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0 pointskebman3y ago0 comments

What has that got to do with the political system in the USA? You have every opportunity of changing how American prisons are organized by participating in the political system. Nobody will jail you for having an opinion about it, or campaigning for prison reform, or hell, even legal reforms in general. Not so in China. If you criticize the state there, you do indeed risk jail, if you don't just suddenly vanish. The main difference here is that the USA has a largely liberal system, while China has an authoritarian one. Good luck surviving (!) in China if you have a strong political opinion about any issue pertaining to their state or their leadership. One of the main differences between the American and the Chinese system is that scrutiny and criticism is welcomed as a means of making things better in the USA, while it is punished in the People's Republic.

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_emacsomancer_3y ago· 1 in thread

> You have every opportunity of changing how American prisons are organized by participating in the political system.

How so? Both parties are all in on the prison-industrial scam. Likewise for healthcare, etc. I agree that the US has a largely 'liberal' system, in the classical sense of 'liberal'. I.e. capital trumps human beings.

And you ignore the fact that the US imprisons a much higher percentage of its population than other countries. Part and parcel of the authoritarianism (which is only increasing).

kebmanOP3y ago

Welcome to democracy! As a minority opinion you will naturally not be able to force the majority to accept yours. If you did, that would be authoritarian and evil... You're still allowed to voice that opinion, however (within very liberal limits). For instance you can involve yourself more directly within the parties and run for various political positions, write petitions, become a member of pressure or lobby groups, arrange demonstrations, and many other things. Hell, you can even pointlessly troll discussions here on YT with political straw man arguments! And because you live in The Land of the Free nobody will jail you for it! This is why the American system is liberal and the Chinese system is not. But good luck on making prison reform in the USA. God knows they need it!

Edit: To answer your claim that:

> “(...) the US imprisons a much higher percentage of its population than other countries. Part and parcel of the authoritarianism.”

No, it's not. Every guilty prisoner in the USA had a public trial with a lawyer before they were sent to jail. In other words they had due process which is the mark of a liberal democracy. On the other hand due process is constantly broken in authoritarian regimes. A great example is, again, China, where you can be "vanished" just for having the wrong opinion, if you're not simply sent to a re-education camp that is for all intents and purposes a modern style of concentration camp.

Before you even try, can the USA be accused of the same thing? Why yes, because it imprisons enemy combatants which are then subjected to cruel an unusual treatment, for instance at Guantanamo Bay (which is amazingly still open for business). But crucially the USA does not do this to American citizens, so while they act horribly authoritarian towards external enemies, they do not act authoritarian against their own citizens, not even towards domestic political opponents.

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