In 2005, economist Thomas Friedman wrote that the world, for economic purposes, was flat. In other words, that technological advances were such that a guy in Afghanistan could compete with a woman in Iceland for the dollars of a tweenager in Canada (my poor attempt at illustrating his point). If you haven't read the book by now, go read it to make the writing of this blog entry easier for me. I now argue that perhaps, barriers to entry into tyranny have been removed and when it comes to torture and extrajudicial killings, the world is also flat. Today, the thought crossed my mind that maybe, the same way economies have flattened, so have cultural and political values. I came to this conclusion because I saw several governmental entities engage in torture with impunity, but noticed that only some have been called out for that torture, while others weren't. I have also seen that extra-judicial killings happen regularly in the U.S. without being called extra-judicial killings; ...
These are the meandering thoughts of a smart and competent woman.