• Asidonhopo@lemmy.worldEnglish
      65·
      12 days ago

      Waco?

      Yeah I’d have been alright with Janet Reno following it up with sending armed troops in to firebomb all the hundreds of cult compounds across this nation. Good riddance to those pedophile nutjobs, instead of continuing going after that sort of decay we let them fester and it contributed to the rot we see today in America. We could have made up for lost time not finishing Reconstruction, Sherman-style.

      • chaogomu@lemmy.worldEnglish
        7·
        12 days ago

        The problem with Waco was the firebombing itself. The cops wanted a big standoff rather than just arresting the cult leader when he went out into town, which he did repeatedly.

        Leaderless cults can be picked apart without gunfire.

      • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
        6·
        12 days ago

        I don’t want them firebombed, but yeah the backlash against Waco is how the Zion Ranch was able to exist as long as it did. In the aftermath of Waco as long as your cult claims to be Christian and is armed the feds will let you get away with so much bs for so long.

  • ChicoSuave@lemmy.world
    254·
    12 days ago

    This is all American stuff. What about British, German, French, Russian, Japanese, Chinese atrocities and coverups? God knows there are terrible secrets along them all.

    • chaogomu@lemmy.worldEnglish
      13·
      12 days ago

      Hell, just look back a bit for the shit done in the open.

      I submit King Leopold the 2nd of Belgium. In Belgium he’s known as “the builder king” because he spent so much of his own money to build parks and civic buildings and such.

      Money that was acquired through what was described at the time as Crimes Against Humanity.

      • Dasus@lemmy.world
        2·
        12 days ago

        King Leopold the 2nd of Belgium.

        described at the time

        Hmm… I wonder when these…

        Leopold II was the second king of the Belgians from 1865 to 1909, and the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free State from 1885 to 1908.

        Oh that’s not too long ago. “Sole owner of the Congo Free State” sounds like a contradiction tbh

    • argarath@lemmy.world
      2·
      11 days ago

      “My parents are horrible, they beat me, killed my pets, stole my money and much more”

      Well that’s just your parents!! What about my parents? What about the neighbors parents?? God knows they are all horrible

  • 「黃家駒 Wong Ka Kui」 | (aka: 鳳凰院 凶真 Hououin Kyouma)@sh.itjust.works
    15·
    12 days ago

    The smart ones don’t need wikipedia to know that authority should be distrusted.

    You just need one bad teacher or school admin and you should be able to figure out why you should be skeptical of all authorities, including your parents. (They could poison your food or even stab you in your sleep… so, stay alert kids, stay on guard at night 👀)

    (Okay that last part I’m just half-kidding… but your parents could technically do it and you have no defense against that… 👀)

  • TrackinDaKraken@lemmy.worldEnglish
    7·
    12 days ago

    I don’t trust government because of the things I know my government has done.

    If you don’t trust your government, then perhaps instead of just saying “American problem”, list the things you know your government has done.

  • arbo@lemmy.world
    71·
    11 days ago

    it’s absolutely true that government has been grossly misused and must never be thought of as perfect. we should constantly debate and iterate on our laws.

    it is also true that it is one of the best possible forces to do good in the world: food security, healthcare. and i wish for its capacity to do good to be expanded.

  • Skyrmir@lemmy.worldEnglish
    51·
    11 days ago

    Asking if you trust the government is a stupid loaded question. No one trusts the government. You don’t trust a loaded gun, but it’s the best tool to have in your hand if someone’s trying to kill you. Government isn’t something you trust, it’s a tool that might be the best for some jobs.

  • AlfalFaFail@lemmy.ml
    4·
    12 days ago

    Loosely quoting IF Stone, If you can remember two words, governments lie. If you can remember three words, all governments lie.

      • yucandu@lemmy.world
        1·
        12 days ago

        It’s definitely the only country with an MK Ultra, Operation Northwoods, Operation Paperclip (wait why am I supposed to have a problem with Operation Paperclip), etc etc problem.

        Because their government isn’t very democratic, they rank pretty much last in the list of countries that actually call themselves “democracies” on the democracy index.

        Which is why countries with more functioning democracies have less corruption.

        • Chippys_mittens@lemmy.worldOP
          1·
          11 days ago

          Zersetzung in Germany, French Algerian experiments, Japanese unit 731, Chinese re-education camps, USSR Psychotronics experiments, England’s Porton Down human experiments, Israel’s Lavon affair, Turkey’s Istanbul Pogrom, Russia’s “Chechnian” apartment bombings, Italian strategy of tension, Japan’s Mukden incident and I could literally go on with any country you name. Humans always do fucked up shit, because of that, I’m very skeptical of trusting governments in general. This isn’t unique to America or whether or not a country is highly democratic. Norway scores highest on the democratic scale. Ask the Sámi, Kven and Forest Finn peoples about Norway’s government enforced policies. You could also look at any of the thousands of people sterilized in the 70s because they had “bad genes”.