I really don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone in the US saying their living standards are worse than third world countries.
Health outcomes are the worst in the first world, and certain health outcomes are worse than some third-world countries.
Education outcomes are among the worst in the first world, and certain education outcomes - primarily literacy - are worse than in some third world countries.
The US prison system has imprisoned more of its own people than any other country in the world for the last 50 years… Currently it ranks third behind El Salvador and Cuba, but that’s only been true for about 2 years. But the US parole system is twice as large as the US prison system, so the number of people being managed by the criminal justice system, monitored, surveilled, punished, and abused is three times larger than basically any country in the world and worse than any country has ever been in the last century. Not even the Soviet GULAG comes close. And China is not even on the race on this one. Recidivism in the USA is also abysmal because the US prison system is not designed to rehabilitate people, it’s essentially designed to torture them and break them mentally.
And then there’s the fact that the US is the only country in the world where most prisoners are required to pay hundreds of dollars a day for the privilege of being in prison, and that debt accumulates during their stay and then becomes a condition of their parole, with the state garnishing their wages from whatever meager job they can get after prison. Prisoners are also used as slave labor to produce over $11B in profit for both the state and private corporations.
The US also uses solitary confinement in prisons on a regular basis. Solitary confinement is an internationallly recognized form of torture and human rights violation. NYS recently passed a law limiting how solitary can be used, but not abolishing it, and the prison guards are protesting and exercising “civil disobedience” meaning they’re just not following the law. Because they’re upset that NYS is trying to stop them from torturing prisoners.
So is the US authoritarian? Well, it’s the number one country in terms of authoritarian use of power and cruelty against its population from the perspective of the criminal justice system. But that’s only a part of the story.
The US also has the largest police force in the world. The NYC police budget is larger than the entire military budget of DPRK, and that includes their nuclear program. If you put all the US police together in one group, it would be the third largest standing army in the world, larger than Russia’s military. And then the ICE budget separately just became something like the 5th largest in the world? So on the use of domestic force, yes the US tops the use of authority based on how much they invest in police.
The US also has the reservation system where it oppresses the occupied indigenous people. The US is a long-term colonial occupier. That’s hella authoritarian. Indigenous people are raped, murdered, and disappeared on a regular basis and the US turns a blind eye to it. Much of it is done by the police and military.
But the US also has a major authoritarian problem at the border, where people are beaten, tortured, put in concentration camps, families are separated, children are out into solitary confinement, etc. It’s an authoritarian hell hole at the border.
One thing we can note here is that all of the above uses of authority are primarily targeted at non-white people. White people are not safer from other inmates, but use of force reports show that prison guards are measurably more violent and brutal towards non-white prisoners. White people do better after prison than anyone else. White people get the softest sentencing compared to everyone else. The border is fine for white people. White people aren’t experiencing the reservation system. They were being forcibly sterilized for decades. They weren’t systematically having their kids taken from them and having their culture beaten out of them. Domestically, US authoritarianism is primarily used against non-white people. That’s why white people don’t experience Stop and Frisk, and why they aren’t terrified by every traffic stop. Authoritarianism in America happens to non-white people and they’ve been trying to warn white people for a very long time, but white people just don’t listen until it hits them like it’s starting to under Trump.
And it’s not just violence. It’s also surveillance. The US spies on all of its citizens. It punishes whistleblowers who try to expose it. It keeps all internet traffic and integrates itself in all the major tech companies to monitor citizens’ communications. It stores all encrypted traffic for later decryption. It has former government officials inside all of the major tech companies. Hell, the US House just passed a law (with 100+ Democrats voting in favor) that allows ICE to gather data from retail companies to track people going in and out stores and their buying habits. US secret police infiltrate church groups, reading groups, labor groups, pacifist groups, environmental groups.
But that’s just domestic authoritarianism. If authoritarianism is using violence, terror, and force to control a population, the US is the top global authoritarian. From killing a million people in Iraq to a 20-year occupation of Afghanistan where they trained child soldiers to rape and murder civilians to arming, training, and organizing terrorist groups in West Asia and death squads in South America, the number of authoritarian programs the US has executed and is executing today dwarf anything any other country in the world does, and touches orders of magnitude more people than anything any other country does. China hasn’t dropped a single bomb in combat in the last 37 years. China hasn’t fired upon a ship in 38 years (warning shots, yes, but no contact). Russia has invaded 3 countries since 1992. The US? 14.
So when we look at authoritarianism as the use of coercion over legitimacy as a way of controlling people, the US system of coercion domestically (i.e. its criminal justice system and policing organizations) is the worst offender in the world per capita, and the US system of coercion internationally is the worst offender in the world by all measures.
This cracker, gets nervous every time I see authority, but small town long hair in 90’s couldn’t even walk up a main drag (avenue/street) without cops stopping me, sometimes yeah it was deserved, large majority were not. Can you guess which came first? I’m half Irish decent with some American indian(not enough to look it, but I have more hate in my heart towards a majority of white people my claim to not bein a racist before I truly resolved them was I’ve known more of them. I ain’t ya normal cracker though ya dig?
I really don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone in the US saying their living standards are worse than third world countries.
