this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2024
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Upvote for the trump point, im with you on this one Other questions are meaningless here imo, just because X did not commit the crimes Y did, does not mean they should be treated differently if they did crimes of their own
(Still better voting blue than voting red though, fuck trump)
Absolutely. Politicians murder people. That is disgusting. We should hold our elected leaders to a much higher standard. Bush invasions, Obamas drone strikes, Vietnam war, the list goes on
Horrific crimes. Unacceptable crimes. Criminal.
BUT We should be careful drawing parallels from literal murdering dictators (Stalin, Mao, the Kims) who have body counts in the hundreds of millions (In total across the dictators shown in the image).
If you add up all the deaths from american presidents - this is question I was getting at. The reason I have asked the list of questions.
Is it comparable?
The question "is it comparable " always kinda triggers me because the answer is always yes.
Comparing does not mean saying X and Y are the same, nor are equal. It means evaluating how much X and Y are similar or different on various point. Like "Taylor Swift is a human and so is Julius Caesar. But Taylor Swift is alive, and Julius Caesar is not". This is comparing, according to what I know of the term. So in theory, everything is comparable : when we say that something is not comparable, we mean that there is a difference on a specific point that should obfuscate all common traits we can find. In our case, it seems to be the death toll.
First I'm hoping you are in full support of Palestina and that deprecate Israel (different subject but if you value the death toll that much in political analysis, this would necessarily lead to this, which is fine by me)
Now on the subject of USA death toll, counting is kinda hard. Should we take into account the strategically kinda useless atomic bombs dropped at the end of the war? Should we take into account every war and massacre caused indirectly by the CIA? Should we take into account death caused by American weapons? Should we take into account death caused by capitalism (though obviously China "communist" dictature helped there too, so maybe this one would complicate things)?
I'm profoundly anti-state, so as much anti west imperialism than anti east imperialism, and maybe this is a bias for me. But to my eyes, this is comparable (not the same, sure, but comparable, even if it is to conclude that communist dictators were more cruals and usa more sneaky)
Still vote for them if you need though, just important to know who they are than blindfolding imo
There is a lot to unpack without replying to each line -
the comparison is just to keep a level of scale in mind. not to justify or excuse one side. Is the invasion of a country in a pointless waste of time war (Vietnam as an example) comparable to what soviet russia did with the gulags? Thats a very contrived example - I do not think vietnam war should have happened. it was horrific and unjustified.
Can we and should we compare? Absolutely. My question, which I am not implying an answer to, is the comparison minimising what one side has done when contrasted with the other side.
How to count it? Every single action the USA has taken unjustifiably. Invasion of europe to free from nazis? Could argue that war was fully justified. Dropping two nukes on japan? Thats america kicking the loser when they’re already on the ground. Faaar more difficult to justify.
YES! I meant to mention that in my original comment and didn’t, thank you for pointing this out. Absolutely we should count every single person who has died of hunger on the failings of capitalism. I mean that 100%. Sincerely. Capitalism as a system kills people. As does communism.
Yeah, sorry for the long answer mb
Agree with you on most points, especially that we should be cautious with the parallel we draw : we can and sometimes should draw them, but always keeping in mind the risk of promoting or minimizing horrors. My previous answer did not promote that enough, you're right reminding it.
a long answer allows for proper nuance, to reach a shared understanding. I appreciate your level of detail