Many people on lemmy.ml deeply respect and admire authoritarian governments and organizations.
Iran, China, North Korea, Soviet Union…
The West has many flaws. But our flaws are nothing compared to these guys.
Iran hangs homosexuals. Iran shot 30,000 people in less than than 2 weeks. The Soviet Union had to build a fucking Iron wall to prevent people from escaping. The Soviets lied about the Chernobyl nuclear explosion. China censors the internet. China wants to eliminate Islam. North Korea is a totalitarian hellscape. Watching anime is a crime.
Why is lemmy.ml so fascinated with authoritarians?
Maybe a naive question but is there no way to have a country that stands strong against the US and its interference without being repressive/authoritarian against your own people? What’s the point of being a socialist dictator for many years/decades if you’re not allowing the people to gain collective control of the land/resources/means of production/etc. for their own benefit?
Socialist countries are generally more liberating for their working classes than oppressive, hence high public support, but necessarily curb absolute freedoms such as those of capitalists.
I think the trouble is that “freedome of speech”, “freedom of expression”, etc. can be and are weaponized by colonial/hegemonic forces.
But, that said, that’s why I am not 100% supportive of this view. Possibly naïvely on my end, I think those sorts of freedoms are important not only for individuals but also as a check on state power. That said, I see how manipulative the US state department can be - and for that matter how manipulative foreign govts have been to the US - especially in recent election cycles… so I think it is a double edged sword.
That’s part of the reason I am also not a full blown anarchist/libertarian socialist. I can see the value in centralized state power when it comes to defending the state and people