I’m not skeptical per se. I’ve just been propagandized so fucking much—I grew up watching those propagandocumentaries on the National Geographic Channel about the DPRK, etc., fr that was what I watched instead of cartoons lol.
Pretend I’m a lib who you’re trying to convince, or something. In addition to calming this feeling in my gut like something isn’t making sense, I want to be able to make this argument, myself.
Wed probably need to start by picking one country to focus on at a time.
Off the top of my head, Cuba has some top notch laws that enshrine rights for queer people, or at least laws surrounding that that put America to shame. That's a huge W worth pointing out to people.
this was reported on as the new "cuban family law" or something like that, and the absolute gigachads passed a fuckload of queer rights by referendum and against the objection of the shit-ass catholic bigots they tolerate for some reason.
Yeah that was really an incredible effort. When they are still convincing themselves that supreme court judicial fiat is actually a positive force in US politics, libs love to say how the supreme court gave civil rights, abortion rights, protection to interracial marriage, etc. before it was broadly popular with the population. The difference between that, and how celebrated it is/was, and the process by which the Cuban family code changes were enacted, is very telling of the difference between the US and Cuba.
In the US, unelected judges get to grant and take away what should be pretty fundamental rights, at will, because we are too cowardly to enshrine them, and this is celebrated as progressive, at least when it goes liberals' way.
In Cuba, there was an extensive process of consultation with the public, soliciting policy ideas and facilitating public discussion and education. It was, in effect, a process of consensus-building, for months and years leading up to the changes. Which is how they are able to strongly enshrine such rights legally, but also, a broadly supportive population is a much better guarantor of those rights than some unelected judges on a packed, politicized court.
Cuba stays winning forever. Truly based.