Health outcomes are the worst in the first world, and certain health outcomes are worse than some third-world countries.
Education outcomes are among the worst in the first world, and certain education outcomes - primarily literacy - are worse than in some third world countries.
The US prison system has imprisoned more of its own people than any other country in the world for the last 50 years… Currently it ranks third behind El Salvador and Cuba, but that’s only been true for about 2 years. But the US parole system is twice as large as the US prison system, so the number of people being managed by the criminal justice system, monitored, surveilled, punished, and abused is three times larger than basically any country in the world and worse than any country has ever been in the last century. Not even the Soviet GULAG comes close. And China is not even on the race on this one. Recidivism in the USA is also abysmal because the US prison system is not designed to rehabilitate people, it’s essentially designed to torture them and break them mentally.
And then there’s the fact that the US is the only country in the world where most prisoners are required to pay hundreds of dollars a day for the privilege of being in prison, and that debt accumulates during their stay and then becomes a condition of their parole, with the state garnishing their wages from whatever meager job they can get after prison. Prisoners are also used as slave labor to produce over $11B in profit for both the state and private corporations.
The US also uses solitary confinement in prisons on a regular basis. Solitary confinement is an internationallly recognized form of torture and human rights violation. NYS recently passed a law limiting how solitary can be used, but not abolishing it, and the prison guards are protesting and exercising “civil disobedience” meaning they’re just not following the law. Because they’re upset that NYS is trying to stop them from torturing prisoners.
So is the US authoritarian? Well, it’s the number one country in terms of authoritarian use of power and cruelty against its population from the perspective of the criminal justice system. But that’s only a part of the story.
The US also has the largest police force in the world. The NYC police budget is larger than the entire military budget of DPRK, and that includes their nuclear program. If you put all the US police together in one group, it would be the third largest standing army in the world, larger than Russia’s military. And then the ICE budget separately just became something like the 5th largest in the world? So on the use of domestic force, yes the US tops the use of authority based on how much they invest in police.
The US also has the reservation system where it oppresses the occupied indigenous people. The US is a long-term colonial occupier. That’s hella authoritarian. Indigenous people are raped, murdered, and disappeared on a regular basis and the US turns a blind eye to it. Much of it is done by the police and military.
But the US also has a major authoritarian problem at the border, where people are beaten, tortured, put in concentration camps, families are separated, children are out into solitary confinement, etc. It’s an authoritarian hell hole at the border.
One thing we can note here is that all of the above uses of authority are primarily targeted at non-white people. White people are not safer from other inmates, but use of force reports show that prison guards are measurably more violent and brutal towards non-white prisoners. White people do better after prison than anyone else. White people get the softest sentencing compared to everyone else. The border is fine for white people. White people aren’t experiencing the reservation system. They were being forcibly sterilized for decades. They weren’t systematically having their kids taken from them and having their culture beaten out of them. Domestically, US authoritarianism is primarily used against non-white people. That’s why white people don’t experience Stop and Frisk, and why they aren’t terrified by every traffic stop. Authoritarianism in America happens to non-white people and they’ve been trying to warn white people for a very long time, but white people just don’t listen until it hits them like it’s starting to under Trump.
And it’s not just violence. It’s also surveillance. The US spies on all of its citizens. It punishes whistleblowers who try to expose it. It keeps all internet traffic and integrates itself in all the major tech companies to monitor citizens’ communications. It stores all encrypted traffic for later decryption. It has former government officials inside all of the major tech companies. Hell, the US House just passed a law (with 100+ Democrats voting in favor) that allows ICE to gather data from retail companies to track people going in and out stores and their buying habits. US secret police infiltrate church groups, reading groups, labor groups, pacifist groups, environmental groups.
But that’s just domestic authoritarianism. If authoritarianism is using violence, terror, and force to control a population, the US is the top global authoritarian. From killing a million people in Iraq to a 20-year occupation of Afghanistan where they trained child soldiers to rape and murder civilians to arming, training, and organizing terrorist groups in West Asia and death squads in South America, the number of authoritarian programs the US has executed and is executing today dwarf anything any other country in the world does, and touches orders of magnitude more people than anything any other country does. China hasn’t dropped a single bomb in combat in the last 37 years. China hasn’t fired upon a ship in 38 years (warning shots, yes, but no contact). Russia has invaded 3 countries since 1992. The US? 14.
So when we look at authoritarianism as the use of coercion over legitimacy as a way of controlling people, the US system of coercion domestically (i.e. its criminal justice system and policing organizations) is the worst offender in the world per capita, and the US system of coercion internationally is the worst offender in the world by all measures.
But as a white man? I don’t really notice.
Dang. That’s an exhausting list. I’ll steal that.
Sadly, as exhausting as it is, it’s just scratching the surface.
This cracker, gets nervous every time I see authority, but small town long hair in 90’s couldn’t even walk up a main drag (avenue/street) without cops stopping me, sometimes yeah it was deserved, large majority were not. Can you guess which came first? I’m half Irish decent with some American indian(not enough to look it, but I have more hate in my heart towards a majority of white people my claim to not bein a racist before I truly resolved them was I’ve known more of them. I ain’t ya normal cracker though ya dig?