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Hong Kong protests: Authorities to announce face mask ban

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Hong Kong protests: Authorities to announce face mask ban

#81

Post by CharlesColeman »

p9264throw wrote: post #64
CharlesColeman wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Recently, I’ve been thinking about the HK scenario and wondering what I can do, but I can’t shake a nagging feeling that I could simply go over there and fight alongside the protestors. I often deflect with observations like “I don’t speak the language,” or “I don’t know what I would do to help,” and yet the thought keeps coming back. I'd say do it, if you feel this way. This guy did it: https://idlewords.com/2019/…

This makes me wonder, how does the CIA decide which governments to target? We know of their involvements in Central and South America, along with the Middle East. Wouldn’t this be a great opportunity for them to get involved?

Just to be clear: the HK protests are a legitimate, organic protest movement, and the allegations of CIA involvement are lies meant to discredit them. The protesters are actually getting their material support from older Hongkonger sympathizers, not foreigners: https://www.wsj.com/articles/you-dont-have-to-face-it-alone-...

> Wouldn’t this be a great opportunity for them to get involved?

There's no opportunity for their involvement. How, exactly would they get involved anyway? Direct CIA involvement would be counterproductive and against any goal they may have, since the protests are organically strong on their own and the CIA could only weaken them.

Re: Hong Kong protests: Authorities to announce face mask ban

#82

Post by kmonsen »

malandrew wrote: post #7
loceng wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. They've been educated about history and understand what's at stake. I wish the rest of democratic societies would already be taking a strong stand with them. The tyrannical powers in control of China at the moment, much like Trump's rise, will be countered at the HK situations wakens us to the behaviour of China's tyrants until now relative limited light being shone on their bad behaviours. Edit: Especially c…

It’s probably mentioning Trump that gets you downvoted. He definitely leans authoritarian on many issues, but so do most of the democrats he’s running against in 2020. Where these two flavors of authoritarian differ is the issues they are authoritarian on. Whether or not someone downvotes you probably has most to do with which issues they are most concerned about with respect to the authoritarian we get. If someone i…

This is just not true. Authoritarian governments are kept in check by free speech and openness of government. Sanders and Warren are clearly if favor of citizens being in charge of the government.

Re: Hong Kong protests: Authorities to announce face mask ban

#83

Post by jlmorton »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #79
jlmorton wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If protesters in the US were throwing petrol bombs, the police in the US would begin shooting people en masse. If there were months of mass protests in the US, the national guard would be called in to stop them, with full military equipment. This is what happened in Ferguson, for instance, and the police there did shoot and kill at least one protester. What happens domestically, we refer to as riots. What happens int…

IMO, once you are no longer peaceful, you are rioting. You can’t claim to be protesting if you’re running around lighting cars on fire because you’re harming innocent bystanders. Once you harm someone who is not involved, you’re rioting.

And that's a perfectly defensible position, as long you apply it equally.

Many of the protests in Hong Kong have been anything but peaceful. They are throwing Molotov cocktails, destroying buildings, smashing and flipping cars, setting fires, breaking into the Legislative Council building, taking over the airport, physically attacking the police.

In Hong Kong, the protests began over an extradition bill which would have subjected Hong Kongers to Mainland China's opaque justice system. That's a pretty good cause for protest, but it doesn't strike me as significantly more noble than wanting the police in the US to stop shooting young black men, for instance.

Here's my weird position: I support the Hong Kong protesters and their goals, and even their methods. At the same time, I think it's weird that Western media consistently portrays the police in Hong Kong as aggressive. To my mind, they've been significantly _more restrained_ than the police in most Western countries would be.

If people are rioting, it's perfectly natural the police would take aggressive actions to stop that. No one gets to decide that it's okay to riot without repercussion.

At the same time, some of the fastest positive change that has happened in society came as a result of rioting. Only history gets to decide if it was justified.

