It's especially objectionable and condescending since the author of the blog comes from a democratic country selling weapons to a genocidal state, as are most of us here.

I used to dismiss all the arguments from Russians "but Americans do the same thing" but the more I learn about how the US works, the more I realize they have a point.

The point is that it is not YOU who is doing it. It’s about separating people from the actions of whoever is in power in their place.

The problem is that as West we (collectively) have double morality standards.

We call foreign governments regimes and their leaders brutal dictators (they might as well be, that's another discussion). But then we are also eager to extract punishment (like the OP describes) from the individuals who live under the regime/dictator, and often have very limited options to act.

Then we call ourselves democracies, shining example to all the world. But we fail to recognize our personal responsibility for the actions of our governments. Because when a warmonger, thug, wannabe dictator or international bully-extraordinaire comes into power in a democracy, we probably could have personally done a lot more to prevent it, with little fear of repercussions, and we didn't.

Democratic values should cut both ways.

> Then we call ourselves democracies, shining example to all the world. But we fail to recognize our personal responsibility for the actions of our governments. Because when a warmonger, thug, wannabe dictator or international bully-extraordinaire comes into power in a democracy, we probably could have personally done a lot more to prevent it, with little fear of repercussions, and we didn't.

Really? Tell me how Americans could have voted that would have not lead to giving billions in weapons to Israel to flatten Palestine.

I'm pretty sure there are, and were, candidades for Congress that would vote against that, at least in some congressional districts. It just wasn't high enough on the voter agenda. Also Kamala Harris would be at least a bit less friendly towards Israel. Possibly much less friendly.

Iran is much less democratic than the US and the rest of the Western world. 158th from 179 entries here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-Dem_Democracy_Indices

Yes, that's the point they're making. Arguably US citizens are more complicit in the crimes of Israel than Iranians are in the crimes of Russia since Americans have more capacity to choice their leadership.

I understood that, only posted what I did because let's just not say "Iran is a democratic country, like the US". It is not.

Iran has a longer history, obviously, but it’s worth mentioning the US is no longer a democratic country. The congress has effectively delegated its powers to the president. You can’t really come back from that any time soon.

You (or rather the US) can come back from that in the next elections, let's hope it works.

Good, looking at data.

Now search what happened to the Iran's democracy in the 70s and why their redemocratization stopped in the 90s.

Why stop there, let us go another millenium or two into the complete offtopic territory.

if you are OK with what your government is doing, you are part of the problem. it is really that simple.

Well, this gives me license to be angry at all US voters then.

Not just voters. You don't need to have voted to be doing something about what's happening in your country. You should blame Americans - all Americans - for what is happening over there.

That's a pretty naive take that ignores the reality of... well, everything about life.

And why do you feel capable to judge if somebody is OK with what their government is doing or not? It’s really that simple: you cannot, unless they explicitly state it.

i think it is very safe to say, if your government is still in power, you as a colective are fine with whatever they are doing, or at best you don't give a f while it doesnt affect you personally. hence the point of sanctions and geoblocks. rest of the world don't want to do anything with genocide enablers.

so save some tears how hard it is when rest of the civilised world don't want to do anything with you, maybe do some self reflection why it is that way and what can you do about it.

This is a 14 years old take on geopolitics, I refuse to believe any other explanations

How do you know what that person is doing or not doing to try and get rid of those in power, and for their survival? In fact, your government is still in power, so according to your line of argument I can hold you personally responsible for any of their action and inaction and direct and indirect support of genocide. I am not going to, since I don’t share that perspective.

A theory of culpability for government actions that is broad enough to apply to North Korean citizens who will be summarily executed for even suggesting regime change (or shot in the back while trying to escape) is useless. At that point it’s basically geopolitical predestination.

How did that Arab Spring work out for Syrians? Right, they were barrel bombed by the regime, then slaughtered by ISIS, then just generally killed in random crossfire. 14 million of them were driven from their homes, either to other places in Syria or outside the country to live in overcrowded refugee camps. Now the terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham rules over the ashes, since all the original people fighting for change are long dead. Why can't everyone just do this?!??! Stop being lazy people, rise up.

