• CosmoNova@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    People who have never experienced democracy and have only been fed lies by their authoritarian government think their country is democratic and equal. Shocker.

    • belochka@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      There’s also been a certain “Soviet democracy”, the democracy perception of which in the polls would be sky high especially under dear Stalin and Voroshilov leading it with iron hand, and less when dissent stopped getting you executed.

      • CosmoNova@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Same thing with China. Dissent gets punished brutally. Young protesters are dying in camps in the thousands. The Chinese government just doesn‘t let the tanks roll in anymore. Instead they utilize mass surveillance to track down each and every protester and deport them from home. Tiananmen square massacres are happening every day behind closed doors. That‘s why the public thinks it‘s a democracy despite one party controlling everything openly, down to who may run against them in local elections. Or they‘re too afraid to say otherwise.

        • belochka@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          And then one can think one step further and realize that western nations are not very far from similarly detecting dissenters before they do anything useful, and they don’t need camps, just subtly directing them in life onto paths not harmful to the establishment and unlikely to bring offspring. Big data and social media magic.

    • Ferrous@lemmy.ml
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      3 days ago

      So then why did Russians in the same study claim abysmal democracy? Aren’t they afraid of the KGB?

      • ohulancutash@feddit.uk
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        3 days ago

        The Russian psyche is one of pessimistic resignation. Its also true that Russia has never experienced free democracy. There are many who believe the fall of the USSR was a terrible thing and they blame “democracy” for their current circumstances. This is part of why Putin gets away with authoritarianism.

        • NonconfrontationaI@lemmy.ml
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          2 days ago

          The American psyche must be fat as fuck and dripping with the blood of the innocent, if we’re generalizing.

        • Ferrous@lemmy.ml
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          3 days ago

          Non sequitur that has absolutely nothing to do with the validity of the graph.