Thanks for attempting to insert all your lovely words into my mouth
"I don't like what you're saying! Your fancy vocabulary irritates me!"
Your response: Make groundless accusations of attempted indoctrination.
I was discussing the actions of a couple of other nations where a lot more minorities have been killed - and by official government action - than any 'minority' in the US since before the '60's (remember it is 'government action').....
Of course, the American government's actions may appear less heinous when compared to what some other nations have done. But does that make fear tactics and murder morally acceptable in any case? Such things are not meant to be ambiguous. Stop justifying crime when it's done by the US government! And if the government is really so great, then why are you even comparing it to terrible countries like China and Iran? That should be an unfair comparison, like comparing lasagna to garbage, right? Again, comparative thinking is simply delusionary.
"Anti-war" protesters are not a minority: they are not seeking 'equal rights'. I wonder if you were ever at any of the rallies in the '60's or '70s..... I was.
More recently, the groups like 'International ANSWER' have actually had speakers and writers arguing in SUPPORT of the Chinese government's murder of protesters in Tianamen Square. That is one huge reason I do not trust those groups as being truly 'anti-war' OR dedicated to American democracy.
Perhaps you thought that I was trying to follow your lead of mentioning oppressed minorities. Clearly, you are mistaken. I was not trying to copycat you; I was simply mentioning state persecution in America, minority or not. I
knew that as the Vietnam War painfully dragged on, antiwar protestors grew to become a majority in America. Yet the government and police still slandered, harassed, beat, killed, and monitored antiwar protestors. And you have failed to address the heavy-handed mistreatment of pro-Cuba activists, and they too were a minority. So if our government is willing to persecute
not just minorities such as people having certain political views and Muslims (I believe that forced registry, unjustified surveillance directed at Muslims, and psychological torture and possible attempted brainwashing constitutes persecution, although I agree that instances of persecution in numerous other countries are much worse) but will also oppress a majority if it sees it as necessary, then what does that say about the strength of "American democracy"?
In addition, I should say that just because some groups like International ANSWER supported both the anti-Vietnam War movement and China's crackdown on Tiananmen Square demonstrators does NOT mean that you can extrapolate this and imply that all antiwar protestors were like these hypocrites, OR that therefore, the peace activists of the 1960s and 1970s somehow deserved oppression, unlike the ethnic minorities that you mentioned (this is the only plausible reason for your mentioning of the "hypocrisy" of antiwar protestors).
I DO think that we should consider the human rights records of other nations when we are thinking of giving them trade concessions or making any alliances or treaties with them.
I do not deny the moral righteousness of such a policy, but the unfortunate fact of the matter is that American politicians would simply use morality as an excuse to impose trade restrictions on China while they not only allow trade, but also give billions of US aid dollars to Israel, a country that forces its settlements deeper into Palestine, a UN-recognized nation, blockades the Gaza Strip with the knowledge that it causes a choke-hold on the import of essential non-military goods, and whose soldiers occupying Palestine shoot and maim/kill Palestinians for reasons like standing too close to the border fence not sporadically or occasionally, but repeatedly (possibly meant to ease resistance and ensure compliance to Israeli actions with a fearful, militaristically despotic atmosphere)-in short, such a policy would only be applied when politicians want it to be applied. Also, the nations with poor human rights records will usually have undemocratic governments that their citizens cannot influence, and some of the countries that this policy would target would be bound to resist American influence, and then, their citizens would either suffer (example: North Korea), or we would have to make allowances regarding our human-rights policy. Additionally, this policy also requires closing doors on more nations then we'd expect, some of which are quite friendly with the US-for instance, Taiwan, which has rather flexible death penalty laws and has been known to torture confessions out of criminal suspects, and Indonesia for its forced relocation ("transmigration") policies, among numerous others-will this work against them, or will it work against us?
