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China has passed a national security law for Hong Kong

bbc.com

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Re: China has passed a national security law for Hong Kong

#111

Post by itsmeamario »

obiye wrote: post #52
boomboomsubban wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't help but wonder if things would have been different if the US had different leadership - actually interested in furthering the cause of freedom and democracy throughout the world What US leader in the past fifty years has been interested in those ideals? Certainly not Obama, with how he handled events in Yemen, Libya, and Syria, not to mention the assassination program. And his predecessors weren't any bett…

US foreign policy has obviously always been very far from perfect, but this kind of equivocation is destructive and pointlessly cynical. Russia and China aspire to nothing. Even if we fail them most of the time, at least the US has ideals. If you were given the chance to live in the US vs one of the other “empires” would you really choose somewhere else? For all our faults, you know the answer is no.

Yes, personally I'd go live to China for a while before than to the US.

All isn't as white and black as "we have ideals and they're the baddies". The US has a lot of negative things too like x40 guns per citizen [0] or a prohibitively expensive healthcare [1]

I'd also like to learn Mandarin, but that's on me.

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

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

Re: China has passed a national security law for Hong Kong

#112

Post by obiye27 »

_-___________-_ wrote: post #101
obiye wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. That’s why millions of people clamor every year to immigrate to Russia for a better life. Get a grip. The world is not black and white.

> That’s why millions of people clamor every year to immigrate to Russia for a better life They literally do.

They literally don’t, and those that do are exceedingly desperate.

Re: China has passed a national security law for Hong Kong

#113

Post by obiye27 »

_-___________-_ wrote: post #100
obiye wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US foreign policy has obviously always been very far from perfect, but this kind of equivocation is destructive and pointlessly cynical. Russia and China aspire to nothing. Even if we fail them most of the time, at least the US has ideals. If you were given the chance to live in the US vs one of the other “empires” would you really choose somewhere else? For all our faults, you know the answer is no.

> Russia and China aspire to nothing. This is the same kind of destructive and pointlessly cynical statement that you're arguing against.

And sadly it is true. Perhaps in some century their governments will care about something other than wholesale slaughter. Probably not in my lifetime.

Re: China has passed a national security law for Hong Kong

#114

Post by fiblye »

baybal2 wrote: post #89
fiblye wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Russia and China aspire to nothing. Even if we fail them most of the time, at least the US has ideals. This is ridiculous. Do you think China and Russia are operating like an ant colony or something?

> This is ridiculous. Do you think China and Russia are operating like an ant colony or something? As a person who spend near half of my life in both of them, I don't see the statement being far from reality. Both countries indeed feel quite "aimless," as they are today. Nor Russia, nor China saw any kind of conscious political course setting for two full decades. I don't see Xi, or Putin having any semblance of a lo…

I don't know enough about Russia to speak about it, but China's goals are pretty clear. They're aiming to raise the standard of living in China massively, working towards one united and uniform Chinese cultural identity, and spreading Chinese culture around the world through economic and social means. Another big one is trying to earn China respect as a nation and undoing the reputation of being poor, dirty, and being an exporter of junk, and one big way they're aiming for that is through tech exports and scientific research.

The government has clear ideals. The problem is the ways they're going about achieving them and whether some of them (like erasing the separate cultures within their borders) is justifiable.

Re: China has passed a national security law for Hong Kong

#115

Post by Barrin92 »

almost_usual wrote: post #59
yoav wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is an oppressive surveillance state with regular police murdering minorities, rampant white supremacy, and when not in the middle of catastrophically mishandling a pandemic, has a mass shooting every day of the year. To most people outside the US’s branding sway there’s very little difference between a USA and a Russia or China

Also a country where millions of people from different backgrounds, religions, and races will unite and march for the justice of minorities. Will outright challenge authority in the street and march until negotiations are made during a pandemic. This does not happen in China or Russia.

>where millions of people from different backgrounds, religions, and races will unite and march for the justice of minorities

but mostly to act it out as performance art because people have been marching for decades now and yet here we are. The US is the only country that kind of lives in a permanent television version of itself, with people setting trashcans on fire for justice or throwing a window in, while a few dozen journalists capture some very authentic images[1]

People in Russia or China are realistic enough to know that this is in itself nothing but entertainment. The US is in a sense the most advanced security state on the planet, because pretty much nobody else has manged to internalize its own opposition to that degree.

[1]https://i.redd.it/xqrhsj17wb321.jpg

Re: China has passed a national security law for Hong Kong

#116

Post by obiye27 »

itsmeamario wrote: post #111
obiye wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US foreign policy has obviously always been very far from perfect, but this kind of equivocation is destructive and pointlessly cynical. Russia and China aspire to nothing. Even if we fail them most of the time, at least the US has ideals. If you were given the chance to live in the US vs one of the other “empires” would you really choose somewhere else? For all our faults, you know the answer is no.

