No they are not the same as Russia's but are they any better?

Forced registration vs. forced de-anonymisation.

At least in Russia's case there is some input required from the blogger. With the NSA you just have to sit back and let them do all the hard work. Better customer service I guess.

Either way, arguing over whose government is less tyrannical is probably not the conversation we should be having. But the OP certainly had a point when he stated that preemptively calling out "apologists" is a bad debate technique.

EDIT: Also he wasn't complaining about false equivalences (the post he was replying to was doing that). He was complaining about certain genuine equivalences routinely being called out as false.

>You don't see the irony of complaining about a "false equivalence" complaint

Complaining about "false equivalence" complaints that have yet to have been made, rather. Just like the PHP people who preemptively defend PHP in threads before it has been criticized.

The PHP people have an excuse though: they're punch drunk from being constantly attacked. Attacking Russia is attacking from the herd, and very easy to do. The last thing anyone who cares about truth should be doing is discouraging dissent from the herd.

I have to say that the tradition of accusing people of setting up false equivalences by daring to even compare any aspect of America the Incomparable to places like Iran, Russia, or China is a reprehensible one, too. The confidence in the tautological superiority of every aspect of the US to every aspect of every other country is why clearly broken things about the US can remain broken for decades (like health care, etc.)

It also exposes a sensitivity (thus a recognition) of the critique. In all forms of analysis that I'm aware of, the way you examine things that are broken or eccentric is to compare them to things that work correctly or in a straightforward manner through noting the differences. If you do that between the American and Russian media, you will quickly realize that you're working with two horribly broken systems, and it's about as worthwhile as comparing a kick in the nuts to a punch in the face.

Of course NSA's actions aren't "the same" as Russia's. The question you should ask is if the NSA was somehow transplanted in the place of the Russian intelligence services in the Russian political environment, would they do the same things? I think it's likely they would.

If that's true, and if there is anything more morally reprehensible about on the one hand requiring bloggers to register with the state, and secretly de-anonymizing them, as you claim, then I think it follows that you can't give the NSA credit for being less morally reprehensible just because they happen to be constrained in that way.