zlacker

> Sadly we see national security being used as reason to avoid transparency, and of course corruption follows.

Man it took forever for someone to make this point. There's a lot of bad Chinese Gov behavior that US Gov players absolutely aspire to.

>>WarOnP+(OP)
Any organisation, or group, or person who’s granted any power will tend towards trying to accumulate more power. So while your comment is a bit hyperbolic, it’s true of the US government in the same way it’s true of every other government. For any grossly authoritarian policy you see the US government implement, you’ll typically find equivalent policies in Canada and the EU and the UK and Australia...

It’s not a new thing. The (paraphrased) quote “the price of freedom is eternal vigilance” is at least a couple hundred of years old. In practice however it’s not a very simple proposition at all. People typically agree with endlessly granting government additional powers when it’s for a policy they agree with.

The difference between the US (or France, or Germany, or the UK...) and China however, is that we actually have some mechanisms for holding our government to account (however flawed they might be). Whereas Chinese citizens have none at all.