China is a horrific, authoritarian monster. I hope this century sees their vision checked and reduced back to the edges of humanity.
Nonsense babble.
Britain to give millions of HKers a path to citizenship
131–140 of 243 posts
Re: Britain to give millions of HKers a path to citizenship
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hard to compare these two scenarios. Look, I’m not arguing that US officials throughout the course of history have been perfect. Kent State was an atrocity, no question. But anyone with a gun can pull the trigger. It takes an enormous amount of coordination to uniformly run over people with tanks, burn their bodies, and flush them down drains. The incidents you’ve linked are undoubtedly dark chapters, but they are no…
I would never say that the US is an authoritarian state on par with the vileness of the PRC. But your specific claim was that we’ve never done to our own citizens what happened to the protesters at Tiananmen, which I now guess hinges on how coordinated the killings were. I think this is historically inaccurate, absent engaging in this kind of special pleading.
Our USA runs a larger prison labor colony far larger than any real or imaginary Soviet Gulag. Get real real. Brits are filthy racist losers who deserve every harm that comes their way. Narcotics peddlers. They would be wise to behead their landed "royalty" and catch up to "modernity."
Re: Britain to give millions of HKers a path to citizenship
#133Can someone correct the typo in the title?
Re: Britain to give millions of HKers a path to citizenship
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tanks are a bit showy when you can just have the police and National Guard shoot protestors without consequence: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Park_(Berkeley) Shooting workers that unionized was also common: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lattimer_massacre https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaconda_Road_massacre https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbine…
Parent obviously cares about the truth, evidenced by their references. It is amazing to me how so many freely thinking individuals can completely disregard the importance of free speech. How many of your references would be visible to a Chinese citizen? Doesn't the fact that we can discuss the US government's misdeeds on their own soil mean anything to you? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_…
The French wisely censor American broadcast "media." Broadcast lies never delineates "free speech." I went to Harvard. I have written paychecks for former NSA employees. I have friends and family at the World Bank, Reuters and NYT. They are paid handsomely to lie, with "talking points" dictated by CIA at Langley.
Re: Britain to give millions of HKers a path to citizenship
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I think that would give the HKers access to the Pacific and a place to rebuild. I'd love to have those brilliant entrepreneurs and engineers over here. Not many special "brilliant entrepreneurs". Just regular ole entrepreneurs taking advantage of the specific spot HK was in, and the specific relationship between Britain and China for global trade. Merely bring the same people elsewhere would accomplish no great mir…
Sorry but after watching the organized demonstrators against the CCP regime, I strongly disagree. And Miami itself is an interesting example you chose. Miami is made up of largely Cuban immigrants and their descendants who fled communism in Cuba only to succeed by and large in capitalist USA. They created a thriving ethnic community in South Florida and were given opportunities they would never have been able to achi…
Those Cubans were filthy gamblers, sugar plantation slavers and drug dealers. That filth deserved to get kicked out. Their children won't fare well.
Re: Britain to give millions of HKers a path to citizenship
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would never say that the US is an authoritarian state on par with the vileness of the PRC. But your specific claim was that we’ve never done to our own citizens what happened to the protesters at Tiananmen, which I now guess hinges on how coordinated the killings were. I think this is historically inaccurate, absent engaging in this kind of special pleading.
Think about it. You had troops in China that were ready and willing to not only kill their countrymen, but also desecrate their dead bodies and discard them in an unimaginably cold manner. Contrast that with Kent State, Jackson State, and other places where troops were deployed and the situation escalated. The ultimate difference here is that it’s perfectly legal and acceptable for us to talk about what happened at K…
It’s not even just that. It’s that the government indicted five guardsman at the times, but couldn’t secure convictions. A civil trial ended in settlement. Fifty years later, we’re still talking about four deaths.
Re: Britain to give millions of HKers a path to citizenship
#137Does anyone follow British domestic politics? They can't stand Polish (et al) immigrants amongst their numbers, much less browner skinned Indians and muslims. Brits are an increasingly irrelevant, racist, and post-Imperial bitter and reckless island nation (the size of Morocco) that can't feed itself. As an American citizen, I advocate a 2nd 1776, whereupon we set their miserable Brit "ship of state" adrift forever.…
There are too many generalisations here to take any of your points seriously.
