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"Ah yes, the classic "America did these bad things decades ago so that totally justifies China doing bad things today" argument." Ah yes, the classic "America

"Ah yes, the classic "America did these bad things decades ago so that totally justifies China doing bad things today" argument." Ah yes, the classic "America is still doing plenty of bad things today but I'll ignore that so that I can pretend we stopped doing it so that I can continue to pretend that China is the only one doing these things today" argument. Or is it the "My argument was < the United States - a representative democracy - is equivalent to or worse than China - (again) a totalitarian dictatorship > so I'll start arguing about how our sins are in the past (even though we never made up for most of them) because that proves that we're better since we're a representative democracy" argument. Can't tell, people make all kinds of funny logical fallacies.

yellowapple 8y ago
Do you have specific examples of what America is doing right now that somehow justifies China's behavior right now or makes it look less bad? Like, I agree America ain't perfect, but last I checked it ain't systematically and officially imprisoning/torturing/enslaving religious minorities, either (as just one example of the sorts of severe human rights violations China is actively committing at this very moment), nor is it actively preventing its citizens from discussing its very-checkered past (let alone present). The "hey America does bad things so please don't mind us while we oppress those Tibetans over there" tactic is nothing new, and has been a staple of Chinese apologists for decades, and it falls apart pretty quickly once you scratch through the surface. Even if we do want to go head-to-head on historical wrongs, the Great Leap Forward alone makes even pre-Civil-Rights-Movement America look utopian in comparison. I guess that's par for the course for these African countries looking for a role model, though: "if China can get away with starving its own people to death while its ruling class eats plentifully and gets richer, then I guess we can, too".
- thereare5lights 8y ago
  I think you're arguing a strawman here. My original point was that other places legitimately view the United States and China in a comparable light. You've built up a strawman of human rights. That was never my argument. You are ostensibly correct that China treats its own citizens worse than America does in the present day. That is irrelevant to how other countries view the US and China. What matters is how the US and China have treated other countries. On that score, China is far better. The US has been meddling in many countries' internal affairs, launching coups, secretly backing internal groups looking to topple governments. The CIA has been very, very active since its inception. Blowback is a very real thing. The US is simply addicted to foreign military action. We accuse Russia of meddling in our elections when we do the same thing to other countries. Sure, China might decide to do the exact same things, but so far, there hasn't been any evidence that it has, at least not on the same scale. Hence, it's very clear why the places that we have fucked over would view China more positively than the US. They simply don't have the record that we do when it comes to foreign intervention. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/15/which-countries-dont-like-america-and-which-do/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/15/which-countr... My point is simple. The comment I replied to said: > The salient point is that china as super power is negative independent of where you're sitting. This is simply not true. There are places that either are not affected and would be neutral, or places that have already been negatively impacted by the US as a superpower and would be positively impacted by having another competing superpower. You then turned this into a game of who has better humans rights and which is the lesser of two evils (which actually is not objective and depends on the viewer) which is a gigantic straw man. > Even if we do want to go head-to-head on historical wrongs, the Great Leap Forward alone makes even pre-Civil-Rights-Movement America look utopian in comparison. You wildly underestimate the brutality of slavery era America. Even China doesn't torture its own citizens like how Americans systemically tortured, beat, raped, and generally treated slaves as animals. China doesn't have citizens roving around committing lynchings and massacres of minorities. They get rounded up but they aren't killed with impunity by the civilians in the majority. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_in_the_United_States. These murderers were often put on trial and found not guilty. That's legally sanctioned murder. The documented incidents are just those that didn't get covered up. Who knows how many other incidents like that happened during the lynching era? After the Civil War and up until the Civil Rights era, there was a culture of shut your mouth and stay in your lane or you might just end up being killed by a mob of white people that thought you were just a little bit too uppity. Sure it wasn't everywhere, but it was in enough places. Mass famine makes this look like utopia? On the one hand the famines may have been politically targeted. On the other hand, they didn't actually kill anyone directly compared slavery/lynching. If you wanna call that utopia, fine, you're entitled to your own opinion.
- thereare5lights 8y ago
  Oh and now we're engaged in supporting a coup in Venezuela. We're great!

yellowapple 8y ago

Do you have specific examples of what America is doing right now that somehow justifies China's behavior right now or makes it look less bad? Like, I agree America ain't perfect, but last I checked it ain't systematically and officially imprisoning/torturing/enslaving religious minorities, either (as just one example of the sorts of severe human rights violations China is actively committing at this very moment), nor is it actively preventing its citizens from discussing its very-checkered past (let alone present). The "hey America does bad things so please don't mind us while we oppress those Tibetans over there" tactic is nothing new, and has been a staple of Chinese apologists for decades, and it falls apart pretty quickly once you scratch through the surface. Even if we do want to go head-to-head on historical wrongs, the Great Leap Forward alone makes even pre-Civil-Rights-Movement America look utopian in comparison. I guess that's par for the course for these African countries looking for a role model, though: "if China can get away with starving its own people to death while its ruling class eats plentifully and gets richer, then I guess we can, too".

thereare5lights 8y ago
I think you're arguing a strawman here. My original point was that other places legitimately view the United States and China in a comparable light. You've built up a strawman of human rights. That was never my argument. You are ostensibly correct that China treats its own citizens worse than America does in the present day. That is irrelevant to how other countries view the US and China. What matters is how the US and China have treated other countries. On that score, China is far better. The US has been meddling in many countries' internal affairs, launching coups, secretly backing internal groups looking to topple governments. The CIA has been very, very active since its inception. Blowback is a very real thing. The US is simply addicted to foreign military action. We accuse Russia of meddling in our elections when we do the same thing to other countries. Sure, China might decide to do the exact same things, but so far, there hasn't been any evidence that it has, at least not on the same scale. Hence, it's very clear why the places that we have fucked over would view China more positively than the US. They simply don't have the record that we do when it comes to foreign intervention. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/15/which-countries-dont-like-america-and-which-do/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/15/which-countr... My point is simple. The comment I replied to said: > The salient point is that china as super power is negative independent of where you're sitting. This is simply not true. There are places that either are not affected and would be neutral, or places that have already been negatively impacted by the US as a superpower and would be positively impacted by having another competing superpower. You then turned this into a game of who has better humans rights and which is the lesser of two evils (which actually is not objective and depends on the viewer) which is a gigantic straw man. > Even if we do want to go head-to-head on historical wrongs, the Great Leap Forward alone makes even pre-Civil-Rights-Movement America look utopian in comparison. You wildly underestimate the brutality of slavery era America. Even China doesn't torture its own citizens like how Americans systemically tortured, beat, raped, and generally treated slaves as animals. China doesn't have citizens roving around committing lynchings and massacres of minorities. They get rounded up but they aren't killed with impunity by the civilians in the majority. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_in_the_United_States. These murderers were often put on trial and found not guilty. That's legally sanctioned murder. The documented incidents are just those that didn't get covered up. Who knows how many other incidents like that happened during the lynching era? After the Civil War and up until the Civil Rights era, there was a culture of shut your mouth and stay in your lane or you might just end up being killed by a mob of white people that thought you were just a little bit too uppity. Sure it wasn't everywhere, but it was in enough places. Mass famine makes this look like utopia? On the one hand the famines may have been politically targeted. On the other hand, they didn't actually kill anyone directly compared slavery/lynching. If you wanna call that utopia, fine, you're entitled to your own opinion.
thereare5lights 8y ago
Oh and now we're engaged in supporting a coup in Venezuela. We're great!