I feel like people who lived in corrupt countries have a lot to teach Americans, who now live in an openly corrupt one... How to grease wheels, how to make powerful friends for one's own advantage.
(Sure maybe the "elite" were already obviously openly corrupt, but now that it's reached to the lower levels of society...).
America is not a corrupt country in the sense that places overseas are. You will go to jail for trying to openly bribe the police here and political hysterics aside rule of law generally prevails.
What has happened is that America has slipped from being a high trust society to a medium trust one.
> from being a high trust society to a medium trust one
I think both falsehoods here are things many people want to believe because not being just like all those other places “overseas” is important to the cultural identity.
Not really. The difference is police in poorer countries can be bribed with the amount of cash you can keep in a wallet. In the US, it requires a large public donation to a political campaign or "charity". Bribes very much exist, and if you think you can't do it, that just means you're not rich enough. In poor countries too, the ones getting arrested are the ones who can't afford the bribes.
I like the use of "go dark" when discussing police, considering so many American police agencies now use black patrol cars with black lettering on them so they can't be seen.
Meanwhile, in the UK, police cars are tarted up with fluorescent geometric patterns to make them as visible as possible.
It certainly shows a contrast in intent. One is "Here I am, come to me for help!" and the other is "I'm the secret police, show me your papers while I switch off my body camera."
Yeah this is a silly cultural thing. I participate in a non-law enforcement, completely volunteer emergency response organization, and other members will buy black tactical vests that "look cool" with their name and the organization on them. Meanwhile... I wear the... brightest most neon thing I possibly can because when I am in the middle of a four lane road directing traffic, I want to be brighter than the sun because I don't want to get hit.
From volunteers up to the ICE gestapo, people watch too much TV where the cops get to shoot things up and look awesome doing it, and that's often what they want to be.
Most countries have both marked and unmarked police cars.
Now, there are counties / cities in the USA where the requirement on contract between text color and body color aren't as clear, and then are abused by the police to have even their marked vehicles blend in more.
If the police were intentionally there to help then they wouldn't be abusing this loophole, or the people making the rules would correct it. The fact that they don't is the tell.
We’re Sorry!
This website is unavailable in your location.
Error 451
It appears you are attempting to access this website from a country outside of the United States, therefore access cannot be granted at this time.
I spent a couple years in Europe and found that most local news websites in the US blocked access entirely. My guess was that they all share IT resources / policies of the conglomerate news corp, who decided it would be cheaper to simply ignore traffic from GDRP countries.
I have the same experience. I assumed it was a mix of (as you say) not wanting to deal with EU rules, but also not wanting to deal with licensing concerns (eg "do I have the right to show this media in this country").
Part of why I assumed the latter is that sports, in particular, had a high occurrence of "this content isn't available where you are" blocks.
There are a thousand and one legal reasons one may wish to block a region, including Europe. From anti-gay speech laws in Hungary, through the VAT/tax obligations that kick in at one cent, to all sorts of watershed rules and disclaimers and alien and unjust laws (such as lese majeste laws, or absurd British 'online safety' laws).
Every day I see Europeans on here sharing tips how to de-cloud and de-America, bemoaning the open Internet, yearning for Balkanisation. Cool. Well, this site does it for you. You're welcome! Enjoy!
While it may not look flattering, it is absolutely a correct usage of the 451 status code. From the standard itself[1]:
This status code can be used to provide transparency in circumstances
where issues of law or public policy affect server operations. This
transparency may be beneficial both to these operators and to end
users.
...
This status code indicates that the server is denying access to the
resource as a consequence of a legal demand.
You could get pedantic over whether or not this counts as a legal demand, but the example makes it relatively clear that "legal demand" here is fairly broad.
GDPR law does indeed make it illegal to serve certain web pages to EU visitors. If the operators are not willing to make amendments to comply with the law, then responding with HTTP 451 is the most correct thing to do. It doesn't mean the law is inherently bad, but it does mean that serving the request would be illegal, because that is how the law is written.
If this feels "completely inappropriate", then maybe it's because the modern web platform is completely ass-backwards in the first place. One must wonder why we're continuing to tolerate giving effectively static web pages so many privileges on our computers passively. I think browsers should flat-out start removing said privileges from websites that abuse them.
Readit News
(Sure maybe the "elite" were already obviously openly corrupt, but now that it's reached to the lower levels of society...).
What has happened is that America has slipped from being a high trust society to a medium trust one.
I think both falsehoods here are things many people want to believe because not being just like all those other places “overseas” is important to the cultural identity.
Not going to agree or disagree, but I just want to make sure you're claiming that while being fully aware of, say, the following:
https://www.insidernj.com/the-abcs-of-pba-cards/
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-aide-homan-accepted-5...
In addition:
Things you can do in the USA right now without punishment (as long as you the corrcect kind of Republican)
* Try to kill the vice president.
* Terrorize the capital
* Try to kill police
* Rape
* Being a pedophile
Things you can and will be killed or punished for, or that the government is getting vigilantes to go after.
* Walking
* Exercising your rights under the Bill of Rights
* Literally upholding the law
* Speaking negatively about the President
* Following Christianity
* Being Jewish
So, yeah, it's fairly corrupt.
I haven't even talked about the white collar crimes that are happening every day. But none of the above is hyperbole.
I am absolutely not convinced of this. I truly believe a significant fraction of US police would, and perhaps do, accept bribes.
it's been like that as long as I can remember
also, in the late 80s I remember my GF's father bribing the SF building inspector to overlook something.
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Meanwhile, in the UK, police cars are tarted up with fluorescent geometric patterns to make them as visible as possible.
It certainly shows a contrast in intent. One is "Here I am, come to me for help!" and the other is "I'm the secret police, show me your papers while I switch off my body camera."
From volunteers up to the ICE gestapo, people watch too much TV where the cops get to shoot things up and look awesome doing it, and that's often what they want to be.
Can I ask you to expand on this part? I’m really, sincerely curious.
Now, there are counties / cities in the USA where the requirement on contract between text color and body color aren't as clear, and then are abused by the police to have even their marked vehicles blend in more.
If the police were intentionally there to help then they wouldn't be abusing this loophole, or the people making the rules would correct it. The fact that they don't is the tell.
Police are supposed to "protect and serve."
Maybe cops should start logging a breathalyzer result at clock in/clock out.
We’re Sorry! This website is unavailable in your location.
Error 451 It appears you are attempting to access this website from a country outside of the United States, therefore access cannot be granted at this time.
Part of why I assumed the latter is that sports, in particular, had a high occurrence of "this content isn't available where you are" blocks.
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BTW, https://archive.is/2Xln7
Every day I see Europeans on here sharing tips how to de-cloud and de-America, bemoaning the open Internet, yearning for Balkanisation. Cool. Well, this site does it for you. You're welcome! Enjoy!
GDPR law does indeed make it illegal to serve certain web pages to EU visitors. If the operators are not willing to make amendments to comply with the law, then responding with HTTP 451 is the most correct thing to do. It doesn't mean the law is inherently bad, but it does mean that serving the request would be illegal, because that is how the law is written.
If this feels "completely inappropriate", then maybe it's because the modern web platform is completely ass-backwards in the first place. One must wonder why we're continuing to tolerate giving effectively static web pages so many privileges on our computers passively. I think browsers should flat-out start removing said privileges from websites that abuse them.
[1]: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7725
To be pedantic, they aren't refusing to protect privacy, they're refusing to comply with GDPR which requires more than just protecting privacy.
It could be that they just don't want to put a big dumb banner on their site.
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