Racism exists in all countries, not just Britain. It may be worse or better in Britain than elsewhere but it's certainly not alone.
If your point is that the potential influx of HKers will create social tensions and feed into racism then I would agree, but that's not specific to the UK. Having 3M people suddenly popping up on your doorstep can be a challenge.
However, while I hope that many HKers take on the opportunity to get a real British passport, I know most will do this as a backup plan. They will funnel their families and finances out of HK (to the benefit of the UK) but still live in HK for the most part.
Most HKer know they can't just show-up in the UK and be successful there as they are in HK. Some will enjoy some opportunities and will manage to build or rebuild their success but most have their lives strongly anchored in the economic fabric of HK, and that's not easy to transpose elsewhere.
Re: Britain to give millions of HKers a path to citizenship
#138The Sino-British Joint Declaration was a mistake. What did they think would happen? If not now then what about in 2047?! Were they hoping that was enough time to warm the new generations to the idea of giving up their rights? There is no fixing this, but I appreciate the effort by the British. Many will not want to leave, understandably. But the threat of draining HK is an interesting sort of pressure to put on China…
> But the threat of draining HK is an interesting sort of pressure to put on China.
I suspect that if the trickle shows any sign of becoming a significant exodus, a state of emergency will be called and all HK-ers passports will be cancelled, probably under the pretext of issuing new documents. While the US is shifting it's focus to the Asia Pacific region [0], that's probably hollow posturing. Even if the US had the willingness, what could they do on China's doorstep (beyond bluster) that wouldn't trigger a major military crisis? If Hong Kong is China's Anschluss, will Taiwan be its Poland? I sincerely doubt the current US administration has the diplomatic nouse to out-maneuver China here. The failure to check China is likely to send a shockwave around the world, signalling to allies the truth of what they already suspect - that is, that an increasingly withdrawn and internally focused US will not willingly elect to spend its blood and treasure defending anything but its immediate interests. In Australia, the government has signalled a huge (by our standards) increase in military spending in the next decade, as a consequence of this reality [1].
The times, they are a changin'.
[0] https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/Tho...
[1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-30/australia-unveils-10-...
Re: Britain to give millions of HKers a path to citizenship
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
Black jails everywhere where dissidents are tortured. Religious prisoners harvested alive. Repeated invasions of Vietnam. Tienanmen Square massacre and the subsequent rounding up of a generation in concentration camps. Ethnic cleaning of the Uyghurs. Stamping out of Tibet's culture and media blackout of the mass self-immolation epidemic. Imposition of the worlds worst surveillance-state. The CCP is not China.
My father was a veteran of the vietnam war, an immoral war the US fought against the people of vietnam. I pray the Vietnamese nation can hold the line against China.
Maybe, immoral, but it’s more complicated than that. The US lost the war, but half a century later 95% of Vietnamese believe that “people are better off under a free market” and three quarters have a positive view of the US.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/04/30/vietnamese-...
Re: Britain to give millions of HKers a path to citizenship
#140Does anyone follow British domestic politics? They can't stand Polish (et al) immigrants amongst their numbers, much less browner skinned Indians and muslims. Brits are an increasingly irrelevant, racist, and post-Imperial bitter and reckless island nation (the size of Morocco) that can't feed itself. As an American citizen, I advocate a 2nd 1776, whereupon we set their miserable Brit "ship of state" adrift forever.…
There are too many generalisations here to take any of your points seriously. Racism exists in all countries, not just Britain. It may be worse or better in Britain than elsewhere but it's certainly not alone. If your point is that the potential influx of HKers will create social tensions and feed into racism then I would agree, but that's not specific to the UK. Having 3M people suddenly popping up on your doorstep…
I lived in Ukraine under complete currency collapse. I hope for the collapse of the British pound. Make no mistake. I'm a Christian. "Those who live by the sword, die by the sword." - Matthew 16:52. I pray for and celebrate the deaths of mercenary soldiers, drug addicts, drunk drivers, liars for money. I celebrate the deaths of imperial conquistadors and praise the lives of in situ historical peoples on their own lands. We're NOT a team. My passport remains intact. I have materially and forcefully and successfully contributed to the violent demise of South African apartheid "whites," at Harvard, and working for and with Unitarians. Know the frames of our dialog. I am a moralist. Play win-win, or lose.