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Drink Poison and Smile: How I Arrived at My Position of Pro-Democracy

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Re: Drink Poison and Smile: How I Arrived at My Position of Pro-Democracy

#41

Post by flukus »

Animats wrote: post #35

Legislative bodies is in trouble. Britain seems to have just had a coup. Look at how Boris Johnson became Prime Minister, not by popular election but by vote of Conservative Party members only. And now he's suspending Parliament. The problems of the US Congress are well known. It used to run the country. Now it barely does anything.

The Britain situation is absolutely nothing like a coup, it's contentious but what's happened is nothing out of the ordinary in Westminster democracies that don't elect leaders directly (thank god).

Also, rightly or wrongly Johnson has suspended parliament to push through a democratic decision.

Re: Drink Poison and Smile: How I Arrived at My Position of Pro-Democracy

#42

Post by askmike »

simonh wrote: post #32
askmike wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> however they have access to legal due process and their rights are guaranteed in law. There certainly have been abuses and violations, but these have frequently been reported in the medial and successfully challenged in courts of law. This point! According the the link in practise they do not have the ability to leave. So I guess that's the standard "we" should hold "them" to? > The point is, it doesn't get them of…

>According the the link in practise they do not have the ability to leave... That's a rally weird and kind of irrelevant technical point. In that specific case 'leave' means pay for their own flight back to their own country, instead of being deported there by the US government. It does not mean simply walk out of the detention centre. They are in violation of US law and in US custody. The argument is about their hum…

Apologies, I got many replies at the same time (a minute after I posted my initial message). My point was against:

> Also given that China has to actively prevent the Uyghur from leaving, while the West has to prevent immigrants from entering, should tell you who's treated worse.

Which you didn't type but deogeo.

> It is entirely morally consistent to both argue for fair treatment of people in the west, and advocate it for people in China.

Agreed with this and everything else you say. My initial point was shifting the conversation away from "pro democratic or anti democratic" into holding people accounting for human right violations. If a political system makes it hard to hold people accountable than that's what we should talk about.

Which one is worse is a bikeshedding discussion which I didn't intend to start with my initial comment.

Re: Drink Poison and Smile: How I Arrived at My Position of Pro-Democracy

#43

Post by askmike »

roenxi wrote: post #27
askmike wrote: post #4

I agree that the things described are very bad. But I do want to point that many western democratic governments do things that might be just as bad (are the Uyghur Muslims treated worse than immigrants in many western places like US / EU / AUS?). Though I have to admit I'm not well informed on exactly what type of "democracy" they are after. If you get the majority of people to not care about what happens to a minori…

> are the Uyghur Muslims treated worse than immigrants in many western places like US / EU / AUS? Yes, obviously. The immigrants are choosing to travel to the US / EU / AUS. Indeed, the west has a proud history of skimming the best and brightest from China because they'd rather live somewhere else. I'll stand to be corrected but I don't think the West has anything comparable to the exodus of Hong Kongers basically fl…

How did the 6 year old migrant kids choose to go to the US, to be separated from their parents and put into solitary confinement?

> The west can always be more welcoming and there are ugly moments; but there is a vast reserve of people who look at western countries, think 'I want to migrate there, it is better than where I am' and act upon their thoughts.

This has little to do with human rights violations and how to stop them.

Re: Drink Poison and Smile: How I Arrived at My Position of Pro-Democracy

#44

Post by koonsolo »

nudpiedo wrote: post #22

> Fine you say, you may not care for some religious leaders, as they are such a tiny percentage of the population. This is a huge difference between western and eastern thinking. Group rights vs individual rights. Here in western culture we typically tried to develop a culture on which each single individual rights should be respected above the group if the case was necessary whereas Asian societies traditionally hav…

Then it's ironic that everyone wants to join the individualistic countries/unions, and the group countries/unions have to force keeping things together because parts want to leave.

Re: Drink Poison and Smile: How I Arrived at My Position of Pro-Democracy

#45

Post by normalhuman »

panny wrote: post #39
normalhuman wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing is perfect, but dictatorship is worse. I live close what remains of the Berlin wall. People risked their lives to jump it and escape to the democratic side. Nobody ever wanted to escape the democratic side and jump in the other direction. Why? I love China and I have a lot of empathy for the Chinese people. You have an amazing and ancient culture and I hope that you can release yourselves from oppression, gai…

Russia is a democracy. The US was a democracy when it genocided the native Americans. askmike is right. Democracy alone won't help Hong Kong. China will not stop. Pacifist Hong Kong will be crushed, regardless the form of government. >Nobody ever wanted to escape the democratic side and jump in the other direction. Why? You've never heard of James Dresnok. Why? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0H5QZvOqlJM

> Russia is a democracy. The US was a democracy when it genocided the native Americans. askmike is right. Democracy alone won't help Hong Kong. China will not stop. Pacifist Hong Kong will be crushed, regardless the form of government.

I am not claiming that democracy will save Hong Kong from China. What I am saying is that democracy is better than no democracy, and no amount of doublespeak or whatabbautism is going to change that reality. "Eat this poison, it's good for you", it's what the Chinese autocrats are saying. Well, people might indeed have to eat it, but they don't have to believe that it is good for them.

> You've never heard of James Dresnok. Why?

Yes I did, and I'm sure you can probably find a similar case that is actually related to my example. The simple point is that, when you have a wall between a democracy (not a "democracy", like contemporary Russia) and an autocratic regime, the ratio of people making the jump in the direction of the dictatorship against people making the jump in the direction of the democracy is < .00001. It is probably not zero because of people with psychiatric issues, people who are in love with someone on the other side, who left family there... But it is pretty damn close to zero, and this is something you have to explain if you want to insist that democracy or no democracy is the same for people.

