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'We good now China?' South Park creators issue mock apology

theguardian.com

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Re: 'We good now China?' South Park creators issue mock apology

#211

Post by tdb7893 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #200
azangru wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Calling our rights "privilege" is throwing out the struggle and sacrifice of everyone that fought for those rights. But isn't it the very definition of privilege, when through no effort of your own you get to enjoy the benefits for which others have "fought", "struggled", and "sacrificed"? How is it different from the privilege of being born into a rich (or just functional) family? > You may have been Lucky to have…

> But isn't it the very definition of privilege, when through no effort of your own you get to enjoy the benefits for which others have "fought", "struggled", and "sacrificed"? How is it different from the privilege of being born into a rich (or just functional) family? The reason this framing is despicable is that rights and privileges are not the same. Being able to afford a Lexus is a privilege. Not everyone has i…

I think that this distinction isn't widely understood as the definition of privilege. If you look it up in a dictionary privileges you'll see a lot of definitions where privileges are defined as a special case of rights so they are most definitely not mutually exclusive

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/privilege

Re: 'We good now China?' South Park creators issue mock apology

#212

Post by delecti »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #200
azangru wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Calling our rights "privilege" is throwing out the struggle and sacrifice of everyone that fought for those rights. But isn't it the very definition of privilege, when through no effort of your own you get to enjoy the benefits for which others have "fought", "struggled", and "sacrificed"? How is it different from the privilege of being born into a rich (or just functional) family? > You may have been Lucky to have…

> But isn't it the very definition of privilege, when through no effort of your own you get to enjoy the benefits for which others have "fought", "struggled", and "sacrificed"? How is it different from the privilege of being born into a rich (or just functional) family? The reason this framing is despicable is that rights and privileges are not the same. Being able to afford a Lexus is a privilege. Not everyone has i…

Being able to afford a Lexus is a privilege, but it is not an example of capital-P "Privilege" [1]. Not every lower-case p privilege (perk) is an example of capital-P Privilege.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_privilege

Re: 'We good now China?' South Park creators issue mock apology

#213

Post by qnsi »

rpmisms wrote: post #72
bluntfang wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>One wonders if there is an entire revolutionary class within China sharing South Park videos for freedom. I've noticed a trend on this site in particular where we collectively wonder if our western media is a part of Chinese counter-culture. Is this hubris uniquely American?

There's also the fact that western media is extremely popular in oppressed countries. For example: Osama Bin Laden loved Disney cartoons, and Kim Jong Un has a macOS lookalike linux distro on his computer.

I wonder if Kim Jong Un browses HN

Re: 'We good now China?' South Park creators issue mock apology

#215

Post by tin7in »

cestith wrote: post #145
Roark66 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think many Chinese citizens are taught from a very young age a carefully crafted ideology that tells them that their country used to be oppressed by the west, that the west despises them and looks down at them because they are Chinese. At the same time they are taught Chinese people couldn't handle the kind of "freedom" that exists in the west because politically the country would fracture and chaos would ensue, al…

To be fair, the Chinese have in fact been treated horribly many times in many places by many other countries including at least the US and Japan.

Don't forget the Opium Wars and the Eight-Nation Alliance against China. Almost all powerful states in Europe fought against China in the 19th century. My mainland Chinese friends know those conflicts in detail from their history classes, something that is not taught in much detail in schools in continental Europe.

Re: 'We good now China?' South Park creators issue mock apology

#216

Post by jdm2212 »

jimclegg wrote: post #201
throwaway_bad wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes we forget that getting disappeared in china is not just a meme. Police will show up to arrest you just for posting comments online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCOAbkTs_a4

Looks similar to what happens in the UK - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DF_rvhsGjBM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1Xr4nfKsWk Wonder what she typed.

One is a country with rule of law enforcing its laws. The other is an autocracy enforcing the whims of the current ruler.

Re: 'We good now China?' South Park creators issue mock apology

#217

Post by bryanrasmussen »

azangru wrote: post #186
StaticRedux wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not privilege. It's a right the country has fought and died for for over 200 years. It's a principle the country was founded on. "Privilege" has lost all meaning in today's world. It's just a word to throw around to slow how "woke" you are. Calling our rights "privilege" is throwing out the struggle and sacrifice of everyone that fought for those rights. You may have been Lucky to have been born in the US, but n…

> Calling our rights "privilege" is throwing out the struggle and sacrifice of everyone that fought for those rights. But isn't it the very definition of privilege, when through no effort of your own you get to enjoy the benefits for which others have "fought", "struggled", and "sacrificed"? How is it different from the privilege of being born into a rich (or just functional) family? > You may have been Lucky to have…

If I google privilege definition google tells me

'a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group. "education is a right, not a privilege"'

Obviously whoever wrote that should be penalized because they mucked it up with their example, if privilege is a special right then how is education a right not a privilege?

