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Would it not be better for these idiots to simply apologize for Tienanmen Square and promise not to do it again? And also stop all their asshole human right vio
by devoply 7y ago
Would it not be better for these idiots to simply apologize for Tienanmen Square and promise not to do it again? And also stop all their asshole human right violations?
- dymk 7y agoShit, why didn't anyone else think of that? Hold on let me get Xi on the phone and let him know.
- 0815test 7y agoEven if they did, there would be very little certainty that people would trust them, or, more importantly, their successors in the same positions of authority. The only effective "apology" and "commitment" from them would be opening up their society in some way, perhaps along Neo-Confucian lines, i.e. with a sort of assembly of widely-recognized "wise scholars" that could veto/overrule the executive on such matters (Somewhat like the U.S. Supreme Court). But either way, it would be a real challenge to the current setup of authority in China, and any sort of change is inherently hard. So they'll just keep muddling through like this, even in ways that may seem obviously undesirable or even silly to outsiders.
- kmonsen 7y agoIt seems to work well for Russia.
- Yetanfou 7y agoYes, of course. They seem to think that acknowledging mistakes and misbehaviour will rob them of their power since that power partly depends on them never being wrong. They must realise that anyone and his dog knows by now this is a total fiction but for some reason they just can't get themselves to step up, bow down deep like you sometimes see Japanese CxO's do when taking blame for some misstep and humble themselves before their nation. Given that the same phenomenon has characterised more or less al other "communist" regimes it seems to be something in this ideology/doctrine which makes it near to impossible to admit to failure.
- daodedickinson 7y agoOccasionally their rulers admit that previous rulers make mistakes. But they don't admit their own. But few rulers do anywhere on our planet.
- chongli 7y agoOnce you go down the road of totalitarianism, the risks of turning back get worse and worse over time. The playbook of all dictatorships is the same: squeeze tighter and tighter until you can no longer hold on, then collapse. Sometimes the process is quite rapid, sometimes it drags on. It all depends how long you can keep the elite prosperous and happy and how long you can maintain economic growth.
- 0815test 7y ago> The playbook of all dictatorships is the same: squeeze tighter and tighter until you can no longer hold on, then collapse. While a common-enough failure mode, this is by no means universal. Many successful monarchies began as the equivalent of dictatorships, and then opened up further and further over time.
- chongli 7y agoThe monarchies of old changed hands and flipped over due to war (civil and otherwise) so often that they're not really comparable to a modern state dictatorship. Tons of monarchs had extremely short reigns, far less stable than the Chinese Communist party.
- stcredzero 7y agoIn that case, is it really valid to count those monarchs as different governments and not continuations of the same system?
- chongli 7y agoYes. It's completely valid, since their borders, their laws, and the identities of the people were constantly in flux. Nothing at all like the continuity of modern nation states through successive governments.
- stcredzero 7y ago
- ronilan 7y agoIf you suggesting China adopts a system in which every government systematically apologizes for what previous generations have done, while laying the foundations of the next apologetic generation; then they can’t do that. It’s copyrighted by the Government of Canada / Gouvernement du Canada.
- joe_the_user 7y ago[sarcasm] Oh I'm sure Canada and other Western nations are offering licenses for their model and indeed one might see this entire enterprise as a long effort to sell those licenses, while China just insists on relying on simpler methods.[/sarcasm] That said, China's unwillingness to mention Tien Ah Min expresses the point that nation has to adopt a "no apologies, don't talk about this and we'd definitely do this again" position because the state ultimately deals in absolutes. This situation indeed implies a certain fragility. Edit: Just for clarification, I certainly hope a framework of democracy and freedom of speech prevail but I am still clear quite a few Western interests have entirely selfish reasons for wanting this (and the Western model indeed has its flaws).
- devoply 7y agoIt's funny because China seems to have the mentality that this must be so. And look over to the Japanese and at one time they were similarly minded. And yet look at them now, a pleasure to deal with both on individual and societal level. So it's simply a choice and a mentality which will lead you into all sorts of bad situations. Unfortunately Chinese don't have enough experience with this and instead looking to history to guide their actions, which is a mistake. We simply can't act this way in the world we have built, the consequences are too grave for everyone involved.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- daodedickinson 7y agoHeh, that form of piracy is rampant, too, then.
- tjalfi 7y agoAbsolute power doesn't mean that you can act with impunity. Xi must retain the support of the heads of the army, secret police, and such or he will be replaced. The Dictator's Handbook[0] discusses this topic in detail. The Rules for Rulers[1] is an 18 minute video that summarizes some of the principles of the book. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dictator%27s_Handbook https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dictator%27s_Handbook [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs edited to add video title to second link
- devoply 7y agoWinnie the Pooh changed all sorts of things for the worse that his predecessor had made progress on. He's an idiot. He should be replaced by someone more wise.
- daodedickinson 7y agoJulius told Augustus to pay the soldiers well and have contempt for the rest.
- maehwasu 7y agoHow would that help the government achieve its goal of maintaining power, in any way?
- daodedickinson 7y agoSince the opium wars, the most lenient Chinese rulers have not lasted very long.
- throw2016 7y agoTienanmen happened in 1989. Would it not be better to apologize to Iraq, Libya and Syria and promise the world not to destroy entire countries, kill hundreds of thousands of people and put millions of families in disarray for those who genuinely care about human rights and lives? Instead millions more are threatened in Venezeula and Iran with the exact same warmongering playbook and propaganda while 'human rights lovers' are apparently more concerned about a protest that happened in China in 1989. This simply stretches credulity. At this very moment exactly zero people have been held to account for the totalitarian surveillance, torture and war crimes exposed by Snowden, Manning and Assange. How so? If you are concerned about human rights surely war crimes and torture by your own country would have blown your top and brought the guilty to account asap? And yet not only has no one been held to account but its those who exposed these crimes who are being persecuted in so called 'democracies'? This is a sham.
- i_am_nomad 7y agoMan, that was a hard-earned fifty cents. Nice work, comrade!
- thoughtstheseus 7y agoNo way they made fifty cents on that. They'd all be rich based on the volume of this stuff.
- zwaps 7y agoNice Whataboutism there https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
- walshemj 7y agoOK so China will forget about the opium wars then
- icelancer 7y ago>> a protest that happened in China in 1989 Yeah, it was just a protest.
- megaremote 7y agoIt might be better for them, it might be worse. It is hard to say.
- coldtea 7y agoFrom "Bill and Ted's political thoughts".