_percept...

I wonder if the index treats lobbying and donation millions to support elections as corruption.

Such activities are illegal and considered corruption in most countries.

From their technical methodology note[1], they require their data sources to account for "state capture" and the usage of "public office for private gain". Take that as you wish, and feel free to look further at their sources[2]; however, I'd assume from that statement that they do account for lobbying and donations.

The US is not unique. If you see something happening here, it is almost always happening in other western countries, and acting like we are the only to have a problem does a disservice to worldwide development.

[1] http://files.transparency.org/content/download/2183/13748/fi...

[2] http://files.transparency.org/content/download/2183/13748/fi...

> I wonder if the index treats lobbying and donation millions to support elections as corruption. Such activities are illegal and considered corruption in most countries.

Lobbying has nothing to do with donating money, and lobbying elected representatives is definitely not illegal in most democracies.

I explicitly wrote "lobbying AND donation".

Please don't twist conversation into debates about semantics: it's not helpful.

> I explicitly wrote "lobbying AND donation". Please don't twist conversation into debates about semantics: it's not helpful.

Yes, and you said that both are illegal in most "other" counties. Except lobbying isn't illegal in any healthy democracy, including in Europe. Donating "millions of dollars" isn't really legal in the US either.

Lobbying as a term in the US is pretty synonymous with donating money. If there was a lobbying group that did not donate money you would have to specify that in conversation

> Lobbying as a term in the US is pretty synonymous with donating money.

This is flat-out untrue, and repeating this incorrect meme ad nauseum simply makes it harder to address actual problems when they arise. Lobbying is simply the process of petitioning elected officials. It's a necessary part of any functioning democracy, or else there's no fundamental feedback loop connecting elected officials to their constituents in between elections.

> If there was a lobbying group that did not donate money you would have to specify that in conversation

Corporate entities are prohibited from donating money to campaigns, whether or not a quid pro quo is implied.

What you've stated is true by the technical definition of the term, but lobbying in the _common vernacular_ of the United States is synonymous with paying money. You can throw dictionary definitions around all you want but it doesn't change how it's commonly used.

The same issue comes up with the word theory to scientists vs it's meaning in the common vernacular.

As to your second part about corporate entities being prohibited from donating money to campaigns, excuse me while I set up a PAC to donate funds to a senator who is aware that I donate to the PAC and that I would really appreciate it if I got a tax break.

What the law intends != what is actually happening

> The same issue comes up with the word theory to scientists vs it's meaning in the common vernacular.

Yes, and just as we ignore people who dismiss evolution because "it's just a theory", we should take the same attitude towards people who conflate lobbbying and campaign contributions, because they clearly don't understand how the democratic process works, and acting on their demands is actively harmful.

> What you've stated is true by the technical definition of the term, but lobbying in the _common vernacular_ of the United States is synonymous with paying money.

Yes, and the "common vernacular" is wrong and actively harmful. The two things are completely unrelated, and perpetuating the conflation makes it harder to understand what's actually going on.

If you think something is broken, you actually have to understand how it's broken in order to fix it. There's no virtue in going out of your way to make it more difficult for people to understand how things work. That's how you end up with people wasting time advocating "reforms" that span the range from "well-intentioned but redundant and/or ineffective" to "completely self-contradictory and nonsensical".

Lobbying in the US is just legalised bribery.

Good question. I have to admit that I haven't read their methodology yet.

My guess is that you've been downvoted, because you've claimed that you don't know what the original poster meant by "EU".

In US corruption is partially legalized as lobby.

EU stands for European Union.

Yeah, but in context, is the claim of being less corrupt being made about pan-EU institutions, or does it extend to the countries making up the union? The relevancy of individual country statistic depends of that distinction.

Yeah but the great-GP's statement is incorrect if he means the European Union as it is now, so he logically must mean something else, e.g. EU before the 2004/2007 enlargement (he might not know that it happened, the most corrupt countries joined during those and thus moved the average) etc. He also might've meant the EU as in the organization itself which is a completely different meaning with completely different results.

> the great-GP's statement is incorrect if he means the European Union as it is now, so he logically must mean something else

E.g. your assumptions being incorrect. You could have avoided a lot of downvotes with showing some humility. Assuming someone does not know about large shifts in EU membership seems like argument in bad faith.