Sure, but those are "refugees/dissidents", of course they would think that. It's not like the great Iranian masses are held there by force or hate their culture.

In general, dissidents are also overplayed for political gain by other countries. I mean, even the USSR played upon US political dissidents, the McCarthy era etc. If you are going to judge a whole country better ask the locals, not the dissidents.

You are arguing a very weak position.

Now, put this to perspective. The Kent students were shot doing a mostly harmless protesting, in a country that had sent troops to a third country (Cambodia), and that was in no danger itself. The tension in Iran, on the other hand, is in a country that feels threatened by the US, that has seen 2 other countries invaded in the region, and that foreign powers are known to support vocal dissidents and minorities against the state. In the name of "democracy" of course, and not crude oil. Same foreign powers do nothing for countries having even more extreme muslims, and far less democracy, like, say, Saudi Arabia.

What would the US police do if the US was feeling directly threatened, say like in the WWII? Well, we know what they did at the time: concentration camps for Japanese, for example.

Ok, look man, I'm down with anyone who wants to say the US could do better. I could do better. You could do better. But a fact, always beats a strawman, which is what you presented previously. Because the reality is that the Iranian government killed a bunch of its own people and did their level best to suppress that information. Now you've switched from defending Iran to reaching back a generation to find something you can cite to prosecute the United States.

Just to add another fact, Here's a more comprehensive discussion of casualties in the protests where that Iranian lady died

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Iranian_election_protests#...

My point stands: you are arguing from a very weak position. Further weakened by the fact that your thesis keeps moving around. If you're going take on the martyr's quest of defending an outrageous position, you can expect you're going to be expected to present an outragously good argument: all your shit in one bag, sewn up tight. If you're frustrated that people can come along and shoot holes in your argument with a sentence or two, maybe you could consider that as evidence that your argument may not ever hold water.

There's a great passage, I think it's TH White's Once and Future King, where Lancelot has a dream where he sees two armies of knights, white and black fighting. The white side is loosing, so he takes their side. And gets slaughtered. On waking, he is told: know what you're fighting for. Don't fight for the losing side just because they're losing.

Western media just overplays dissidents and people that talk to our "sentiments". Insignificant opposition parties and small protests are elevated to the level of mass popular protest.

If the situation was reversed, imagine what other countries would say of the 2000 US Bush-Gore elections, what with the electoral fraud et al, or things like the Vietnam protests, etc.

And it amuses me, because, you have an example right in your backyard: the "middle america" has tens of millions of people that want to live in a Christian state, with no evolution teaching in schools, no abortions, no gay marriages, the death penalty, Bible, etc. Those people are not "forced by the state" to want to live like so. If anything, they think the state FAILS them by not being more christian.

If you consider this --that even within the US there are people who want those kinds of things--, you might understand why your San Franciscan or whatever ideas are not directly applicable to muslim countries, with a much different history and culture than what the US has.

Just saying.

No, because of polluting what is generally a rational place of discussion with ludicrous extremist propaganda and general idiocy.