Re: Drink Poison and Smile: How I Arrived at My Position of Pro-Democracy

#46

Post by koonsolo »

panny wrote: post #39
normalhuman wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing is perfect, but dictatorship is worse. I live close what remains of the Berlin wall. People risked their lives to jump it and escape to the democratic side. Nobody ever wanted to escape the democratic side and jump in the other direction. Why? I love China and I have a lot of empathy for the Chinese people. You have an amazing and ancient culture and I hope that you can release yourselves from oppression, gai…

Russia is a democracy. The US was a democracy when it genocided the native Americans. askmike is right. Democracy alone won't help Hong Kong. China will not stop. Pacifist Hong Kong will be crushed, regardless the form of government. >Nobody ever wanted to escape the democratic side and jump in the other direction. Why? You've never heard of James Dresnok. Why? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0H5QZvOqlJM

The world is full of nutcases, and a lot seem to be from US (think flat earth etc.). I find it highly offensive that you use one crazy wackjob to disprove how people were treated in eastern Europe.

Re: Drink Poison and Smile: How I Arrived at My Position of Pro-Democracy

#47

Post by MarkSweep »

askmike wrote: post #4

I agree that the things described are very bad. But I do want to point that many western democratic governments do things that might be just as bad (are the Uyghur Muslims treated worse than immigrants in many western places like US / EU / AUS?). Though I have to admit I'm not well informed on exactly what type of "democracy" they are after. If you get the majority of people to not care about what happens to a minori…

Even if a liberal democracy was guilty of the same atrocities as totalitarian, the liberal democracy is still the superior system because. Freedom of press means people can learn about the problems. Democracy means there is some hope of fixing the problem.

Next time you see a post about some terrible thing in a liberal democracy on Weibo, try posting “Well that’s bad, but China has concentration camps for Muslims so therefore the Communist Party’s slogan ‘Serve the People’ is a farce.” I think your post turning grey will be the least of your worries.

Re: Drink Poison and Smile: How I Arrived at My Position of Pro-Democracy

#48

Post by vnorilo »

askmike wrote: post #36
nothrabannosir wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not defending China, I'm just saying many countries do terrible things - also democratic ones (sometimes it's the goverment, sometimes it's the people). Great, then you can write a blog post about that and post it to HN and we’ll discuss those atrocities on that post. Meanwhile let’s stay on topic here, and discuss an article written by a HK citizen to Chinese citizens about China. This is whataboutism, a class…

On topic: He wants a different political system (democratic) and his arguments are that the current one did many bad things. My point is that changing the political system doesn't change the bad things he's talking about. As we can clearly see in many democratic systems in the world. I don't think I'll write a blogpost. Given the initial responses of my current comments I am sure it would get downvoted anyway.

Thank you for making a level argument.

I think freedom of speech and press helps to bring abuses to daylight and rule of law is essential in reining them in.

I believe both are more robust (but, not nearly perfect) in western democracies, and are included in this desire for reform.

Re: Drink Poison and Smile: How I Arrived at My Position of Pro-Democracy

#49

Post by PavlovsCat »

coldtea wrote: post #25
jahewson wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of empty, backwards argument is known as a “whataboutism” and is commonly seen in propaganda. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

It's also known as "putting things in perspective" and is commonly seen in rational, non-partisan, assessment of events... People thinking (or pretending to think) their "shit doesn't smell" criticize only (or mainly) the other side, for things their side does as well, and demonize the Other, down to supporting policy implications, sometimes down to sanctions and even war. And when someone points to their own shit th…

It doesn't address the core of the article at all, which asks:

> Democracy is hard work. There is always going to be the need to fight corruption and fight for fairness. But how do we even do that if we don’t have a seat at the table? Don’t sell yourself short handing over your privileges and responsibilities to the state. Shouldn’t you be able to voice your opinion when it really matters? Shouldn’t you have a seat at the table?

Saying that it's not always perfect in practice, so it makes no difference if you don't even have it in principle is usually a double standard, because nobody who says that would consider removal of their post or person a valid rebuttal of their argument, which is the democracy vs. totalitarianism dichotomy in a nutshell.

That's an actual double standard. On the other hand, it's rather convenient and arbitrary to claim that people who think totalitarianism is bad and support people who want to be free, think "their shit doesn't stink". It's just an accusation so broad, and against no particular person, that it just lingers there, it doesn't get proven, and cannot be refuted.

Re: Drink Poison and Smile: How I Arrived at My Position of Pro-Democracy

#50

Post by _iyig »

askmike wrote: post #33
_iyig wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>(are the Uyghur Muslims treated worse than immigrants in many western places like US / EU / AUS?) This question would be simpler to answer if China allowed foreign reporters access to the camps, cities, and provinces where (millions of) Uyghur Muslims are held, such as Xinjiang. Could you imagine if Chinese reporters were denied to access to, for example, the state of Texas? What if plainclothes Texas Rangers stalke…

> That’s the type of media blackout which I understand is currently imposed on Xinjiang. I personally think the UN human rights council is at least as important, as the international media's role in fixing human rights problems is debatable. In that light: https://www.theguardian.com/law/2019/jan/04/trump-administra... as the article states: > “They are sending a very dangerous message to other countries: that if you…

My point stands: UN human rights inspectors can enter Texas whenever they choose (no formal invite required!), but not Xinjiang. They can interview anyone they meet on the street in the US, but not in many parts of China.

I'd also argue that the role of the UN Human Rights Council (whose recent illustrious members have included Venezuela, Cuba, the Philippines, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia) is minuscule compared to that of the global press in terms of fomenting any actual change.

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