Tag: torture
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USA and its relationship to torture
The United States presents itself as the global defender of democracy and human rights. It celebrates its constitution, its freedoms, and its rule of law. Yet beneath this image lies a darker tradition. Torture has accompanied American power since its birth. It took different forms in different eras, but the pattern remained. Cruelty was used…
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Countries having brutal prisons fail as states
Brutal prisons are not a show of order, discipline, or state power. They are symptoms of state failure. Whenever a prison is run through violence, extortion, and gang dominance, it signals that the government has lost its basic monopoly on force. Prisons are not separate worlds. They are mirrors of the wider society. If the…
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We should be thankful we are ruled by the elites
Elites provoke resentment. They hoard influence, they protect their own circles, and they rarely face the same consequences as the rest of society. Yet without them, things would collapse far quicker. For all their corruption and arrogance, elites impose restraint. They keep crowds from turning fear into brutality, they delay rash decisions. They write rules…
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Why we don’t want Russian values
Russia constantly claims to offer an alternative to the Western world. It speaks of “traditional values”—order, faith, patriotism, and family. To many disillusioned by Western politics, this sounds appealing. However, Russian values are not spiritual or moral. Rather, they are hierarchical, brutal, and enforced through fear. What the Kremlin markets as stability is, in reality,…
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Dystopia: People don’t do things because of morality
Well-read people are fully aware that people do things because of resources (in today’s society: money, stocks, cars, and so on) and not morality. Of course, we have complex submissive-dominant relationships, which may be based on morality (for example, paramedics), and people promote which relationships should exist (for example, the police, firefighters), but people don’t…
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Fighting for prison reform
Prisons exist to punish, deter, and rehabilitate. This balance shapes justice systems worldwide, yet many prisons fail in their purpose, focusing more on vengeance than on reform. Some conditions resemble medieval dungeons rather than modern correctional facilities. Societies demand justice, but cruelty in prisons does not reduce crime. Reform must address excessive punishment, introduce effective…
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Czech media propaganda and Russo-Ukrainian war
They say propaganda was a product of the previous communist regime. Dead wrong! As a person who refuses autocracy, and therefore supports the current efforts to defeat Russia in the Russo-Ukrainian war, I cannot see the obvious propaganda and enormously biased journalism. Czech media propaganda works to its fullest. Since the Western banks rule the…
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Israelis and Palestinians’ common enemy: critical thinking
Either you are pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinains on X. So these two sides label each other as the worst scum. And if you are objective, maintain the absence of cognitive biases, fallacies, informal fallacies and uphold moral values, well, you are scum too. I have made an observation – Israelis and Palestinians have a common enemy…
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Criminal government. What government isn’t criminal?
The Czech Republic has the privilege to have a dissident who, having suffered under communism, has turned his back. Nevertheless, Petr Cibulka started to claim that the only possible way out of the decay the Czech Republic was and is experiencing is the Swiss model of direct democracy that, in my opinion, doesn’t work even…
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Drug money laundering more profitable than the legal market
Every educated person knows the War on Drugs is an utter failure. It is widely criticized for its failure and harmful consequences. It hasn’t reduced drug production, distribution, or use. The global drug trade thrives despite the massive efforts. So is drug money laundering more profitable than legalization? The costs are immense. Mass incarcerations disproportionately…