Re: Hong Kong protests: Authorities to announce face mask ban

#84

Post by CharlesColeman »

thewholeview wrote: post #74
plazmaphyujin wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a total misunderstanding of freedom of speech and the first amendment. Freedom of speech does not mean you are free to say anything to anyone and never face consequences for your choices. The concept of freedom is to be free from the government officially and legally restricting your right to publicly address your grievances. China's citizens do not have this freedom. Just because taxi drivers are not afraid…

Thanks for the perspective, I will openly admit that my understanding of freedom of speech is lacking/different than others' understanding. I think what's interesting is the idea behind. Either your example or my example of freedom of speech is purely political, which we must recognize. Let's take a step back and consider a company. The management sets up an orderly system (or so they think). If the company is progre…

> To many of those in China who do not wish to practice in politics, especially since the Communist has produced an unprecedented growth in the last decade

The Communists certainly take credit for that growth, but did they cause it?

> What's being preached often in the western world however, is a utilization of a "lack of freedom of speech" as a weaponry towards an uprising China that will threaten US's dominance. There is nothing wrong with that, it's only a bit hypocritical that's all, but thus is politics.

That's a misreading. Free speech and the suppression of civil rights are genuine and very important moral issues in the western world. It's not some hypocritical political "weapon" deployed to maintain "dominance."

Re: Hong Kong protests: Authorities to announce face mask ban

#85

Post by loceng »

malandrew wrote: post #7
loceng wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. They've been educated about history and understand what's at stake. I wish the rest of democratic societies would already be taking a strong stand with them. The tyrannical powers in control of China at the moment, much like Trump's rise, will be countered at the HK situations wakens us to the behaviour of China's tyrants until now relative limited light being shone on their bad behaviours. Edit: Especially c…

It’s probably mentioning Trump that gets you downvoted. He definitely leans authoritarian on many issues, but so do most of the democrats he’s running against in 2020. Where these two flavors of authoritarian differ is the issues they are authoritarian on. Whether or not someone downvotes you probably has most to do with which issues they are most concerned about with respect to the authoritarian we get. If someone i…

People feeling a quick reward by a dopamine hit of clicking the downvote certainly isn't based on someone's political leanings, who they like or dislike, and certainly is due to laziness - regardless of whatever labels you give yourself.

Likewise, Trump's behaviour is in a completely different league than what any other politician in the US has presented - regardless if self-labeling as Democratic or Republican; albeit it is becoming more and more clear who is a disgrace to humanity.

Warren I'm not sure of, with Sanders I agree - at least with the Federal Jobs Guarantee is the wrong solution because it kills the power and efficiency that capitalism allows in a free market, fluid system - that efficiency which requires hierarchy of expertise to lead and teach, and that require making micro and macro decisions quickly for every decision possible; a bureaucratic government agency simply can't incentivize people, leaders, to reward them for what they deserve for who they are and what they know they are leading towards. I agree with your sentiment that "big government knows best for you" is badly implemented in most cases - and why I believe POTUS candidate Andrew Yang (yang2020.com) will win: his Freedom Dividend (UBI, Universal Basic Income) of giving every adult American $1,000 / month is taking the decision making away from the government and giving it to each individual to decide for themselves; the small, simple role of the government here then is simply collecting the VAT tax and distributing the $.

I don't worry about downvotes - however the mechanism generally infuriates me though as it's horrible for learning opportunities, self-development, communication/language and community development. A huge thank you to you for taking the time to respond, even though someone (not me) downvoted you - someone lazy or inarticulate - under developed, unchecked thoughts through critical thinking process nor peer review perhaps fear of ridicule or finding it would be a "waste of time" - so they simply "contribute" by a quick click of the downvote.

P.S. I had to wait initially 1 hour before I last tried replying - as I apparently some mechanism triggered - presumably by the small number of downvotes all of my comments were getting - to say I was "posting too frequently." And it's been 3+ hours now that I try again. If this doesn't work then I've been blocked from commenting - for how long then I wonder, and why.

Re: Hong Kong protests: Authorities to announce face mask ban

#86

Post by gowld »

knzhou wrote: post #51
calderarrow wrote: post #25

During the American revolutionary war, France was a tremendous ally and instrumental to the colonies’ secession from Britain. The Marquis de Lafayette came over to fight for us, without pay, in his early 20s, forgoing his family’s desires and aristocratic opportunities. His family was so opposed to him going to the colonies, that local governments were involved in finding and preventing him from boarding ships. He ev…

You’d do more harm than good. Your “fighting for glory” is somebody else’s “insidious foreign intervention”. Let the people speak for themselves.

What about Chinese Communist Party, which has no problem performing "insidious foreign intervention" at scale in Hong Kong?

