Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

Post by daenz » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 5:09 PM UTC

coryfklein wrote: post #422

daenz wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The 2nd amendment made a lot of sense when weaponry consisted of horses and rifles, not computer-guided missiles. Let me make sure I understand your basic premise: the ability to defend yourself against a tyrannical dictatorship made sense until the government developed better technology, now it's pointless so just give up your guns? Aside from being completely contrary to the American spirit of defending yourself f…

> Where is the military going to fire those "computer guided missiles?" Blowing up a home or two harboring a "terrorist cell" during a meeting I'm sure will be deterrence enough for a lot of those gun owners. > Are they going to destroy their own infrastructure? The infrastructure is the exact kind of ground that can be held much more securely against pistols and rifles using the U.S.'s advanced weaponry. > Do you th…

Post by andrepd » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 5:09 PM UTC

wysifnwyg wrote: post #384

api wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is the world's #1 carbon emitter, the top emitter per GDP, and has over 200gw of new coal still planned. (For scale, California consumes about 50gw on a hot day.) So they are not even unrelated problems. China is also the top source of plastic in the ocean. Tangent but: the way China turned out has IMHO been the major factor in the collapse of the post cold war neoliberal narrative in the West. The idea was tha…

Before your tangent, I agreed with you.

Post by selimthegrim » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 5:09 PM UTC

Lunatic666 wrote: post #462

umvi wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't force democracy upon people that don't want it and aren't ready for it - it ends disastrously. The US tried to do that in the middle east and failed miserably. The only success story seems to be South Korea, but I would argue they wanted democracy and fought alongside the US for it.

I'd count Germany as a success story, too! First country where democracy stuck after the Americans installed it.

Post by markus_zhang » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 5:10 PM UTC

jhedwards wrote: post #459

loquor wrote: post #349

This might sound alarmist, but do you think China is the biggest upcoming global problem after climate change? For two reasons: 1. China has a totalitarian ruling system. They intend to realize George Orwell's 1984. 2. Present-day China essentially has no ethics. Take the US in comparison. No matter how perverse the people in power become and even if they do messed up things, the US has some founding morals and princ…

> Present-day China essentially has no ethics Source? I lived in China and didn't ever feel like I was in a place without ethics. Different ethics, sure, but it really looks to me like you simply don't know or understand China. The Great Leap Forward had nothing to do with routing out values, it was about hyper-fast industrialization, and it failed. There are real problems with modern China, and, separately, with the…

Post by sho » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 5:11 PM UTC

unethical_ban wrote: post #192

baybal2 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But another question is, what are the protesters supposed to do? But another question is, what people in Beijing supposed to do? Think of that. To many, it's very clear that men in black will not be content even if given suffrage. Then they will want places in legislature, own foreign policy, armed forces, and ultimately sovereignty. The popular sentiment that it's "poor HK kids" coming out at large out of desperat…

The very notion that people want free government and self-determination is a bad thing is why you're being downvoted on an American forum. There is not a lot of support for oppressive governments that commit genocide against religious minorities and put people in prison for political dissidence. You may be playing devil's advocate for the "party" but it comes too close to sounding like you're defending them.