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President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment

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Re: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment

#501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have the same problem in the US. Certain "Freedom loving" sects applaud military intervention, increased police presence, spying on citizens, and the death of any protester, peaceful or otherwise.

US embarrassments, however, have movies made about them, as opposed to burying them as deeply as possible whilst simultaneously threatening every single citizen with, essentially, removal from society, if they speak against the chosen narrative. No country is innocent, some are, however, free (moreso, at least, enough to matter, enough to choose if the need arises).

> US embarrassments, however, have movies made about them, as opposed to burying them as deeply as possible

In some ways, I think this can actually serve to make people believe that real events were fictional - after all, movies are generally fictional or at least with a good dose of artistic license.

I also must point out that some western governments will go to extreme lengths to bury bad actions as deeply as possible - if it wasn't for leakers, there are a whole host of Western war crimes and atrocities that would never have surfaced to the public. Even when they do, government and media propaganda machines are very efficient at convincing the general populace there is nothing to see here.

We like to berate China and others for bad actions (rightly so), but in many respects Western governments are appalling hypocrites.

Re: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment

#502
post #198

It's a very weak response from Purdue. Zhihao Kong was bullied and followed around on campus for commemorating the victims of the Tiananmen masacre. He was called a CIA agent by fellow Purdue students and was reported to the Chinese state, who attempted to silence him by forcefully leaning on his family in Hong Kong. The identities of the bullies is well known and the extent of abuse is borderline criminal. There sho…

Perdue President Mitch Daniels said “Those seeking to deny those rights to others, let alone to collude with foreign governments in repressing them, will need to pursue their education elsewhere,” but there is no indication that the students have been expelled. The statement is bizarre and nonsensical if the students are not expelled.

At the end of the day, it's a stretch to assume the students did anything other than wield their rights to free speech on an American (or other western) campus. Anti CCP activities, on campus or elsewhere in west makes it way through PRC media bubbles with of millions of eyeballs willing to do the dirty work, frequently within PRC soil. All it takes is for a post to trend. Freedom of speech in west =/= freedom from consequences, which applies even less in PRC.

What's nonsensical are the allegations that politically engaged pro-PRC/CCP Chinese national students must be state agents. And the disproportionate media attention it gets in the west whenever there's diaspora drama between PRC students and HK/Tibet etc. CCP doesn't need to instruct nationalists to behave like nationalists. Rich Chinese kids with social media are playing the same cancel culture game against the out-group and that just happens to be aligned/exploitable for PRC censorship.

Re: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment

#503

This is just an example of the different ethics between China and America. America is very deontological in terms of FREEDOM. We love freedom above everything else. China is very consequentialist, they care about prosperity and success over everything else. I'm a pretty red blooded American (I drive a black smoke diesel truck and have enough firearms and ammo to make it pretty far in the apocalypse). I wonder what et…

> We can already see having consequentialist ethics that don't care about your freedom do a lot better at fighting pandemics

Can we? I have no idea how many people in China have died from covid, and neither do you. All we have to go on is what the state-run media says.

Re: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment

#504

This is just an example of the different ethics between China and America. America is very deontological in terms of FREEDOM. We love freedom above everything else. China is very consequentialist, they care about prosperity and success over everything else. I'm a pretty red blooded American (I drive a black smoke diesel truck and have enough firearms and ammo to make it pretty far in the apocalypse). I wonder what et…

Different but also not always so different.

American alarmism over communism has, at times, led them down a similar pathway.

Re: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment

#506
post #471

This is just an example of the different ethics between China and America. America is very deontological in terms of FREEDOM. We love freedom above everything else. China is very consequentialist, they care about prosperity and success over everything else. I'm a pretty red blooded American (I drive a black smoke diesel truck and have enough firearms and ammo to make it pretty far in the apocalypse). I wonder what et…

MURICA FREEDUM = everyone in the whole universe is free to do as they wish . as long as it is not in conflict with the interests of the american economic elites.

and the Church or Christian beliefs.

Re: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment

#507
post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds good until you try to figure out how to classify tyrannies.

The ones that block freedom of the press, block and censore the internet, deploy military force against civilians, anex peaceful territories by force, push other democracies to overwrite their history, and commit genocide... So the Chinese government.

And those are all things the US, the UK and most western government's have done & will do again.

Re: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment

#508

This is just an example of the different ethics between China and America. America is very deontological in terms of FREEDOM. We love freedom above everything else. China is very consequentialist, they care about prosperity and success over everything else. I'm a pretty red blooded American (I drive a black smoke diesel truck and have enough firearms and ammo to make it pretty far in the apocalypse). I wonder what et…

This is some asinine cultural analysis, as if entire cultures can be reduced to the embrace of moral philosophies. You could just have easily described China as harboring a deontological commitment to social harmony and deference to authority, or America as being consequentialist in its embrace of freedom as the approach most conducive to happiness and opposed to tyranny. Both are caricatures, of course. A problem I’…

Indeed, all of philosophy has devolved from praxis to theory unmooring itself from the seed by which it began: that of living informed by wisdom. It is damning that one of its elevated patrons is a man who wrote in spirals.

The philosophers of thousands of years ago instructed by which they lived: drinking to excess in bathtubs if you were a hedonist or meditating in the woods surviving only on the food which others gave you if you were a Buddhist.

Re: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment

#509
post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I contend that those seeking to overthrow tyrannies are to be celebrated.

Sounds good until you try to figure out how to classify tyrannies.

One hint is that they don't let you call them "tyranny"

Re: President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment

#510
post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay so a more apt comparison would be 30 years after the Tulsa race massacre in America to see if was easier to talk about it Or 100 years after the Tianamen Square massacre in China to see if its easier to talk about it then great. very productive.

It’s a delusional if you think that in the 50s, there were American agents intimidating their citizens abroad for talking about the Tulsa race massacre . The idea that it is OK for it to take another 50 years before the Chinese can talk about Tiananmen without fear of state reprisal, seems to be an apology for totalitarian oppression.

Well, they were busier intimidating and harassing American citizens abroad for daring to say anything in support of Communism. I doubt Tulsa made the radar.
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