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Comment by spwa4

This is moral absolutist thinking. Either you're 100% good or 100% evil and there is nothing in between.

Under that thinking, of course, everyone (except, of course, the speaker and friends) is evil and can be accused and held responsible, for their "moral failings".

Oh and you ESPECIALLY don't get to defend anyone with practical arguments, for example, that it is a lot harder for a government that does not have tons and tons of (to them) free natural resources money, like Saudi Arabia (they don't even extract it themselves) to avoid moral problems, and problems in general than it is for, say America. That a country that has to do things itself, just to make a random example, defend it's shores against drugs (and shoot at people who try to ...) has to make a lot of moral compromises (like, perhaps, shooting at criminals trying to flee in a boat) that Saudi Arabia doesn't have to make.

Many countries, like Saudi Arabia, always get a free pass, because "you can't expect them to adhere to ..." when in fact it would be SO much easier for them to have a perfect human rights record, no poverty, extremely liberal societies, ... than it is for the US (because incomes in Saudi Arabia largely does not derive from having Saudi Arabians work, so there's no need to force them to. America shoots at people so Saudi Arabia can export it's oil, ...)

The fact is most non-Western governments (like Saudi Arabia, but they're middle of the boat at best in evilness) don't have the interests of people in mind at all. Regardless if "people" means Saudi Arabian people, people who live in Saudi Arabia including foreignors, or women, or children for that matter. AT BEST, they are like Western companies, at worst ... you can imagine. That a government with the financial means of Saudi Arabia fails here should be 10x worse than similar failings on, for example the US's part (but same for, say, Denmark). But the root cause is simple: the Saudi government is not there to benefit the people there, it benefits itself only.

In other words: these dictatorships are MUCH worse and have MUCH more serious moral failings than the US.

parent spwa4 1 year ago

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