Comment by hearsathought
Comment by hearsathought 5 days ago
> What you're describing here (ironically) is unironically the basis for Western political thought.
It's not just "western" political thought if such a thing even exists. It's political thought.
For example, Japan's stated goal in ww2 was to liberate asia from european invaders. They portrayed themselves as the good guys. The liberators. That's true for every empire and war in history, "western" or "eastern" or "northern" or "southern". It was always the self-proclaimed "good guys" fighting self-proclaimed "good guys". The winner gets to keep the "good guy" handle while the loser gets assigned the "bad guy" handle.
Had japan won ww2, that's how history would have taught ww2. Instead, japan lost and the US won and hence we get to claim to be the good guys while japan does not.
Whilst either side can claim to be "good guys", it's important to look at the behaviours exhibited. Obviously, Germany had the concentration camps and Japan brutally tortured prisoners of war, so it does seem quite clear that one side had more respect for human dignity than the other. However, the U.S. did round up Japanese people, but it hardly compares to the atrocities of the Nazis.
Nowadays however, we have the USA rounding up non-white people and putting them in brutal concentration camps (it's not a prison if there's no due process) whilst openly murdering opposition in the streets whilst Germany is acting as a trusted and stable partner. It's not the country, but the monsters that may be put in charge by a misled population.