> China could change but it is a totalitarian regime with no human rights and a terrible track record. I would

It has a better track record than the US; trivially, as every other country does. Why are you even bringing this up? Try counting the number of countries the US has "intervened" in over the years. You'll quickly get to 20+. That's absurd.

I think this is a fair take, but also the US does this because it can. I don't think other countries don't do imperialism because they are morally pure, but because to do so means getting into conflict with the US. The US just has the biggest stick and so can push around other nations with impunity.

The US domestically has a commendable historic commitment to free expression and press freedom, which are good things that China does badly. Those things deserve to be commended even while we condemn imperialism. China has its own record of imperialism in Nepal and its ambitions to attack Taiwan. It just doesn't (currently) have the position to act with impunity the US has long enjoyed.

>[China] has a better track record than the US; trivially, as every other country does.

This is a fair take? Really. That "every other country" has a better "human rights" track record than the US, so countries including Russia. Or the oft-accused-of-genocide Israel.

I don't think it's possible to coherently debate these policy moves when the starting point for the opposition is "I am choosing to be insane about my view of history and the position of the respective countries party to the dispute".

The very existence of the US is predicated on ethnically cleansing the continent of native americans and large-scale ecocide.

What part of what they said is inaccurate?

All of it. If I thought I wanted to discuss technology with communists I'd join reddit.

"When European settlers arrived in the Americas, historians estimate there were over 10 million Native Americans living there. By 1900, their estimated population was under 300,000.

...In the late 1800s, blankets from smallpox patients were distributed to Native Americans in order to spread disease.

...European settlers were paid for each Penobscot person they killed.

In the 19th century, 4,000 Cherokee people died on the Trail of Tears, a forced march from the southern U.S. to Oklahoma." [1]

America is built on the genocide of indigenous peoples. That fact is well-documented, whether you want to admit it or not.

1. https://hmh.org/library/research/genocide-of-indigenous-peop...

> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.

> Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills.

I would recommend familiarizing yourself with the HN guidelines - check them out here! https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Also note that you didn't actually address the factual claim, you just went straight to an ad-hominem. That in turn reads like you don't actually have a response to the claim and are just trying to distract from that fact.

Okay.

>Also note that you didn't actually address the factual claim, you just went straight to an ad-hominem. That in turn reads like you don't actually have a response to the claim and are just trying to distract from that fact.

The problem here is that you appear to believe there is a factual claim involved, when there isn't. It's like claiming the point of water is to drown people.

Edit, since I noticed you're the author upthread. It's worth pointing out, since you are new here, that your initial comment also violates the spirit of the guidelines.

>The very existence of the US is predicated on ethnically cleansing the continent of native americans and large-scale ecocide.

Forgetting for a moment if this is true or not, it's not a claim that's falsifiable. It's an ideological statement that is meant to convey that the speaker a) is likely a communist (congratulations), b) has extreme disdain for the United States, and c) attempts to redirect what are meant to be policy discussions into a blackhole of attempting to argue about whether or not the United States is evil. This is pointless, but is a common tactic used by online bullies.

It is a purely factual statement. The only ideological move is your continued refusal to address the factual claims - instead writing a long-winded comment to distract from it.

Two wordy paragraphs. Not a single word about the fate of native Americans. Speaks for itself, huh.

Yes I already said I understand that you hate the United States. Is your actual point that you want to play some sort of "which country has the highest body count in their history" competition? I'm not distracting (or distracted) from anything, I am fully aware of the kinds of games you and those like you attempt to play.

You brought up the track record of countries and the United States, then spent several comments complaining people don't want to engage on the substance, while consistently ignoring the track record of the United States, something directly relevant to the substance of the topic you yourself brought up.

You still haven't addressed the topic you introduced, you are still derailing by attempting personal attacks.

The record speaks for itself.

>The very existence of the US is predicated on ethnically cleansing the continent of native americans and large-scale ecocide.

This is your original comment. "Predicated" means "to establish". So, your claim is the United States was founded "to ethnically cleanse the continent of native americans and large-scale ecocide". Can you find some primary sources, from George Washington perhaps, where he says "we are founding this country to kill the natives". Please be specific. Is English not your first language?

Again, this is such a common thing. You are the one that introduced this absurd claim, not me. I have not derailed anything, and there is nothing you could possibly say to convince me that I'm wrong. Because, as implied, I am an American. I don't have to put up with this bullshit from people like you anymore.

> Predicated" means "to establish".

I believe your disagreement might be based on an imprecise understanding of the word then.

> If an idea or argument is predicated on something, it depends on the existence or truth of this thing

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/be-predi...

Predicated means something is a precondition for something existing, not something was created to do something.