What about the people who say they want support? Do their needs matter? N

ational govements are convenient fictions, not natural laws. We are all kin on this planet Earth.

Imagine if the US civil war was never fought, because it was up to the slaves to "speak for themselves" (by which you mean fight by themselves) about their slavery.

Imagine if the US never joined WW II, because it was up to the Holocause victims to "speak for themselves".

Re: Hong Kong protests: Authorities to announce face mask ban

#87

Post by loceng »

squarefoot wrote: post #73
scohesc wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't compare the Chinese government's actions to the Trump administration. They're not even remotely close.

They aren't close because they don't need to at the moment. All "western" nations populations have been divided and conquered long time ago so that for every group of righties/lefties protesting down the street there's an opposed lefties/righties countering group somewhere making the news, so that for any 50% of the population the enemy becomes the other 50%, not the rulers, and thanks to well crafted propaganda the…

The scenario you paint here would only be true if a society's population truly were "enemies" and holding very different human beliefs, wants - which fortunately isn't the case - because the people of a nation evolve together generally; the problem arises when you mix two different people from different nations with different cultures, where this "50/50" destructive behaviour can exist - say when the native Americans were mostly wiped out, another scenario would be if somehow you dropped 10%+ of China's population into America all of a sudden or vice-versa. Historically this was a common war tactic - and still to this day we can see it in Canada, for example, with student protestors who are pro-China, indoctrinated into pro-China doctrine - the hypocrisy of having the freedom to protest in support of a nation state who disallows free speech and reigns supreme with censorship; we can't judge these people harshly, with compassion we understand they've been indoctrinated - their own safety and that of their friends and family may also rest in the balance - and it makes me feel like an important part of immigration should be education to de-brainwash them to make sure they understand these mechanisms of tyrants, suppression-repression of freedom, of control.

Otherwise you paint an unrealistic, bleak picture which isn't grounded in reality if there's optimism and humanity included.

Re: Hong Kong protests: Authorities to announce face mask ban

#88

Post by joyeuse6701 »

jlmorton wrote: post #83
colejohnson66 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO, once you are no longer peaceful, you are rioting. You can’t claim to be protesting if you’re running around lighting cars on fire because you’re harming innocent bystanders. Once you harm someone who is not involved, you’re rioting.

And that's a perfectly defensible position, as long you apply it equally. Many of the protests in Hong Kong have been anything but peaceful. They are throwing Molotov cocktails, destroying buildings, smashing and flipping cars, setting fires, breaking into the Legislative Council building, taking over the airport, physically attacking the police. In Hong Kong, the protests began over an extradition bill which would h…

You're right, but I imagine that is more of a racial thing. White protestors get away with much more it seems than the black.

Re: Hong Kong protests: Authorities to announce face mask ban

#89

Post by PavlovsCat »

calderarrow wrote: post #25

During the American revolutionary war, France was a tremendous ally and instrumental to the colonies’ secession from Britain. The Marquis de Lafayette came over to fight for us, without pay, in his early 20s, forgoing his family’s desires and aristocratic opportunities. His family was so opposed to him going to the colonies, that local governments were involved in finding and preventing him from boarding ships. He ev…

This made me both very sad and very proud at the same time:

https://www.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/comments/dceatj/i_...

Re: Hong Kong protests: Authorities to announce face mask ban

#90

Post by lammasass »

CharlesColeman wrote: post #35
calderarrow wrote: post #25

During the American revolutionary war, France was a tremendous ally and instrumental to the colonies’ secession from Britain. The Marquis de Lafayette came over to fight for us, without pay, in his early 20s, forgoing his family’s desires and aristocratic opportunities. His family was so opposed to him going to the colonies, that local governments were involved in finding and preventing him from boarding ships. He ev…

> Recently, I’ve been thinking about the HK scenario and wondering what I can do, but I can’t shake a nagging feeling that I could simply go over there and fight alongside the protestors. I often deflect with observations like “I don’t speak the language,” or “I don’t know what I would do to help,” and yet the thought keeps coming back. I'd say do it, if you feel this way. This guy did it: https://idlewords.com/2019/…

Why not fight for your own country? The western world has its own share of issues, ranging from a steep increase in far right politics to corruption and poor administration. Not that i don’t support helping hk, but your plan sounds a bit rich.
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