And if you were a Chinese citizen would you post the same thing about your government while living in China? Would the things you’re referencing be covered in non-stop Chinese news coverage that’s critical of the government?

You know of these things due to the domestic free press holding the government accountable and being able to speak freely about it as you’re doing here. Seeing the two as remotely comparable is beyond belief. You don’t fear the U.S. government but it’s fun to pretend you live under an authoritarian dictatorship because your concept of it is purely academic.

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habinero a day ago | parent [-]

My dude, I know multiple white people in LA who are terrified their Hispanic spouses might not come home one day, because masked agents are grabbing people and disappearing them.

The president threatened to deport a legal citizen who won the primary for mayor in NYC. He's tried to send the military after civilians.

He's sued and extracted payment from media companies who said things he didn't like. We do not have a free press.

We're fully as bad as China. I don't know what your criteria for "authoritarian dictatorship" is but it doesn't appear to be reality based.

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transcriptase 20 hours ago | parent [-]

[flagged]

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habinero 17 hours ago | parent [-]

Huh. It takes a special kind of person to respond to "my IRL friends credibly fear being disappeared by the government" with a sneer of "lol reddit".

Man, I am glad I am not that person.

	▲	transcriptase 15 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Credibly? Are they illegal immigrants with criminal records? If not, do they also walk around in crippling fear of car crashes, fatal falls, aneurysms, choking, drowning, anaphylaxis, cardiac arrest, or a thousand other things orders of magnitude more likely to happen to them? Which assumes for a moment that the odds of what you think is happening outside of human error is non-zero. The fact is your view of reality is being warped and it’s not good for your mental health or that of your friends.