# Is America Cruel? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 11, 2008, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-cruel/476654 "2008-12-11T01:38:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![shallora](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f9ae1b/32.png) [@shallora](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shallora)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2008, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-cruel/476654/101 "2008-12-15T14:47:05Z")
## Posted by straight man: Country by country: •Canada has something comparable to Guantanamo – namely Guantanamo. Its compliance in the treatment of Canadians has led to some pretty serious shit up here. Also, the Patriot Act has an equivalent in Canada, by which all of the plotters in that ridiculous kill-the-PM plot are being held. So yes, “Canada!!!” •In fact, the Patriot Act has equivalents in a number of other countries, including Australia and the UK, France, etc. You (should) get the idea. •Listing Chile was probably a mistake, given that their anti-terror stuff is worse than America’s by far (yes, I did have to look that up. Interesting reading, I’m learning here.) •Italy has exported someone to a country where they had been tortured, and I believe it’s yet another US-compliant country. Incidentally, speaking as a Canadian, I reject your ridiculous notion that there are other “countries in the same cultural league” as the United States. Extreme power and wealth, a cultural tradition of self-help, and lots of other “Americanisms” have a role to play in America’s perceived interests that simply don’t exist for other countries. Hence, you get different results. ## Another (disjunct, sorry) thought. If you care about human rights, then incorrectly moralizing about the United States is harmful to your goal, in that it destroys your credibility. Alternatively – and your dubious contributions to other threads would support this idea – you like to scapegoat the US, and you’re brutally misinformed. You’re not alone in that feeling –hell, too many Canadians are with you – but it’s a pretty useless worldview. Frankly, the world has too many moralists as it is. Thank you, straight man! Thankfully, I’m not the only intelligent person on this board. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2008, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-cruel/476654/102 "2008-12-15T14:47:27Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Sorry, I tried to respond to this over the weekend, but kept getting database errors. > > Tables/graphs showing foreign development aid spending per capita pretty consistently put the US between 17th and 20th place, or thereabouts. Here’s a good one - it adjusts for debt forgiveness and other stuff which doesn’t normally count as development aid: > > [http://www.cgdev.org/content/publications/detail/3646/](http://www.cgdev.org/content/publications/detail/3646/) > > (there’s a link at the top to a .pdf - scroll to p. 37.) We are going over the same points which were discussed a couple of months ago in this thread: [Does the US Lead in Anything? - Great Debates - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=484377) ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2008, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-cruel/476654/103 "2008-12-15T15:15:12Z")
> [@shallora](#): > > Thankfully, I’m not the only intelligent person on this board. This thread is not about your or me or any other posters so please leave the personal remarks out of it. The place to talk about your intelligence is the pit. There we often have great fun with people like you. Feel free to open a thread there any time. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2008, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-cruel/476654/104 "2008-12-15T16:34:02Z")
This link [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18868-2004Oct8.html](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18868-2004Oct8.html) (which I got from a thread in the pit) is representative. We often see things like this in America which would be extremely unusual in Europe (I’m not saying they could not happen). America has a very tough attitude towards crime. And crime is anything, no matter how small, which does not fit the letter of the law. that story also reminds me of that video we saw of a paraplegic person being dumped on the floor of a police station by police. Again, I think America just has a very tough attitude and excuses things which would not be excused elsewhere. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-america-cruel/476654.md?page=5)