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Hong Kong leader to announce formal withdrawal of extradition bill

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Re: Hong Kong leader to announce formal withdrawal of extradition bill

#211

Post by amyjess »

vkou wrote: post #185
devchix wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This NPR podcast/article argues different. "...found that major nonviolent campaigns are successful 53% of the time, while violent campaigns are successful only 26% of the time." The Protest Tipping Point (podcast): https://www.npr.org/2019/06/25/736007317/the-protest-tipping... The Magic Number Behind Protests : https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/06/25/735536434/the-...

Was the Civil Rights movement in the United States violent or non-violent? MLK may have been the face of it, but the man that really brought the government to the negotiating table was Malcolm X... Because of the implicit threat that if non-violent resistance won't work, here's a guy that is perfectly happy to have his supporters sit outside congress, armed with assault rifles, exercising their second amendment right…

It should also be pointed out that while MLK wasn't interested in engaging in violence himself, he had rather harsh words for people who cared more about non-violence than civil rights (see: Letter from a Birmingham Jail).

Re: Hong Kong leader to announce formal withdrawal of extradition bill

#212

Post by mytailorisrich »

spacehunt wrote: post #189
mytailorisrich wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I understand HK law correctly there are 2 offences: taking part in a an "illegal assembly" and "rioting". Rioting involves violence and I don't see the government budge on that. The fact that the protesters' demands mention a blanket amnesty and use the term 'riot' makes the demand unpalatable. Regarding illegal assemblies there might be leeway in how strictly people are charged, or whether charges are dropped in…

> Rioting involves violence and I don't see the government budge on that No it doesn't. It's ridiculously easy to be charged for rioting. Here's the legal definition: http://www.hklii.hk/eng/hk/legis/ord/245/s19.html

"breach of the peace"... Considering that the legal system is descended from the British system (and actually this law dates from British rule), this means:

"when a person reasonably believes harm will be caused, or is likely to be caused, to a person or in his presence to his property, or a person is in fear of being harmed through an assault, affray, riot, unlawful assembly, or some other form of disturbance" [1]

This is legal speak to mean violence against people or property.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breach_of_the_peace

Re: Hong Kong leader to announce formal withdrawal of extradition bill

#213

Post by claudiawerner »

i_am_proteus wrote: post #133
nailer wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hong Kong needs people in the PRC to start demanding their own representation. The CCP has might, but not enough to take on the Chinese people a second time. You can't be a people's republic if the people didn't vote for you.

Is this sarcasm? While no authoritarian government can exist with no consent of the government, the PRC has no legal vehicle for citizens to disagree with the state.

Although it's nothing like China, by what means can the average citizen in the UK, for example, raise an issue if their representative is of another party? Example: I care about issue x, but the people I live around don't. So I create a petition on the parliament petition website. Just like every other petition to date (to my knowledge) no change comes about because of it. How can I, as an individual citizen, disagree? Some philosophers of democracy argue that voting isn't worth the cost of actually voting, since your vote is unlikely to make a change in the first place.

Re: Hong Kong leader to announce formal withdrawal of extradition bill

#214

Post by amyjess »

lightedman wrote: post #195
BurningFrog wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Revolutions don't produce democracies.

American Revolution. French Revolution. The entirety of the European Revolutions in the 1850s. The Carnation Revolution. In more modern times, revolutions have pretty much resulted in more democracies than at any other time period.

I don't know if the French Revolution is a good example. It certainly didn't produce a stable democracy. The First Republic quickly turned into an empire, and they didn't get a long-lasting democracy until the Third Republic in 1870, about 80 years after the Revolution.

Re: Hong Kong leader to announce formal withdrawal of extradition bill

#215

Post by spacehunt »

bouncycastle wrote: post #193
mikeash wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And peaceful protestors can also be massacred and completely fail to bring about any change. Peaceful protests can work sometimes. Other times they do nothing. Same with armed resistance. Declaring one or the other to be the only possible way to bring about change is in direct contradiction to the facts.

