Conversely, you are being far to cynical. Vietnam was quite some time ago. And even that war had limited conscription. I believe it is now considered a significant foreign policy mistake, although the US continues to make many of those.
I am not just talking differences on paper. G7 nations may not be corruption free, but they all have free and fair elections (surely you don't believe Trump's BS to the contrary). Many countries demonstrably don't. Russia, Venezuela, many African nations. I'm not even sure if North Korea or China even bother with sham elections where there is only one party to vote for (they might, but god knows why). Also, I can openly criticize government politicians with no fear of reprisals. Try that in Russia/China/PRK. You won't have your freedom for long. There are no drug cartels running roughshod over neighborhoods murdering politicians or judges who they can't bribe. Islamic
I could go on an on. There is a vast practical difference.
You're missing the point....I don't deny that those countries exert control through pain stimulus and grapple with corruption. You've only highlighted a "vast practical difference" in the style and methods of control between a dictatorship and a democracy with a State.
Highlights my point, actually....Democracy with a State does not rely as heavily on pain stimulation to herd masses....rather it herds masses by controlling their concept of happiness...creating a culture of hedonistic consumers, that slave away at their jobs and cut each other's throats so they can try and accumulate wealth to buy dream cars, dream houses, etc....people are pitted against each-other in a competition for material acquisition. These false needs keeps the masses compliant and stupid, so when the State say needs to manipulate support for a war such as the invasion into iraq it's not hard to do. if somebody actually breaks out of the box....like Ali did back in Vietnam (and refuses to do something)...that's when the iron fist of the state reveals itself.
The illusion of freedom is a more powerful method of control than putting a gun to everybody's head, but at the end of the day the populace's lives are just as structured as in your average dictatorship -- school, work, marriage, reproduction, retirement, death....that artificial reality is only disturbed when Vietnams come along. Then its time for people to leave their bubble and give their life up for the State or go to jail. So the touted external freedom is a load of crap.
The State department does not view the analytical realpolitik framework that made Vietnam a "rational" option as a mistake...More importantly, you have to keep in mind that the State department has not rebuked the framework that justifies forcing the masses into serving a realpolitick foreign policy war agenda or else go to jail. That they don't view as a mistake. The masses are probably more restricted and dumbed down than they were back in the 70s....dont' forget they recently fell for Colin Powell's blatant manipulation of the invasion into iraq....so the fact vietnam happened 'awhile ago' is not a big deal
As for your point on elections, the masses here are not some special enlightened bunch that it even matters elections aren't fixed. They don't have to be. At the end of the day people end up electing demagogues...you cynically said yourself that popularity wins more than competence....but its not just popularity, it's also rhetoric and propaganda...so whether a demagogue gets to power through a free and fair election or a fixed election doesn't change the fact demagogues overwhelmingly dominate in these elections. Gerrymandering also falls off the corruption index because its a more sophisticated method of corrupting the outcome of a State elections. Keep in mind that corruption in G7 countries has a much more wider and global impact than corruption in small, poor African countries do even if the corruption isn't as frequent...that qualitative difference gets lost in the superficial analysis which goes into those ridiculous corruption indexes.
I'll put the FBI's history of corruption against any Law Enforcement agency in the world. Herbert Hoover was the king of corruption...and the FBI got even worse as time went on....for 30 something years giving Whitey Bulger and Steve Flemmi' license to commit rape and murder throughout South Boston with impunity....that's a fact. I'm not even getting into the racially motivated beatings, murders and probably rapes police officers throughout the country have dished out over the last hundred years. And if you need any genuine comparison look no further than the pandemic of mass shootings in the USA. America leads the way in random, unprovoked violence....facts. That's not cynicism....just the hard reality.
Mass shootings have sadly become a common occurrence in the world, plaguing countries from all continents. In 2019 and 2020, numerous mass shootings occurred across the globe, leaving hundreds of people dead or injured. While the United States has consistently been the country with the most mass...
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