What do you mean by "you as a collective"? Did you just shift the goalpost? Do you think people are part of a hivemind? I thought we were talking about individuals, now you want to talk about "a collective"? You clearly aren't thinking about this rationally. A bit of thinking things through logically would really help here. I suggest spending a few hours whiteboarding your argument, because as it stands 0% of people are going to agree with you.

> if your government is still in power, you as a colective are fine with whatever they are doing

"You as a collective" is not a thing, though. We are not Borg; we are individuals. I live in the US, and I am absolutely not fine with what Trump and the GOP are doing, but... well, they are still in power. And I do have some (albeit fairly minimal) ability to affect the actions of my government through voting.

Someone who lives under a dictatorship like Iran has zero say in what their government does, and zero say in what government is in power. The only way for someone like that to change their government is to engage in armed rebellion, but asking someone to put their life on the line like that is way more than I would presume to ask of anyone.

This is the exact same argument Bin Laden used for 9/11; that the US civilians were culpable due to their votes and taxes supporting what the US government was doing.

Correct! And he hit a nerve laying this logic bare, which is exactly why The Guardian took the unprecedented and absurd measure of removing his manifesto from a decades-old article when it went viral a year or 2 ago. Lest the populace get to see things for what they are. At the same time unmasking their veil that despite their pretenses, they're just as much of a capital interests-captured rag as their "competitors".

It is absolutely possible, reasonable, and normal to be unhappy with US foreign policy in the Middle East dating from before I was born, but also believe I have no power to change course there.

I'm not the "both sides are the same" kinda guy, but we realistically only have choices between Democrats and Republicans here, and I'm not convinced things would be meaningfully different in the ME if some US elections over the past 50+ years had gone the other way.

As a personal example: I was eligible to vote in my first US presidential election at age 19, in 2000. I did not vote for Bush. He still won, and still started a war with Iraq under false pretenses. I was utterly powerless to change those events.

So I'm not sure what nerve was hit here, because, "I'm going to attack regular folks in another country because I don't like what their government is doing" is still just as cruel, cold, and ineffective, regardless of the targeted country. Ultimately bin Laden failed: US foreign policy in the Middle East has not changed in ways that I expect he'd be happy with. Perhaps his consolation prize is that, due to the reaction to his attacks, the US is a lot less freer than it was before; not only did the government use it as an excuse to curtail freedoms, but the actual citizenry started prioritizing some higher measure of safety and security over freedom. But I don't think that makes the world a better place, even if bin Laden might have considered that particular aspect of things a success.

> I think there is a fundamental misconception that people think because "Islamic Republic" has the word "Republic" in it, it must be a government of people in charge. That's not the case. I have yet to see anyone who actually supports Russian aggression in my real life in Iran.

> it is really that simple

That simple? How would you know who's "OK" with what judging only by their IP address? What do you read from a US IP?

Why are you assuming that any particular person is ok with what their government is doing? Feeling powerless to change what their government is doing is not the same is endorsement.

I'm a Russian citizen. I'm not okay with what my government is going. What do you suggest I do about it?

As it is, I can't even get rid of my Russian citizenship. The only option to renounce it requires doing so in person, and it can't be in a consulate - I'd have to travel to Russia for that to submit the request in person. But I doubt I'd get a chance to do so if I ever set foot there again - they arrested Ksenia Karelina in the airport and imprisoned her for 12 years for the crime of giving $50 to some generic Ukrainian charity; I give hundreds of dollars every month specifically to crowdfund drones and thermals for Ukrainian units.

In Iran's case the amount of government actions a citizen should endorse is zero.

Governments get their power from the citizens and if they enable their actions, they won't stop.

I think the government in Iran gets their power as other antidemocratic authoritarian regimes do— by using a small number of violent people to intimidate other normal citizens and punishing them severely for protesting or campaigning for change. Americans seem likely to experience something similar fairly soon, which might perhaps increase the general level of empathy for Iranian citizens in threads like this.

