What other countries are doing/not doing is a red herring--their people are not ours, their demographics are certainly not ours, their pain points are not our pain points. They additionally don't have the same political foundations and history that we do.
We have seen a continual increase in the militarization of police, the surveillance and fining of private citizens, the violation of privacy, and the bullying and exploitation of the poor.
If you're not seeing the history that I'm looking at, we're considering different news sources. I'm thinking of the Snowden leaks, the killings of citizens by police without cause (some in my own city, sadly), and so forth. I'm thinking of the delightful interplay of the prison-industrial complex with the justice system.
As for the presidency--we've seen pretty much directly the actual effectiveness of the executive branch in causing shenanigans, both in George Bush's administration and Obama's.
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We're simply going to have to agree to disagree on this.
"What other countries are doing/not doing is a red herring" ..... but you brought up Iraq and Afghanistan.
I agree about the bullying and exploitation of the poor, I just don't think that's anything new.
I think what's new is that now, techie types like you and me are learning about the police-based murders of black people, and how hard life is for the poor. That stuff's always been going on, it just didn't make it onto our radar until very recently.
Note that example was done specifically as a study of armed irregulars vs the US--your examples of other Western states were in a very different vein. :)
We have seen a continual increase in the militarization of police, the surveillance and fining of private citizens, the violation of privacy, and the bullying and exploitation of the poor.
If you're not seeing the history that I'm looking at, we're considering different news sources. I'm thinking of the Snowden leaks, the killings of citizens by police without cause (some in my own city, sadly), and so forth. I'm thinking of the delightful interplay of the prison-industrial complex with the justice system.
As for the presidency--we've seen pretty much directly the actual effectiveness of the executive branch in causing shenanigans, both in George Bush's administration and Obama's.
~
We're simply going to have to agree to disagree on this.