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The list of standards and methods sounds good (except that they have a rather one-eyed focus on government propaganda, and seem to completely exclude oligarchic control of the press from the list of indicators).
However, when I compare them with the list of rankings, I find that they have clearly not been consistently applied.
Under the criteria provided, for example, the USA is only partly free.
None of the points I raise are particularly controversial. Except perhaps the claim that the parties are largely indistinguishable. But that is documented to excess here on ET: If either party didn't represent the moneyed interests, it would be making noises about cutting off Wall Street's and K Street's balls and hanging them from the nearest streetlight.
And yet the USA gets a perfect score in Freedom House's assessment. That really ought to tell you everything you need to know about them.
- Jake Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.
Let us talk latter, seems that this thread has gone off stream to a degree. Rutherfordian ------------------------------ RDRutherford
Does the US torture, according to you? Does it treat its prisoners inhumanely? Does it arbitrarily arrest and detain without trial both its own citizens and foreign nationals?
If you answer no to any of these, how do you explain the concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay, which fulfils all these criteria and is long-standing policy.
I use the six sigma to signify that if you find a trace of something negative then the whole is corrupt. But we are not judging against a perfect God like powers but humans. As noted above Asylum and immigration has some interesting information to peruse. Also HRW has some interesting things to say about France also: Insufficient safeguards in national security removals.
And the British have some nasty immigration "centres". Hell they seem to be more like concentration camps... Rutherfordian ------------------------------ RDRutherford
- Jake
PS: I don't define torture. The international treaties that forbid it do. If you have an alternate definition, then let's hear it. Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.
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