Please don't make sarcastic political jabs on HN. I know it's frustrating when people hold opposing views for seemingly poor reasons, but lashing out harms the (already weak) social fabric here, and makes your own view seem undignified.
Russia doesn't even maintain the slightest veneer of democracy or civic empowerment, and China doesn't really have the capacity to enforce complete compliance from its massive population yet.
That actually makes the position of the US far worse. The US claims to be good in some way, to care about freedom and human rights while at the same time they couldn't care less.
China, Russia, Iran and other such countries - no matter what you may think about their policies - can at least be said to be honest.
That doesn't make them good but it does show that the US isn't better, in fact they are quite a bit worse.
The entire West is working together on intel. You can argure that Europe, Canada etc. are incompetent and weak but you can't argue that they are innocent. They are deeply complicit. But that narrative doesn't work very well.