Proudly written from a western country with a functional democracy. If it was that easy, there wouldn't be shitty countries everywhere.

I live in a western democracy and still endorse very little my government does.

You probably endorse the vast majority of what it does, weighted by dollars spent. Old age security, healthcare, infrastructure, policing and defense are good things. The fraction of the federal budget actually spent on things you probably don’t like is quite small.

At least in a democracy, you can rest assured that your government is supported by big part of the population, should sanctions hit them too hard they will vote the other way and get out of sanctions quickly. But in dictatorship you are just stuck with whatever the supreme leader and their cronies think is a good idea

Neither do I, but I know that in a few more years we have an open and free and trustworthy election where we can (and looking at the polls most likely WILL) throw these current idiots out and get a brand new group to ruin the country in their own unique way.

In countries like Iran, Türkiye and soon the USofA, you really can't do anything with your vote. Either there is no vote or it really doesn't matter.

This frustrates me as well. It is so incredibly common, yet it never passes even basic scrutiny. For one, even in typical modern democracies, the active administration is chosen by like a third of the voting population via a first-pass-the-post system or a close analog of it. It's easy to ignore this when things are going okay, but becomes very uncomfortable all of a sudden when that changes.

And this is to say nothing about how it is people that are chosen, not their individual choices. This is why it irks me when people are interviewed about their knowhow with respect to their political stance. It's basically irrelevant. They need a good read on the person of their choice, not a good read on the choices. If it was about a choice instead of a person, it would be a referendum, not an election.

> the active administration is chosen by like a third of the voting population

Not really. The number of people who might change their minds and thus swing the result either way is indeed small. But it isn't accurate to say they are the ones that choose.

The people in guaranteed states/counties still choose; it's just that almost always choose the same answer.

But even that doesn't mean they can be ignored. They can be ignored at voting time, but before that political parties have to take them into account. They basically determine where the centre is. For example they are the reason the American centre is so much further right than the UK centre.

If you took American parties and held an election of them in the UK you would find that all those reliably conservative counties who you would say don't have any effect on the result are suddenly not so supportive of the right-wing option.

FPTP is still dumb and frustrating though.

I meant that if one checks "who voted for this", one will find that it's at best the half of a poor voter turnout, so around 30-40% of the overall voting population. Often even that is generous.

>> the active administration is chosen by like a third of the voting population

> Not really.

Yes, REALLY. In fact it can be even worse.

See the latest (June 2023) elections in Greece [1] (supposedly the cradle of democracy): First party got a 40.56% on a 53.74% turnout. I.e. around 22% of the electorate. Yet, this was adequate to yield a solid parliamental majority for 4 years.

Also mind that the election system had been changed to allow this travesty by the very same party and PM that won the June 2023 elections.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_2023_Greek_parliamentary_...

Low turnout means non-voters just don't care, or that they find no palpable option on the ballot sheet.

In any case, the non-voters are OK with whatever party might win, because otherwise they should have made their vote or created a political party that might be agreeable to them.

You are just rationalizing a deeply undemocratic process. These are the exact self-serving arguments that the winners make to legitimize a fundamendally unpopular government.

Also, in practice, no, you cannot make a political party in Greece. There's a country-wide threshold of 3% that you need to exceed to get into the parliament. A lot of well-organized parties struggle (and often fail) to exceed it. So even if you get 100% in an electoral district, you won't get its respective parliament seats. In fact (IIRC the tidbits of the election law), you will be making the first party stronger (and I don't mean by depriving votes from the second party).

This is not unlike other Western democracies. But this is essentially a design to cull any grassroot movements. Not very democratic.

>Also, in practice, no, you cannot make a political party in Greece. There's a country-wide threshold of 3% that you need to exceed to get into the parliament.

You can quibble about whether a 3% threshold is "democratic" or not, but for all practical purposes if your movement can't get 3% you stand no chance of getting your policies enacted.

