>And historically, from Jim Crow laws, to J.E. Hoover and McCarthy, and onwards to Snowden, this is wrong, because?
Most of the examples you gave are historical. Regarding Snowden: has anything been used against anyone? I'm not condoning the snooping, BTW.
I think when you compare the US government to the likes of Russia and China, you'll see that the US is really not "out to get you". Certainly in this case it's pretty obvious that the govt isn't out to get an innocent person. There is a lot of strong evidence already that he has been collecting child porn. That of course doesn't mean that illegal procedures should be used to obtain more evidence, but we shouldn't get hysterical about it and say that the govt is going to use this to frame innocent people.
Historical doesn't mean "belonging to lore" or "ain't gonna happen again". It precisely means "this things happen". And I don't consider stuff from 40 and 60 and 80 years ago as "deep history", like it's the Roman times or something and now we're totally different. In some cases those that did or suffered those things are still alive. In others, their direct 1st-gen legacy (sons, proteges, people they mentored etc) still rule.
>I think when you compare the US government to the likes of Russia and China, you'll see that the US is really not "out to get you"
Not sure what this means. With 25% of the world's inmates in only 5% of the world's population, I'd say it's very much out to get a heck of a lot of its citizens. And in prison conditions that compared to places like Germany or Sweden are like third world dungeons. The only way not to see this is to conveniently consider all those people are somehow subhumans, or criminals who "deserve it" (then one has to wonder why in the US 10x more of the population "deserve" such a fate compared to those in the German or the French population).
Or maybe let's talk police shootings? One is much more probable to get shot in the US ('walking while black' et al) than most parts of the world, China and Russia don't even compare.
Or are those not part of the government, and those laws and that climate is not fostered by government policies and political demagogy?
> I think when you compare the US government to the likes of Russia and China, you'll see that the US is really not "out to get you".
Have you any evidence that the US Government has changed their modus operandi?
Programs like COINTELPRO weren't public knowledge until some time afterwards, ditto "rendition" of terrorism suspects for overseas torture. Snowden has demonstrated that your Government still engages in widespread illegal activity.
I'd say the only reason such abuse seem "historical" is that we're unaware of the abuses going on right now.
>I'd say the only reason such abuse seem "historical" is that we're unaware of the abuses going on right now.
That's my point. The US government may or may not be mildly abusing it's citizens by spying on them illegally, it's hard to know. Compare to Russia or China where it most certainly is vehemently abusing people it disagrees with.
Also, I think the rendition was only for non-citizens. The US doesn't really give much of a shit about you if you're not a US citizen.
And historically, from Jim Crow laws, to J.E. Hoover and McCarthy, and onwards to Snowden, this is wrong, because?