> Is English not your first language?

It's my fourth, actually. But I'd like to think I do pretty well in it and understand its nuances :-)

Anyways, I will note, that you are still distracting from the claim. You are still doing anything but addressing the substance of what happened to the Native Americans. You still refuse to discuss the track record you yourself introduced.

Amazing. I do not owe a foreigner a debate or explanation on how their contrived and ridiculous claim about the origin of my country is wrong. You start off by violating the very same rule that you now claim that I am violating, and then get upset that I respond in kind. 10/10, no notes.

First of all, may I again gently point at the rules? You may find this one relevant:

> When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names.

Anyways, so many replies deep and still all distraction, anything but actually engaging with the substance - the very thing you claimed to be against! - on the topic you brought up.

It's devolved from - and I quote - "I don't think it's possible to coherently debate these policy moves when the starting point for the opposition is "I am choosing to be insane about my view of history and the position of the respective countries party to the dispute"" to claiming "there is nothing you could possibly say to convince me that I'm wrong. Because, as implied, I am an American"

What a turn, huh? What could possibly explain this dramatic shift in position? Why are you still avoiding the fate of the Native Americans, so many comments in? Why are you debasing your entire position just to run from this line of argument? Why are you, to use your own terms, creating an ideological black hole to redirect the debate?

There's a Slovenian philosopher named Slavoj Zizek, who's famous for his analysis of ideology. Let me leave you with a few quotes of his I think you'll find enlightening:

"Ideology is not a lie which misrepresents the truth; it is a lie which enables you to endure the truth."

"Everyday reality is an escape from the traumatic encounter with the Real."

"To step out of ideology, it hurts. It's a painful experience. You must force yourself to do it".

Aren't they interesting? It's been a joy exploring them together.

Except I haven't devolved from anything. It's entirely consistent, and the whole chain confirms that it isn't possible to coherently debate this with people whose starting position is insane, like yours. At it is insane to assert that "trivially every other country has a better rack record" than the US does, and it is insane to claim that the US was founded with the express intention of killing off the indigenous inhabitants of North America. These are insane positions to hold, and yet ... here you are.

Appreciate you continuing to explore.

Note how you're still doing it, by clinging on to an already-invalidated definition of purpose instead of precondition and still refusing to actually face the track record you introduced.

It's been lovely, but I think this exploration of ideology has run its course, there's not really more to see from here.

We've already gone from claiming to want debate all the way down to expressing pure nationalist xenophobia and expressly stating to be closed to any argument.

We now even had confession that that was the consistent position all along, revealing the call for rational debate was never the true position - it had been an ideological device all along.

We've already witnessed so many levels of fetishistic disavowal. There's nothing new left to look at, we've fully looped around to just restating the original thesis.

Thank you again for sharing!

To paraphrase "The Princess Bride"- you keep using the word "communist". I don't think it means what you think it means.

One can acknowledge the very real harms done by the United States over its history, without also believing that private property is evil and workers should seize the means of production. Can you see how those two things are orthogonal?

Here's the falsifiable version:

- the Indian Removal Act of 1830

- the Trail of Tears

- the several hundred ratified treaties that were broken

- the Dawes Act, and

- the intentional decimation of bison herds from tens of millions to a few hundred by the late 1880s, which some Army and Interior officials at the time openly described as a way to force Plains tribes onto reservations. [1]

Which of those do you think "communists" are fabricating?

1. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/great-americ...

> Or the oft-accused-of-genocide Israel

The only reason Israel can conduct an open genocide without any consequences is because it has full support of the US

Setting aside for a moment whether or not whatever they are doing is or is not a genocide (I don't pay attention to that matter, it doesn't concern me and the outcome of that conflict has nothing to do with my country or people), is your statement meant to mean that the United States is a puppeteer of Israel or something?

I don't think it's a fair take when every evil is considered, because that list includes Pol Pot, whose regime would make the Pizzagate conspiracy theory seem like an day ending in y.

But the USA does not come across as a strong moral power by the standards that people like to pretend are a sign of civilization since WW2: the USA has had concentration camps in living memory, and the Kent State shootings even more recently than that (and the things done in the war the dead students were protesting against); further back it took Texas from Mexico in much the same way Israel is taking Palestine (not exact but it rhymes), and it definitely engaged in what is now considered genocide against the native American peoples.

(Sometimes people bring up nukes; on balance, I suspect this was not an example in this category, though the reasons are a long diversion).

>further back it took Texas from Mexico in much the same way Israel is taking Palestine

Genuinely laughed out loud at this. This single statement, monstrously ahistorical as it is, allowed me to dismiss everything else you're saying because this narrative emerged only recently, around 2014 or so. It's comically at odds with the written record.