Which is still distinct from actively choosing something. Indifference is not the same active approval, precisely because it goes both ways. So it is still incorrect to state that "they chose that". They chose indifference.

One can still fault them of course, but it is a distinct category, and it is not at all a clear sign of consent, if even the active choice ever was.

> Low turnout means non-voters [...] find no palpable option on the ballot sheet.

That alone is pretty un-democratic, no? Certainly politics is a world where it's hard to find an ideal situation pretty much ever, but I think a democracy where a third or more of eligible voters don't want to support any available candidate... that doesn't sound particularly democratic.

The US with its two-party system suffers from this problem, and it's a very bad one. There were more eligible voters in our 2024 presidential election that didn't vote at all (89M) than there were people who voted for Trump (77M) or Harris (73M). It's pretty messed up that more than a third of the electorate was so dissatisfied with their options that they didn't cast a ballot at all.

I think the GP actually meant a third of eligible voters, not of those who actually vote. Turnout is often not that great in countries that don't legally require voting, especially when voters are dissatisfied with the choices they have. In the 2024 US presidential election, for example, ~89 million eligible voters did not vote, which puts Trump's win at 32% of eligible voters, just under a third.

Whether or not this is a useful/interesting metric is debatable, I suppose.

Swing voters / swing states / whatever the particular country-specific analog is -- this is a symptom of poor voting systems; unfortunately the people in power like how this works, and so it won't change.

It's also, at least in the US, a collective action problem: a state that tries to be more "fair" (doesn't gerrymander, perhaps awards presidential electoral votes in proportion to the popular vote percentages, etc.) will end up giving seats/votes to the "other side" more often than polarized states that stick with FPTP.

Some democracies are "democracies". The dictator will get 80% of votes no matter what.

> For one, even in typical modern democracies, the active administration is chosen by like a third of the voting population via a first-pass-the-post system or a close analog of it

"typical modern democracies" don't use the extremely terrible first past the post. It's mostly used in the UK and a few former colonies, but most of the world's democracies (even the flawed ones) have realised its shortcomings and have evolved past it.

In its current incarnations, it is not just pure FPTP, but "mixed" with other systems: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting#Cou...

This list includes Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Germany, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, etc...

Not that only FPTP is terrible either - it is just what people evoke when they say "well xy people voted for this, right?". In more fair systems, the voted person or party may not even have been their first or second choice, so that on its own violates this notion again too, just differently.

This is a superficial take. Common citizens of a country are responsible. The government didn't accidentally become the government by doing a dice throw. People voted for it. In countries where people didn't vote, you can always go back in history to find a moment where people either did agree to let a certain faction run their country (religious revolution), or allowed an authoritarian regime to take all power slowly by neglect and doing nothing.

You can't just sit on the sidelines and say "well I am not responsible for what my government does", while holding your passport and paying your taxes. You are responsible.

(note that this is not about Iran specifically)

Assuming you're a US citizen, to what degree are you personally culpable for the illegal behaviour of the current government? How responsible are you for the recent extrajudicial murders committed by the USA?

I'm not sure why you are making this assumption, but assuming you are not trying to derail the discussion with the usual whataboutism argument, and taking your question at face value, the answer would be "yes".

A citizen of any country should feel responsible for the actions of their government, vote, and take action when things begin to get out of hand. Dictatorships are rarely created overnight, they usually begin slowly by gaining support within the population, with the opposing part of the population doing nothing (or not doing enough). And taking the United States example, we are at an interesting point where indeed it seems it is time to do more: organize opposition, demonstrate, organize strikes?

I wouldn't call it whataboutism, it's thinking about things from another perspective. It's easy to say other people should take action when things get out of hand, it's entirely another thing to actually take up action against an entity which can crush you and everything you love without a second thought.

I would never expect the average Iranian to take up arms against the Revolutionary Guard, for example. I wouldn't, if it were me. I don't feel such patriotism that I feel responsible for my country's actions. I don't feel that I am personally culpable in any way for, for example, the extrajudicial murders of Afghanis by Australian Special Forces in Afghanistan.

