Comment by foldr | Hacker News Reader

Comment by foldr | Hacker News Reader

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I think it would be more accurate to say that the UK and US have different problems when it comes to freedom of expression, and each country tends to notice the problems in the other one more readily than its own problems (especially because the US right likes to use the UK as a whipping boy).

From a UK point of view, what stands out currently is the cowed state of the US media. There is very little sense of a free press effectively holding the administration of the day to account. Extraordinary levels of corruption and incompetence are remarked on merely in passing.

Number of US media organisations that have reached a financial settlement with Donald Trump in recent years: 4 (totalling about $67 million).

Number of UK media organisations that have reached a financial settlement with a UK Prime Minister in recent years: 0†

† The last instances appear to have been Tony Blair in 2007 (who settled with the Daily Mail over photos of his family taken during a private holiday), and John Major in 1993 (who successfully sued the New Statesman over allegations that he'd had an affair).

Well for me, I'm looking at the U.S problems first and foremost. And I see the UK is having problems under the authoritarianism banner same as us. But I don't judge UK's problems with the U.S. I see the UK as having big problems with freedom and corruption of the political system but I'm not a UK citizen so I have no idea. I always start with my own country and feel sad about what's happening across the world. The topics that are important to me are surveillance and censorship, and those issues are happening across different countries. The point I was trying to make originally was that we the U.S. need to focus on our own problems and stop worrying about other countries problems until we fix our own. And here in the US we have problems with corruption that needs to be fixed. We need to stop allowing money to affect our political system first and foremost and secondly, we need to stop corporations from making the world worse by enforcing antitrust.

I’d don’t disagree with any of that except lumping the current UK and US governments under the same “authoritarian” categorization. Trump is a classic authoritarian strong man pushing the limits of his constitutional authority. Nothing comparable is currently happening in the UK.

I'm not seeing how it's any different except you have a whole political party doing the damage of the same scale.

You'll have to be more specific, sorry. Which political party, and what damage? I am not saying that everything is perfect in the UK. I'm just saying that the UK does not currently have an authoritarian leader making an executive power grab.

The age verification laws using third parties to store digital id data that can be accessed and misused by 3rd parties is one example to me across the board that is part of an authoritarian agenda happening in many countries including the UK. We have a poster boy Trump that is being propped up as a dictator in the U.S by special interests (Instutionalists) that only have an interest in making money off the backs of the people by using our political offices for these corrupt practices. I read about the postal scandal in the uk and that seems remarkably similar to how our government and corporations work togeather to disenfranchise its people. I guess I'm saying we have more in common around these topics than we do differences. And trust me I'm not trying to lesson our role in what the U.S. is doing to the whole world. I'm doing my part to stand against what our government is doing. You can see what I'm doing on my website https://scottrlarson.com/blog. It's not much but it's the best I can do right now.

Ok, so you’re not talking about a specific UK political party.

Well I thought these things were torries related but I'm less sure about that. Not that it matters either way. Authiratianism seems like an epidemic that's affecting everyone with strong egos.

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