>But the USA does not come across as a strong moral power by the standards that people like to pretend are a sign of civilization since WW2

Oh wow, news to me. Last I checked, we had pretty much the entire planet trying to come here. Are you going to tell them that this isn't a good "standard" of civilization? Or do you want me to do this.

> This single statement, monstrously ahistorical as it is, allowed me to dismiss everything else you're saying because this narrative emerged only recently, around 2014 or so.

Oh? Which part of this is wrong? All of it, or just parts here and there?

Mexican territory -> Anglo-American settlement (I can draw comparisons between this and Israeli settlements in occupied territories even if specifics are different) -> rebellion against Mexico -> independent Republic of Texas -> U.S. annexation -> US vs. Mexico war, where the USA got at least as far as Mexico city due to Mexico having negligible capacity for self-defence -> Mexican recognition of the new U.S.-Mexico border.

> Are you going to tell them that this isn't a good "standard" of civilization?

I'm in the set "them". I looked at you, the USA, from the outside more than once, and my decision every time was "you know what? I don't need any of that nonsense". Likewise for many of my peers, at least one of whom resigned from a big tech firm rather than be relocated to the USA.

Guess what: a lot of nations have the "we are the best, everyone wants to move here" narrative. That includes the UK, which I infer from your use of "here" to refer to the USA, is a place you do not live and are unlikely to want to live in.

The comparison between Texas and Israel-Palestine is laughable. In the former, American settlers moved to an empty territory at the invitation of the Mexican government on the condition that they obeyed Mexican law, converted to Catholicism, and on the additional condition that they would assist the Mexican government in fighting the Comanche who were raiding settlements across the Mexican interior, all of which the American settlers agreed to. The American settlers eventually outnumbered the Mexican administers of state security (the army and so on), and, again because this was empty territory before the Americans settled it, declared independence and the territory was annexed, Mexico then invaded Texas, and the United States declared war believing they had casus belli, and Mexico lost. The rest is history, though in this case the timeframe here is something like "30 years", I'd have to look up dates of the main events.

On what planet is this at all comparable to Israel-Palestine, a conflict that arguably goes back 1200 years? Just the "settlement" part? Be specific.

>I'm in the set "them". I looked at you, the USA, from the outside more than once, and my decision every time was "you know what? I don't need any of that nonsense". Likewise for many of my peers, at least one of whom resigned from a big tech firm rather than be relocated to the USA.

Then it sounds like you and your peers made a good decision, both for you and for my country. There are already too many people working in elite industries here who do not like the United States, have no loyalty to it, and are blood and soil nationalists for the country they actually care about. It's fine to be honest about that, and I genuinely applaud your self discipline in remaining outside the United States of America (alternatively known as The Aerospace Republic).

> I would be happy to see a change there towards freedom, democracy and human rights but that doesn't seem to be in the cards.

because you have a western centric view on freedom, democracy and human rights. it is certainly not your fault, you were brainwashed to believe it, you are the victim.

when the US elected moron like Trump twice, with the congress full of traitors openly putting a foreign country's (which we are not allowed to name) interest first, when the UK has been in managed decline for decade, when the EU is literally ruled by far left extremists, you want to promote the western freedom and democracy? LOL

I take that as a joke.

Cool, writing both "you were brainwashed to believe it" and "when the EU is literally ruled by far left extremists" in the same post.

Let me address the 2nd point first: some US people are stupid and/or extreme right wing. Because only such a state of mind would explain why something in the center appears to them as "far left", or even "far left extremist". Perhaps it is because the bad US education system never introduced to them what left extremism actually is. E.g. the desire to seize all means of production out of private hands. That is: capital, farm land, companies. Or they would have heard about things like "dictatorship of the preletariat". If they now search for such ideology in EU countries, they wouldn't find anything. But hey, oftentimes they don't even start to search. Due to lack of knowledge and due to having already made up their worldview. No desire to check this worldview against actual facts.

And sure, things like freedom is culturally. As a european, I often see that US people declare their country as the epitome of freedom. And they never talk about e.g. their slavery past. They think that the US is most democratic country and little can they show how this alleged democracy loving country is doing to ban gerrymandering (a thing that in REAL democratic country doesn't exist!). And they think they are the best at human rights, but few people know that their own government solds drugs to get money to overturn southern american society. Or that the US killed far more people --- without verdict! --- abroad than even the awful 9/11 criminals.

But then again: some people can clearly see how e.g. the level of freedom, democracy and human rights vanished in Hong Kong after a real far left extremist regime took over there. And some people are so blind finding excuses for the actual far left extremist regime --- and blaming ones that entirely aren't of being exactly that.