this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2023
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Some governments are more willing to resort to violent repression against their domestic enemies than others, though.
For instance: In 2022, Iran had minimum 596 executions (likely more), Saudi Arabia had 146, the US had 18,
e.g., places like Iran, Saudi are quicker to do so than most, even for internal enemies of equivalent threat to the state itself.
For instance:, during the Jina Ahmini protests over 300 were killed in only a month.
All states and all governments use violence or the threat of it to uphold their rule, but some are more reliant on violence versus other methods of control than others...
Plus some are more willing to use violence in foreign policy vs domestic policy.
US pigs killed nearly 1100 people in 2022 and we're not even getting into all the social murder committed by our for profit medical and housing industries. I can't believe I'm seeing this whitewashing of American government malfeasance from a Hexbear user.
I wasn't referring to the US as one of the 'less murder-y' ones because it is a settler-colonial state. Though those killed by law enforcement in Iran are still considerably higher, e.g., during the Jina Ahmini protests over 300 were killed in only a month. This is even if you count literally every US police murder as part of a campaign of political repression, of which plenty were but certainly not all.
I don't know why you thought I was as I didn't even remotely begin to say it?
IDK how anyone-whether Hexbear or not-can possibly deny the fact that different governments rely on coercion to differing extents to maintain control.
Well you edited your original response right after seeing this but your original comment talked about how the US only killed 18 people last year but these foreign countries in the middle east were more violent and killed hundreds, and how, even if you include police brutality this still "stands true."
It's hard for me to include your exact words since you took steps to obscure them but I think if you're honest with yourself you can admit you were downplaying the violence committed by the US on its populace relative to Iran.
The edit was to edit the number of people Iranian police killed during the Jina Ahmini protests because I read it wrong. IDK how to confirm it.
If you do not think that some states are more violent in their methods of control than others then I don't know what to tell you tbqh.
Nah, you're lying. I do specifically remember you comparing official execution numbers of Iran, Saudi Arabia and America (~600, ~100, and 18, respectively) to try to make it sound like the US was less murderous. I don't know why you're doing this but you're being dishonest in a way that both paints the US to look less violent than it's foreign enemies (and it's allies too, as long as their foreign enough. They're certainly not as bad as Iran though, right?) and then obfuscates the fact that you're doing that and I don't know why a multiple year old Hexbear account would do that but I do remember the general thrust of the original comment.
EDIT: actually I was wrong, we can confirm that you're lying, look at this quote from GarbageShoot's response to you
Ah shit I got rid of it by accident you're kidding me. Ok sorry. I put it back. I copy-pasted the reply a bunch of times so I messed it up. I don't care if you don't believe me as I know it's true.
Though executions are a shit metric anyway because US doesn't use that for political control it uses the police extrajudicially. Whereas obviously executions are used for political control by, say, Saudi/Iran.
Over the last decade, police in America have killed at least between 950 and 1250 people a year.
The actual numbers are probably higher because police don't report all the people they kill, so statisticians are limited to searching news stories that contain the relevant data.
I wasn't referring to the US as one of the 'less murder-y' ones because it is a settler-colonial state. Though those killed by law enforcement in Iran are still considerably higher, e.g., during the Jina Ahmini protests over 300 were killed in only a month. Saudi not so much as the level of political opposition is lower. This is even if you count literally every US police murder as part of a campaign of political repression, of which plenty were but certainly not all.
I never claimed otherwise?
IDK how anyone-whether Hexbear or not-can possibly deny the fact that different governments rely on coercion to differing extents to maintain control.
The US had in excess of a thousand killings by cops that were officially reported that year as well (likely more that were unreported, and I have at least some evidence for my claim).
I wasn't referring to the US as one of the 'less murder-y' ones because it is a settler-colonial state. Though those killed by law enforcement in Iran are still considerably higher, e.g., during the Jina Ahmini protests over 300 were killed in only a month. Saudi not so much as the level of political opposition is lower. This is even if you count literally every US police murder as part of a campaign of political repression, of which plenty were but certainly not all.
I never claimed otherwise?
IDK how anyone-whether Hexbear or not-can possibly deny the fact that different governments rely on coercion to differing extents to maintain control.
If you're talking about violence used to uphold their rule, you can't separate domestic and foreign violence. All those people living, working, and dying young in atrocious conditions outside of the US for US prosperity, all those people gunned down in the dark or in protests against their government's subservience to the US, and all those people murdered in wars and 'conflicts' and by sanctions to further US interests must be counted.
Otherwise you're doing that thing where you redefine violence in such a way that distorts the picture. It doesn't matter whether you now explicitly mention the US because by nature of a comparison, the US is implicated, anyway. Likewise, replace US for every other government in the above equation for the true figures of how violent a state is in its own protection.
The logics of violence are fundamentally different between the two. Both are violent, yes, but the US invades Iraq for different reasons than Iran executes political prisonrs, for example. One is about the survival of the state, one is about advancing the conditions for capital accumulation.
The latter wasn't what we were talking about.
I never liked the pig. It's gross :(