"America is the greatest country on Earth..."

[Hauldren Collider]

Does the government not tell you what to do in the USA no matter what, and it is still the best?

No, they don't tell you what to say. They can't tell you what not to say. They can't even make you confess to a crime. They can't search or seize without a court warrant. They can pass no bill of attainder and no ex post facto law. I can go on if you like.

[Hauldren Collider]

Are you really saying that this can't happen in US ?

uh, yeah

[BlackCat]

uh, yeah

Holy christ

Edit: and I'm not even religious.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

No, they don't tell you what to say. They can't tell you what not to say. They can't even make you confess to a crime. They can't search or seize without a court warrant. They can pass no bill of attainder and no ex post facto law. I can go on if you like.

The cannot make you confess to a crime in China either, even though there are rumours tha they torture people (illegally) to make the confessions, the same as there are rumours for the US government ... you need warrants in China too, etc... they actually have a rule of law over there too, it is only that they have a one party system while in the US you have a bi-party system. You are more alike than you think.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

one point that you could have said, is that China uses censorship more, that is true... even though US uses a lot more elaborate way for manipulating public opinon... that is one major obvious difference, still censorship (relatively poorly implemented at that) does not a totalitarian system make.

[Hauldren Collider]

[Al B. Sure!]

They can't even make you confess to a crime. They can't search or seize without a court warrant.

Those two are iffy, HC. Cops and prosecutors can do some shady ****.

[KrazyHorse]

Er, what about Japan and Brazil?

1) Brazil is a developed country?
2) 2.5 times the size of japan. Sorry for exaggerating slightly

[KrazyHorse]

Brazil is debatable

No.

[BeBMan]

No its not.

Wealth for example has pragmatic value to people no matter what their value system, human rights as defined by the West have some practical value but one can get most if not all of that value by cherry picking among them.

Wealth has not much of a value if the next powerful guy can come, take it all away, kill you and get away with it. And stuff like human rights and rule of law are not a matter of "let's be nice to people", they do allow societies to pacify themselves so that they do not waste resources on conflicts between those with certain rights (with all the consequences) and those which are excluded from them.

[Lorizael]

No.

Yeah. After doing a little online research, I realized that no one considers Brazil to be a developed country. Whoops. But at least I was right about the math.

[Tupac Shakur]

We're counting Brazil as a developed nation?

Brazil is the country of the future - and always will be.

[KrazyHorse]

Yeah. After doing a little online research, I realized that no one considers Brazil to be a developed country. Whoops. But at least I was right about the math.

The fact that you think it's important to point out the difference between 3 and ~2.5 in this context is odd. The original point stands.

[GePap]

The definition I have been given for totalitarian is "the government can tell you what to do no matter what". I was under the impression that this is the case in china. I suppose either my definition or impression are incorrect or both?

That is the dumbest definition of Totalitarianism ever, and if you think it valid, you are the moron.

What sets apart Totalitarianism from mere autocracy is a guiding ideology in which all aspects of a person's life are subsumed to a single idea or set of related ideas. It is this notion that the individual is totally subordinate to a single notion (racial purity, proletarian dictatorship) that allow for the strict social control that characterizes totalitarian regimes, and the extreme political violence directed inwards or outwards (internal or external genocides) that are a hallmark of real totalitarian regimes. China under Mao was totalitarian. China since 1980 has not been.

China has a growing middle class and a small class of actual entrepreneurs. This is not something you get in a totalitarian regime, as both of those things direct people away from some central ideology. You also see Chinese citizens allowed to travel around the world in large numbers, if not totally freely. Another things you hardly see from a totalitarian regime, as it might allow for ideological corruption.

China's ruling system is also quite technocratic, with a lot of various levers of power and power centers. It may be a single party, but there is no single guiding ruler that gets to make decisions without any limitation. The courts are not independent, but neither are they merely an extension of the central ruling ideology. In a sense, the sole guiding idea of China today is maintaining single party rule in order to ensure a stable social system that allows the rich and powerful to maintain rule. None of that is remotely Totalitarian. As Elok said, one of the last bastions of totalitarianism left is N. Korea. That is totalitarianism, not China.

[Lorizael]

The fact that you think it's important to point out the difference between 3 and ~2.5 in this context is odd. The original point stands.

Oh, yeah. I didn't say you were wrong. It's just a matter of degree. And 1.5 times the population of a developed country would have been a little more significant a difference, but I was wrong there.