> And peaceful protestors can also be massacred and completely fail to bring about any change Can you give an example? Every example I can think of right now that had a massacre of innocent protestors and no armed struggle either led to some change later down the road (eg. galvanizing the movement, reforms, or total collapse of the opressor), or became a major problem for the oppressor later down the track. A massacr…

- The 2014 "Umbrella Movement" was peaceful yet the only thing achieved was the incarceration of the student leaders.[0]

- On June 9th this year, a million people joined a peaceful march fighting this bill. Carrie Lam's response? Go ahead with the Second Reading anyway.[1]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umbrella_Movement

[1] https://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/201906/10/P2019061000710...

Re: Hong Kong leader to announce formal withdrawal of extradition bill

#216

Post by BurningFrog »

lightedman wrote: post #195
BurningFrog wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Revolutions don't produce democracies.

American Revolution. French Revolution. The entirety of the European Revolutions in the 1850s. The Carnation Revolution. In more modern times, revolutions have pretty much resulted in more democracies than at any other time period.

Well, when a society is ready for democracy, removing the old regime can produce democracy.

If it's a domestic dictatorship, it will usually evolve into a democracy on its own.

If it's a foreign power oppressing an inherently democratic nation, a revolution might have good results. This is one way to think of the American Revolution, as well as the Eastern European liberation.

You should read up on the French Revolution. It led to phenomenal amounts of tyranny and war. The small flickers of democracy were soon extinguished.

Re: Hong Kong leader to announce formal withdrawal of extradition bill

#217

Post by billfruit »

lacker wrote: post #194
BurningFrog wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Revolutions don't produce democracies.

One counterexample is the American Revolution.

I doubt if the early United States was very much democratic in the modern sense.

Re: Hong Kong leader to announce formal withdrawal of extradition bill

#218

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

i_am_proteus wrote: post #133
nailer wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hong Kong needs people in the PRC to start demanding their own representation. The CCP has might, but not enough to take on the Chinese people a second time. You can't be a people's republic if the people didn't vote for you.

Is this sarcasm? While no authoritarian government can exist with no consent of the government, the PRC has no legal vehicle for citizens to disagree with the state.

Every party member can petition the state to make changes.

Re: Hong Kong leader to announce formal withdrawal of extradition bill

#219

Post by throwaway1997 »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #24
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There objectively has been rioting going on and no government will accept to send the message that it is acceptable to throw petrol bombs or to ransack government buildings, or to use violence in general I believe most protesters would agree with that. The fear is authorities using riot laws against peaceful protesters. In this, again, there is reasonable compromise.

If I understand HK law correctly there are 2 offences: taking part in a an "illegal assembly" and "rioting". Rioting involves violence and I don't see the government budge on that. The fact that the protesters' demands mention a blanket amnesty and use the term 'riot' makes the demand unpalatable. Regarding illegal assemblies there might be leeway in how strictly people are charged, or whether charges are dropped in…

It's referring to a specific event on June 12th where police referred to a peaceful protest as a riot.

Re: Hong Kong leader to announce formal withdrawal of extradition bill

#220

Post by seanmcdirmid »

whoevercares wrote: post #99
AFascistWorld wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that's not how economics works, it's like you can't just close your eyes to rocketing condo prices and expect evetything else to remain the same like salaries. Every animal protein source will be driven to raise prices coz it's not like China could produce vastly more but refrained, arable land is not enough, it imports 30% of it's food, they just can't produce the cheap feed crops needed not to mention the…

>Recent 15 years Impressive how arrogant and ignorant this statement is. 15 years ago is 2004 and fk how superior am I to eat meat since 80’s in a third tier city

I agree. When I lived in China in 2002, meat wasn’t that rare, even in tier 88 cities I travelled to. The cafeterias in Beijing’s universities definitely had no problem finding it. Maybe in the 70s and early 80s?
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