Why stop at citizens? Why aren’t all humans responsible? You can’t just sit on the sidelines and say “well I am not responsible for what my fellow humans do”.

My tax money doesn't support the iranian government

It does support the genocide in Palestine, though.

Then I guess I am responsible for that. The point is I am not responsible for supporting Iran in the way that iranian citizens are

I'm not sure what your point is, but it seems to be usual whataboutism, which can derail any rational discussion.

Of course you can't sit on the sidelines.

So you vote AGAINST the guy at power, and you're responsible?

Broken logic.

how did their feet vote?

The last time (and current time) a president was in power that I didn't agree with (and didn't vote for), I left. As a citizen, I can't fully escape taxes, but I will be my darnedest to reduce my taxable burden when I don't approve of the government.

Some of the nations that are sanctioned by the US etc. literally do not let most their citizens leave. Citizens of all of them will have difficulty getting visas due to the poor relations that resulted in sanctions in the first place. On top of that, even if there are no political barriers not everyone will have the means to do so.

I’m also curious at what point you assign culpability for remaining in a country. Obviously, a baby born in the country can’t be culpable or the concept becomes meaningless. At what age or level of maturity can we start to condemn someone for not noticing that their government is evil and then leaving their family to escape?

What an incredibly out of touch and privileged thing to say...

So being an elite who escapes the consequences of what elites have done is a virtue that should be rewarded? Why would people look up to a runner? Most people don't have anywhere else to go, and love where they're from.

The USA is full of people that left their home country with nothing because they disagreed with how their home country is managed. For example, the Vietnamese boat people. I hardly consider that cohort of immigrants 'elite'.

Taiwan is another example. Taiwan wouldn't exist if it wasn't for mainlanders voting with their feet.

> love where they're from

yes. that is the problem...

  > yes. that is the problem...

Is the concept of opposing the government but loving the country (aka people, culture, nature, cuisine) alien for you?

> Taiwan wouldn't exist if it wasn't for mainlanders voting with their feet.

Woah, woah, the ROC invaded Taiwan with a huge group of armed settler-colonialists, and then initiated a violent martial law on everyone here. The KMT settlers didn't vote with their feet, they imperialised Taiwan and the people here. Taiwan would absolutely exist either way, there would probably have been democracy here a lot sooner if not for the KMT's martial law, since the common thread throughout all 6 decades of their rule, it was non-KMT people (earlier immigrants, indigenous people, and even a few Japanese descendants) that led opposition efforts. Not to mention much of the reason the PRC makes imperialist claims against Taiwan is because of their humiliation that they failed to defeat the KMT utterly, and this country retained the name ROC when it transitioned to democracy in the 90's - the best the opposition could achieve in the face of KMT power.

Really Taiwan makes the opposite case because after the cultural revolution, which is before the beginning of Taiwanese democracy, Taiwanese people could have gone to the PRC and had life there, fleeing martial law, but instead people stayed and worked to overthrow the KMT.

I personally believe packing your shit and heading out is a totally valid action in the face of oppression and fascism, that's why I left the USA after all. I don't think I agree that everyone has a responsibility to risk their lives to overthrow oppressive leaders, the reason I wouldn't stick around though is I won't accept the moral risk of accidentally supporting the regime, which is why for example I don't pay USA taxes anymore.

> elite who escapes the consequences of what elites have done

Goomba fallacy.

Internet tough guys are out in full force today.

Being able to move to a different country when you don't like your government is a very privileged thing that most people can't reasonably do.

And even for people with the means to do so, I personally think that's too much to ask.

Voting isn't always enough. There are many other ways to take action in a democracy. Voting is the bare minimum, table stakes.

Except the concept of Collective responsibility had been considered inhumane and Collective punishment is forbidden since the Hague convention, the Nuremberg trial considered this as a part of fascist ideology.

That's a naive take that lacks nuance.