But anyway, a privilege is something that is understood as something you have been given. The American Constitution holds that rights are something that one possesses innately, although a cynic might wonder what the difference is I think a close reading leads to the understanding that when a right is taken away it is by nature wicked that such a thing should be done, whereas the removal of a privilege would not be automatically unjust.

Thus by the American conception of things every human has the right to free speech, that China takes that away from it's citizens thus not make American's privileged - it makes China bad and its citizens oppressed for having their rights removed.

on edit: sorry about the many typos, not going to fix though as I am dealing with pneumonia and near bed time.

Re: 'We good now China?' South Park creators issue mock apology

#218

Post by AnthonyMouse »

tdb7893 wrote: post #211
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But isn't it the very definition of privilege, when through no effort of your own you get to enjoy the benefits for which others have "fought", "struggled", and "sacrificed"? How is it different from the privilege of being born into a rich (or just functional) family? The reason this framing is despicable is that rights and privileges are not the same. Being able to afford a Lexus is a privilege. Not everyone has i…

I think that this distinction isn't widely understood as the definition of privilege. If you look it up in a dictionary privileges you'll see a lot of definitions where privileges are defined as a special case of rights so they are most definitely not mutually exclusive https://www.dictionary.com/browse/privilege

That's just reinforcing the point. Privilege is a special "right" rather than a universal one that should be held by everyone, something like the right to be called doctor (held only by someone with a doctorate) as opposed to the right to due process (which should be held by everyone).

Due process is a human right in a way that having a title is not.

Re: 'We good now China?' South Park creators issue mock apology

#219

Post by elliekelly »

ddrdrck_ wrote: post #194
elliekelly wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I was referring to "Chinese government's mass incarceration of ethnic minorities". The purpose of these camps is to brainwash these people so they lose their ethnic (muslim) identity and do not even think about rebellion. This is terrible and horrible, especially children separated from their parents, most probably for ever. But once again it is a totally different "evil" than what Nazis did. It would be closer to wh…

Yes, the purpose of these camps is to "re-educate" people until China needs their organs or they die.

> I mean, China government did not put in place all these camps just for taking organs or for forced labor, from an economic perspective it would be a nonsense.

I think you grossly underestimate the economics of free labor and black market organs. From Wikipedia[1]:

> In their report on organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners, Kilgour and Matas describe transplant hospitals in China that cater to wealthy foreigners who paid upwards of $100,000 for liver, lung, and heart transplants. For instance, the website of the China International Transplantation Network Assistance Center posted the following price list on its website in 2006: Kidney: $62,000; Liver: $98,000–130,000; Liver+kidney: $160,000–180,000; Kidney+pancreas: $150,000; Lung: $150,000–170,000; Heart: $130,000–160,000; Cornea: $30,000.

All of those prices listed are in USD.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Go...

Re: 'We good now China?' South Park creators issue mock apology

#220

Post by onemoresoop »

blago wrote: post #178
awb wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “Like the NBA, we welcome the Chinese censors into our homes and into our hearts.” It's interesting that we used to think the more connected we were the more other countries would see and appreciate our democracy and start to adapt it. This is the first time I can remember communism and censorship flowing the other way. > “It’s not worth living in a world where China controls my country’s art,” says one character i…

I think middle-class Americans tend to overestimate human appreciation for freedom. In my experience, most people in the world, including US, will trade freedom for prosperity in a heartbeat. Communist regimes collapsed not because they deprived people of their freedom but because their economies failed. Autocrats like Putin and Xi are popular at home because their economies are growing and people's lives are improvi…

> Autocrats like Putin and Xi are popular at home because their economies are growing and people's lives are improving, even though individual freedoms are slowly but surely eroding.

Neither Russia nor China have free elections. The Russian economy is shrinking fast and Putin's popularity is disingenuous. That may not be true for Xi. The Chinese are riding a humongous economic growth, they don't question their party much because they like the results and don't want to rock the boat.

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