Now this comment depresses me. Why not compare the us patriot act or civil forfeiture, or the wide spread illegal 4th amendment breaking mass surveillance program a whistle blower had to reveal (who incidentally lives in Russia now).

Then you use the phrase hope and change, is that satire, a man became president lying with that platform slogan.

How about including torture, indefinite imprisonment without trial, or kill lists to show how the US also has erroded civil liberties?

How much more comic book evil does the American empire need to become before people stop defending it with 'Russia and China are worse', maybe they are, but its a sad pissing match to ask if Mao or Hilter was the worst 20th dictator, both men caused tremendous amounts of Human misery.

Why do people want to defend a military that has killed hundreds if thousands of civilians? How morally bankrupt are the techies of hacker news.

This phrase shows a simplified few events and organizations as they actually are. The rest of your post shows a fanatical viewpoint lacking in critical thought.

I will agree with you insofar as not everything is ideal with our military spending, the amount of spending and there is some corruption in military spending.

But the government and military must buy goods, this cannot always be fascism. There exists procedures and regulations that attempt limit corruption and to level the playing field for smaller companies. These rules are exactly what SpaceX used to get its foot the door. These rules require certain levels of "quality" and meeting certain requirements, this in effect rules out many of the smallest startups which contributes to why it is so easy for us to feel like outsiders. The smallest company I have seen provide military goods was 12 people, but most require at least 100.

The military also has other functions than "killing of women and children for profit", and claiming that this is one of their goals without evidence strikes me as fanatical. A military that wastes resources on things other than valid enemy targets is wasteful, we have defeated too many foreign powers to be that kind of wasteful.

I think our current military is built more along the lines of "kill the enemy and break his things". It is sad but sometimes innocent people are near the enemy or his things. It is also sad that we try to use our very effective "breaking" organization to occupy or police despite it not being well equipped for such.