If your government started doing something you don't agree with, would you renounce your citizenship and move to another country? What would be the threshold of bad things that would be required for you to do that? I think I do have such a threshold, but even as bad as things are in the US right now, I'm still here. Maybe that makes me a bad person. Maybe not; I'd like to think not.

Also just consider that we can't all be responsible for everyone else in the whole world. That's just not possible, and not reasonable to ask of anybody. Someone living paycheck-to-paycheck, in a tiny apartment, trying to feed their kids, afraid of getting evicted or being unable to put food on the table... that person does not have the mental or emotional bandwidth to be concerned about people in Iran suffering under US sanctions.

Even someone of higher financial means... what should they care about? Should they care about Iran? Ukraine? Palestine? Those are the ones in the news right now at least. But dig a bit deeper and you'll find a bunch of other places where their government meddles in politics and war. Do we need to care deeply about those, too?

Human psychology is not built for global scale. Honestly, if we could get all humans to care deeply about their local and regional communities, I would think that would be a huge win. Getting everyone to care deeply about people halfway across the world, and constantly consider them in their life decisions? That's a pipe dream.

> In countries where people didn't vote, you can always go back in history to find a moment where people either did agree to let a certain faction run their country (religious revolution), or allowed an authoritarian regime to take all power slowly by neglect and doing nothing.

I think at this point you've really jumped the shark. Using Iran as the salient example here, do you truly believe that some 30 year old living in Iran is responsible for a regime that was installed before they were born?

> If your government started doing something you don't agree with, would you renounce your citizenship and move to another country?

Yes — and I even thought about the specific red lines that would make me do it.

> Using Iran as the salient example here, do you truly believe that some 30 year old living in Iran is responsible for a regime that was installed before they were born?

Iran is not a good example, because as many have pointed out, sanctions are often mandated by law, not imposed voluntarily.

But there are other examples, where if we follow this line of reasoning ("but regular people are not responsible!") we end up with business as usual while people get murdered. See Russia for an up-to-date example. Being a citizen of a country that murders civilians must have consequences, we can't just do business as usual. Seems unfair? I bet the people who have been murdered would consider the state of things unfair, too.

It's also interesting if the comment comes from a US person, given that the US are primarily responsible for the political situation in Iran.

Why is it interesting? I thought the common people aren't responsible for the actions of their government?

From our perspective common people aren't responsible. But from the perspective of the person who wrote the "your decision to arm Russia" on their website it is.

So what is interesting is that this person is fully able to assign blame to individual Iranians for their government's actions but, one would imagine, is able to separate themselves from the actions of the US government.

I wrote "one would imagine" because there was no reply so we cannot say for sure. But my experience with Americans who do this "all Iranians/North Koreans/Syrians/Iraqis etc are bad!" thing is that they carve out little exceptions for themselves and the USA so that their reasons to hate others never seem to apply to themselves.

Ironic that you're blaming all Americans but then claim no other country has any agency

I think you'd do well to re-read my comments because that's not what I'm saying at all. I suspect you're more upset because I've touched a nerve. Because this is something that many Americans (and fellow Brits, I might add) are guilty of, and cannot really provide a proper justification for other than "but we're the good guys". They will often try to derail the discussion or argue to avoid confronting the uncomfortable truth

There's a certain irony in holding North Koreans or Chinese responsible for their governments' actions, but denying any responsibility for your own democratically-elected government's.

The common people are responsible for the actions of their government in a democracy, are they not? The issue is that Iran isn't a democracy, it's a theocratic dictatorship — the people are explicitly not able to be responsible for the actions of their government.

To be honest the argument works even if Iran was a democracy. Both governments doing evil stuff but only the citizens of one of those countries is absolved of blame. That alone should cause someone reasonable to pause and ask themselves if they're not being a bit ridiculous.

The fact that Iran is pretty authoritarian and undemocratic just makes the position even more absurd and drives the point home further.

The US is a democracy.

The common people are responsible for the actions of their government in a democracy.

The US killed 400+ Million people in the past two centuries.

