Asklemmy

43777 readers

2316 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

Americans, how do you feel about being stored in a database by government agencies like the NSA? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by gnutard@sh.itjust.works to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

63 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Every search you make, email you send, text message, voice chat, location, and most likely the conversations you have in your own home are monitored and stored in a database for whoever knows how long (probably forever). When I hear land of the free, I immediately think bullshit. We are slowly losing our freedoms, what can we do to prevent this? I mean, when Edward Snowden dropped the leaks, people protested, but barely anything changed. What can we do? This post not only applies to Americans, your own government in another country may possibly does the same thing. Feel free to comment!

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

"Just not by us directly" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. What the fuck is this "us" shit? I didn't choose to enslave anyone and I have no power to free them. Equivocating being forced to participate in capitalism with directly owning a my own fucking plantation is just mystifying history - just edgy nihilism.

The Founders were among history's monsters and you need to stop trying to protect their legacy by painting us with their brush. Chattel slavery was a uniquely horrible institution and its end mattered.

[–] agressivelyPassive@feddit.de 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The Founders were among history's monsters and you need to stop trying to protect their legacy by painting us with their brush. Chattel slavery was a uniquely horrible institution and its end mattered.

Dude, I'm German. I know a thing or two about facing the past. So don't act like I'm defending anyone.

I didn't choose to enslave anyone and I have no power to free them.

As far as I know, only about a third of people in the US back then ever owned slaves. The other two thirds didn't choose that either. Yet most of them got complacent for a pretty long time.

Also, you do have a choice. You can buy clothes that are maybe not morally pure, but at least better. You could buy a Fairphone. You could become politically active or at least vote for the better candidates/parties. Sure, that won't turn the world into utopia over night, but at least you can make it a bit better.

We all have to face the fact that our actions and inactions cause suffering, and some of that is indeed not in our power to change. But your stance of essentially giving up and pointing at the other crime as ever worse is hypocritical.

As Adorno said: there's no right living in the wrong. And we are so wrong currently the slave population in this world is higher than ever in the US: https://www.un.org/en/delegate/50-million-people-modern-slavery-un-report

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml -2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

As far as I know, only about a third of people in the US back then ever owned slaves.

Okay? We're talking about the Founders, and they owned slaves. They were directly responsible for it, they had their own plantations. Comparing that to bystanders and voting and buying local and being complacent is absurd.

Are you perhaps under the impression that all Americans in 1776 were Founders? Because generally when USians talk about our Founders we're talking about the people at the Constitutional Convention and terroist organizations like the Sons of Liberty.

[–] agressivelyPassive@feddit.de 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Are you perhaps under the impression that all Americans in 1776 were Founders

Are you perhaps under the impression that us stupid Europeans don't know what you're talking about?

Comparing that to bystanders and voting and buying local and being complacent is absurd

Again, I'm German. I've heard that excuse before.

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml -1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Don't act like being German gives you some kind of unique perspective. Hitler was inspired by the US exterminating it's Native population and by the US reservation system.

There's a clear difference between living in society and ruling that society.

[–] agressivelyPassive@feddit.de 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Hitler was inspired by the US exterminating it's Native population and by the US reservation system.

Don't act like being American gives you some unique perspective. Wow, that looks stupid, right?

There's a clear difference between living in society and ruling that society.

Sure, but you're implying that not being part of the ruling class absolves you from any guilt or responsibility. And that is literally what all Germans said after the war. What was I supposed to do?

And you're living in a democracy.

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml -1 points 4 months ago

Sure, but you’re implying that not being part of the ruling class absolves you from any guilt or responsibility.

No, I'm implying that the ruling class has unique guilt and responsibility, which is nontransferable to their subjects. I never said we have no responsibility. I only contend that holding us equally accountable is mystification; it obscures the uniquely horrible actions of the ruling class. They're the ones who deserve to be tried for their crimes, after all.

By flattening society, by holding the least of us accountable for the crimes of our rulers, you actually make it harder to hold anyone accountable for anything at all.

Or do you think the Red Army should have executed all Germans because a minority of them voted for Hitler?