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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

#281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course these were not merely their occupation, they were on active duty when they were arrested. With prior cases as precedent, and with how loosely the law is written, the chances of them not being convicted after being charged is slim.

I'm wondering how a social worker could be on "active duty", let alone in a violent protest. I'm also wondering how a member of the emergency services on duty could be arrested. Without details your claims do not make much sense, including your claims about precedents and likelihood of conviction.

I'll try to find some English sources.

Arrest of social worker:

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking-news.php?id=134091&si...

https://www.hongkongfp.com/2019/09/02/catastrophe-hong-kong-...

I might be misremembering the likelihood of being convicted with "riot", but from what I can remember, several people were convicted with riot in the 2016 unrest; they were later acquitted several years later through costly appeals.

Let's see how many gets convicted this time.

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

#282
post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, they did not. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/11/democr... Even Warren agrees DNC was rigged against Sanders. https://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/04/politics/bernie-sanders-2... https://www.washingtonpost.com/gdpr-consent/?destination=%2f...

My eyes are rolling so hard right now. Primaries/caucuses are managed at the state level, and are not controlled directly or indirectly by the DNC. "Bias" means nothing without action, and the claims of "cheating" are completely unfounded (and insulting to the countless thousands of party volunteers who run caucuses and serve as election judges). Bernie lost by three million votes. Not because of cheating, but becaus…

>> Bernie lost by three million votes.

Just like Obama lost by couple of hundred thousand votes?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Democratic_Party_presiden...

"What’s a political party for, anyway?

It’s easy to bash the DNC’s joint fundraising agreement with Clinton, or the leaked emails showing that DNC staffers were supportive of Clinton and frustrated by Sanders. The DNC is meant to be a neutral presence in party primaries, and even minor deviations from that position are affronts.

The harder question in the larger one: What role should party elites play in primaries? It wasn’t that long ago, after all, that they fully decided primaries, meeting in smoky back rooms during the political conventions to hash out the next nominee. Before 2016, the reigning political science theory of primaries was called “the party decides,” and it argued that political elites still largely decided party primaries, albeit through influencing voters rather than controlling convention delegates."

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/14/16640082/...

I think it is quite obvious that the DNC did everything in their power to get rid of Sanders and put HRC into position. The problem was that she was unelectable and many Bernie voters just decided that Trump will be a better president than HRC (and many unfortunate other things, like HRC's popularity went down after every public appearance, all the left leaning social media declared HRC president, etc.).

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

#284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Revolutions don't produce democracies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvet_Revolution

also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_Revolution

there have been quite a few "successful" revolutions.

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

#285
post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Revolutions don't produce democracies.

Then what does produce democracies? There are a bunch of those about at the moment and, while some of them are faux democracies installed by freedom-loving-america there are several legitimate democracies - were they all voluntary transitions initiated by the former monarchs?

> Then what does produce democracies?

European history is not a secret. It was mostly gradual reforms over decades, ending in women's vote around 1920.

On another level, you can think of it as a rising middle class demanding and getting political influence proportional to their economical power.

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

#286
post #268
post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One counterexample is the American Revolution.

The American Revolution shouldn't be considered as a revolution. It was a bunch of organized polities that broke their political ties, but largely preserved their political, economic, and social structures and organized leadership. It was successful in no small part because it was a rebellion rather than a revolution.

> but largely preserved their political, economic, and social structures and organized leadership

TIL we coronated King George Washington I and established yet another divine monarchy.

I mean sure, the colonies ended up directly translating to states, and (some of) those colonies happened to have bicameral legislatures with a lower house consisting of elected representatives, but that's about where the similarities between the colonies and resulting states end. Any existing leadership that continued to lead during/after the revolution did so by democratic rather than autocratic means.

> it was a rebellion rather than a revolution.

Those terms are not mutually exclusive. It was a revolution implemented by rebelling against the British Crown.

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

#287

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.

Don't forget Mexico, Brazil, and a bunch of other Latin American nations.

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

#288
post #191
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Soviet communists also used to say this.

Americans say this all the time, too. Remember McCain, and his promise of one hundred years of war in Iraq?

Seems like that ones coming through on schedule.

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

#289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>only peaceful non-violent struggle can bring about real change. Utterly false, but persistently preached by those in power to ensure there's never any real threat to their position. "Just lie down while I stomp your neck. Don't resist. We'll discuss your objections later, at a more convenient time." All political power emanates from the barrel of a gun. All civil power emanates from the people's latent threat to rev…

> The First Amendment is worthless without the Second Amendment. The 2nd Amendment was never (and still isn't) meant to ensure the right of people to violently resist or overthrow the government. The way to influence the US government is to become involved in the process, not (threaten to) shoot people. If that's ever not the case, you don't have a country, you have a failed state.

In a failed state scenario, as you mentioned, what's the recourse of the people?

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

#290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>only peaceful non-violent struggle can bring about real change. Utterly false, but persistently preached by those in power to ensure there's never any real threat to their position. "Just lie down while I stomp your neck. Don't resist. We'll discuss your objections later, at a more convenient time." All political power emanates from the barrel of a gun. All civil power emanates from the people's latent threat to rev…

> Utterly false, but persistently preached by those in power A non-violent protestor is a person who does not fear anything, and the person who doesn't fear is the most powerful one. Violence is a result of fear, that's the reason need to use weapons and aids to fight back to increase the chances of survival. A true warrior is a fearless person who respond to violence with non-violence and make violent person ashamed…

I get what you're saying and share your idealism. But you've been the beneficiary of many, many guns. And much violence. So while you may sound good, it's not based in reality.

Regardless, violence is relatively at a historically all-time low[1].

[1] https://stevenpinker.com/pages/frequently-asked-questions-ab...

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