Therefore I hate all Americans.

> The US killed 400+ Million people in the past two centuries.

I have trouble believing this is true by any definition that leaves any large group of people unhated.

i dont think thats really accurate. its theocratic and authoritarian, but its not a dictatorship and they have democratic elements

the candidates are approved by a religious board, but its got a full set of checks and balances and allows for liberalization. The reality is that given a panel of candidates Iranians have often voted for the conservative candidate

i get there is a large amount of liberally minded people in big cities that feel disenfranchised.. but i wouldnt be surprised if the government is still highly popular with the majority of people

Comparing it to North Korea or China is way to simplistic

Where you get confused is with the difference between a democracy and a dictatorship.

Pray tell how people in the US can control specifics of its foreign policy.

This is why the democracy-vs-dictatorship point is not one I think is worth arguing. Because while you can technically vote for president, senate, congress who have some say over that on your behalf, you still don't really decide anything.

I think however you'd both be in agreement about the broad thrust of the argument - that this is a slightly daft thing to lay at the feet of your average Iranian, who will already be perfectly aware of what its government gets up to.

>Because while you can technically vote for president, senate, congress who have some say over that on your behalf, you still don't really decide anything.

Even if there was a referendum in the US on whether to drone strike alleged drug traffickers or whatever, it's still a stretch to blame all Americans (with "your" language), because it's there's still a good chance that a given American visitor didn't actually vote for it.

The US is closer to a dictatorship than a democracy. Certainly now.

In properly democratic countries you would have more than 2 parties, with more than 2 viewpoints. You pick one that aligns with you, and they actually have a chance at winning.

This is not true and is nonsensical. The Iranian regime is explicitly anti-American, and it was American inaction that allowed them to rise to power. If America had intervened during the revolution, they could have eliminated the regime in its infancy and saved half a century of headaches and many lives lost due to Iranian wars and terror proxies.

The US also did not create political Islam, which predates the US by over 1000 years. Blaming the US for the problems of this region which has always had these problems is counter-factual. The problems of this part of the world - poverty, violence, religious oppression and dictatorships - predate western civilization as a whole, and in fact the oppressive empires from the Middle East / North Africa spread earlier and wider than western empires.

> If America had intervened during the revolution

Well they did intervene during the 1952 revolution. The secular democratic government wasn't very convenient so they basically undid the revolution and reinstalled the Shah in power. Then the second time the Shah was overthrown, it was done by Islamists, not by the secular elected parliament.

Third time's the charm, just one more revolution and we'll have it all sorted out, juuuuuust one more /s

A couple years ago I was hanging out in a Discord server for a jigsaw puzzling site. They made a policy change to remove all pictures from Russia and ban further submissions of Russian photos. I tried to convince them that this was probably counter-productive, but apparently that means I support Russia's actions.

There are valid ways to punish a country for aggressive or oppressive actions - like sanctions - and there are non-valid ways - inherently blaming and then ostracizing every member of the country, for example. And when you take the position that, "If you don't agree with my actions, you're also part of the problem" you are not doing anything but causing people to get annoyed with you and your position, and reducing credibility for the groups you're trying to advocate for. In other words, you're doing more harm than good.

Do you get the irony of commenting this on a post about a single person complaining about how they are unfairly affected by sanctions put up against their country?

The post doesn't blame individual Americans. There is no irony.

Looking forward to a service that says something like:

"American IPs are blocked here, due to your decision to arm Israel so that they can indiscriminately massacre civilians."

Wow you posted this without being drowned in the irony?

This, 1000%. I think there's a certain kind of thinking that low-IQ people fall into, which is blaming civilians for the actions of their government, often with the coping "they should just overthrow their government" (because it's that easy!)

Sadly, in our world where everyone has a voice, you're going to get a lot of this. There's no avoiding the stupids.

> (because it's that easy!)

I don't think anyone believes it is easy, but are sanctions not at least an incentive to try?

Do you realize there are much bigger inconveniences then GitHub suspension in such places?