sparky@lemmy.federate.cc

Cuba’s one-party communist state outlaws political pluralism, bans independent media, suppresses dissent, and severely restricts basic civil liberties.

Cuba lacks basic freedom of speech or freedom of the press, to say the absolute least. Typical tankie whatabout-ism. In fact, you’re proving the point of the person I originally replied to in this thread!

https://freedomhouse.org/country/cuba

Their claim denial rate is probably “good” for the share price. Less claim payouts equals more money equals more shareholder value. Morbid, isn’t it?

Authoritarianism doesn’t necessarily require nationalism or vice versa, though they’re often linked, that doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. The USA is pretty flag waving, nationalist brained but individual freedom exists. Versus a country like Saudi as you mention is not particularly nationalist, but repression is widespread.

They are quite different than Russia, but looking only at individual freedom, the two are similar in that freedom of speech is not respected and leaders are not fairly elected.

I think some aspects of freedom are to some extent objectively observable, eg, is freedom of speech or religion observed? These can exist independently of US alignment - there are many countries in the global south that can qualify as free or partially free.

IMO this is why it takes an additional axis to define a government, not just left/right but also free/authoritarian. You can find examples of all combinations. Left wing and repressive? Cuba. Left leaning and free? Sweden. Right wing and repressive? Russia, Saudi Arabia, whatever. Right leaning and free (mostly)? USA.

Obviously, there’s a gradient within these axes, but it’s strange to see people cheering on a country that matches their preferred left or right wing ideology if they’re super repressive.

Just adding to this, some history if anyone is curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Vienna

Austria has, with widespread high quality public housing.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/jan/10/the-social-housing-secret-how-vienna-became-the-worlds-most-livable-city

There are some waitlists and whatnot still, but arguably the bigger impact is that the increased housing supply has kept private rents very affordable too.