121–130 of 189 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's like getting annoyed when people refer to 9/11.
What happened on the 9th November? As the song goes: "Remember remember the fith of November", but I don't remember the 9th. ...supposedly universal cultural references are hard :-)
That appears to be an incredibly classy thing to do, at no small risk to himself. The billionaires have the most to lose with any social unrest, and he exposed himself to support the masses. If so: Respect Counter-possibility: it's a CYA maneuver, which supports both sides simlutaneously and either message can be declared as "intended" post-hoc.
In 2011 he already made comments in support of universal suffrage in Hongkong. Despite what is said in the media I don't think that this is 'brave' to state this opinion. The key is how to say it and how to behave with respect to China and the government.
> The key is how to say it and how to behave with respect to China and the government. Can you elaborate why it matters to be respectful to a dictator for life who puts huge numbers of Uighurs in concentration camps?
* Outright rebellion: Likely to result in large-scale violence and suffering.
* Persistent gradual resistance: Messages like these may gradually sway the government to accept more progressive ideas, become a more legitimate democracy, and develop to a point where such atrocities don't happen. Doing so with an air of respect may make it more likely for mainland citizens and softer-hearted government officials to take your side.
Obviously it'd be best if those responsible for concentration camps just swiftly and permanently lost all their power. But I don't know how one would make that happen.
I dunno, my classical Chinese ain't all that, but I think these guys are straining with the hidden message. It is funny though. I myself am reading quite a bit of meaning into the conspicuous avoidance of the characters "tian", "an", and "men" throughout both ads. The melon ad is fairly defiant, though, in a classy kind of way. If I were a betting man, I'd take the other side. Preserving absolute rule of law in Hong…
The complete hidden message is actually a bit longer:
因果由國，容港治己，義憤民誠
No way that's an accident.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The last time some of the US states tried to secede from the rest of the union and gain their "freedom" (they were of course heavily armed) they were attacked and crushed in a war that lasted 4 years and caused almost a million deaths. So in that case the weapons didn't work. Or did they? Sometimes armed rebellion has good outcomes, sometimes (probably more often) it has horribly tragic ones. Prolonged political pres…
This is a very privileged and perhaps even ignorant view to take. Not everybody has the luxury of waiting for a peaceful revolution to happen.
I'll spare myself the obvious retort. Not everyone has the privilege of starting an armed revolution and succeed, or simply survive. Not everyone who does is guaranteed to be in the right (for example the US states that tried to secede). And the outcome can be complete destruction for yourself, for your city and your region, and hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions displaced and homeless- many of whom couldn't care less about your "revolution".
Do I condemn armed resistance? No. Of course not, sometimes it is inevitable. But the idea that you should distribute firearms to people just in case somebody one day decides he's fed up and wants to start shooting other people for freedom, or for white supremacy, or- why not- for a religious caliphate- that is ridiculous.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why has the US military machine failed to wipe out a few thousand foreign insurgents (generally less well equipped than American civilians) using drones then? Why did many of my peers, troops, die? I have severe doubts that the US could contain a civil uprising scenario, especially given international pressures. About 42% of Americans *live in a household with guns according to Gallup, with approximately 30% owning t…
To add context here, I responded to someone who said the current Hong Kong situation illustrates the importance of the second amendment. Which I think truly was a myopic, insipid comment. As far as your contention that they haven't wiped out a few thousand foreign insurgents, are you referring to Iraq or Afghanistan? Afghanistan is an interesting case, I truly don't understand what the current goal is. I would add th…
My point on the "few thousand insurgents" is more specifically referring to Afghanistan, but I think both apply similarly: that the US has been unable to contain and combat relatively small insurgency movements via direct action, be that boots on the ground or through mechanized warfare. I think if a similar insurgency happened here in America, if say a percent or even less than a percent of Americans engaged in sympathetic action, that it would be nigh impossible to contain given our military's past performance against similar combatants, not even taking into account the nuances of fighting one's own citizenship and the likelihood of disobedience among the state.
Arguments that a scenario could be contained at local, civic levels are valid, but a full-scale conflict between citizens and military would be catastrophic not only for the population but for the administration as well (who wants to blow up all the infrastructure they've built?). The state has a vested interest in not provoking this scenario, which is why I imply the second amendment is important and alive in the US even today although the tides have changed.
In regards to HK, a previous comment above mentioned they have a much more comprehensive "bottom-up" structure of monitoring and enforcing compliance with their citizens. Even if they had a theoretical second amendment, they can still initiate a massive crackdown and have the infrastructure to contain and control their citizenship. Which is frankly terrifying, of course, but the solution isn't necessarily just "give the citizens guns", nor would this ever work on a cultural level.
China does actually have the resources and is in a position to contain civic revolt in nearly all cases, from my point of view. This is vastly different to America, and can't really be easily compared.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Really illustrates the importance of our own second amendment.
Not really. Civil disobedience is the only historically effective way to defeat a modern state. With open warfare, the historical playbook for putting down this sort of thing is clear. Roll in the tanks, and infantry from Mongolia or whatever. Sometimes the revolt get put down immediately, sometimes you end up with guerrilla warfare.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Really illustrates the importance of our own second amendment.
I think the other 26 amendments + constitution probably have more to do individually, and absolutely do as a collective, with the freedoms of our society. I don't know if you've seen an obese person with a peashooter go up against an apache helicopter, for instance, but I don't think the state has had to worry about who can deploy more force in over a century.
If you speak Chinese, you'll find it's very easy to squeeze sentences in exact same characters. Almost all poems in China (except very modern ones) do this. It's so easy that people in forums do this a along - being sarcastic or just funny. You could have positive meaning literally, but hide dirty words in structures. Also because it's so easy that this was defined as serious crime in many dynasties. There were even…
> “everyone knows what 4 / 6 /89 signifies” This annoyed me quite a bit. No I don’t. Most people probably don’t. It’s the date of Tiananmen Square.