Yes, personally I'd go live to China for a while before than to the US. All isn't as white and black as "we have ideals and they're the baddies". The US has a lot of negative things too like x40 guns per citizen [0] or a prohibitively expensive healthcare [1] I'd also like to learn Mandarin, but that's on me. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_g... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_…

Yes, as I myself pointed out, the US has a lot of big problems which are not improving. But people have high expectations of the US, which they do not have of any other country. Nobody expects China or Russia to be anything but self serving. Why? Because that’s all they aim to be. Rather than trash the US’s ideals, how about we do better in living up to them?

Re: China has passed a national security law for Hong Kong

#117

Post by raverbashing »

yoav wrote: post #56
obiye wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US foreign policy has obviously always been very far from perfect, but this kind of equivocation is destructive and pointlessly cynical. Russia and China aspire to nothing. Even if we fail them most of the time, at least the US has ideals. If you were given the chance to live in the US vs one of the other “empires” would you really choose somewhere else? For all our faults, you know the answer is no.

The US is an oppressive surveillance state with regular police murdering minorities, rampant white supremacy, and when not in the middle of catastrophically mishandling a pandemic, has a mass shooting every day of the year. To most people outside the US’s branding sway there’s very little difference between a USA and a Russia or China

Some people really need to step out of their bubble and go see what it really is out there.

Not saying the US doesn't have problems, but this laundry list is mild for let's say 70% of the world's population.

And to be fair the "woke" press (including some national "unbiased" news sources) just make the problem worse.

But I guess the grass is always greener

> To most people outside the US’s branding sway there’s very little difference between a USA and a Russia or China

Only if they ignore how things happen on this countries or is sheltered.

Now, about "mishandling a pandemic", yes, it could have been done better, but I think a lot of countries are not handling it better, they just didn't get the check yet and/or are putting the problem under the table.

Re: China has passed a national security law for Hong Kong

#118

Post by morceauxdebois »

magicsmoke wrote: post #81
ackbar03 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't help but wonder if things would have been different if the US Honestly not trying to be snarky or anything but purely observationally, I find it interesting how people automatically default to thinking America should have done something about something going on in a completely different country of which they do not really understand the history and culture. And if you've been following global developments o…

The bedrock of western ideals that the US was born from contains a lot of influences from Christianity, especially the part where the duty of a good Christian is to spread the faith and convert heathens around the world to the one true faith in order to save them from eternal damnation in hell. Although religiosity as a whole is going down in the western world, this savior complex still persists and echos of it can b…

The US was also founded on a continental wide genocide that even the Nazis couldn't accomplish.

Re: China has passed a national security law for Hong Kong

#119

Post by kmlx »

klipt wrote: post #17
arcticbull wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell, Brexit was largely driven by discontent around Polish migration. There's over a million Polish citizens in the UK. This is a pretty good read [1]. [1] https://www.humanityinaction.org/knowledge_detail/understand...

Somehow, the fact that Britain seceded from the EU over one million foreigners, makes me skeptical that they'll offer citizenship to three million foreigners.

it wasn't about that. they left the EU club because they thought were getting far less out of it then they should have. while I don't agree with that, I do understand it.

Re: China has passed a national security law for Hong Kong

#120

Post by twelve40 »

Lio wrote: post #23
arcticbull wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell, Brexit was largely driven by discontent around Polish migration. There's over a million Polish citizens in the UK. This is a pretty good read [1]. [1] https://www.humanityinaction.org/knowledge_detail/understand...

Poles are well thought of here. The meme of the hard working Polish builder is well known. I think one Pro-brexit faction created disinformation around Romanian immigrants. The other main brexit faction created a meme around “taking back control” from bureaucrats. Neither is based on reality.

So ok, honestly trying to understand this. You are saying a massive country-wide vote was decided based on a couple of bizarre myths ("Romanians and bureaucrats") propagated for some reason by some vaguely motivated groups, and majority (slim, but nonetheless) of the country made a decision on some ridiculous myths that have no basis in reality.

What was the motivation for these lie-spreading groups to propagate those myths?

How could a majority of a Western, best-educated probably in the whole world, about as democratic and core-value-believing country, be in a single moment swayed by a bunch of scammers like that? Was there any other basis for that, perhaps? Again, honest question, I know almost nothing about British politics, but dismissing a major vote in a very rich and educated country as lunacy seems ... not a great explanation?

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