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North Korea is totalitarian, and it will hopefully change to something acceptable. I think of the current regime in China as more an authoritarian single party
by Merrill 7y ago
North Korea is totalitarian, and it will hopefully change to something acceptable.
I think of the current regime in China as more an authoritarian single party regime. We have tolerated or been allied with authoritarian single party regimes in earlier decades such as Taiwan under the KMT, Japan under the early LDP, and South Korea under Rhee.
China places a higher priority on enforcing social harmony than the US, but China has a history where there have been multiple periods of severe social disturbance causing 10s of millions of deaths, such as the Taiping Rebellion. In actual practice most people have quite a lot of freedom on most subjects most of the time since, "Heaven is high, and the Emperor is far away."
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- foogoloo 7y agoThe Chinese Communist Party places a high priority on social harmony because that’s what benefits them. Having freedom as long as no one notices you isn’t freedom.
- Merrill 7y agoIn the US there is a faction that is extremely strong on "privacy rights". This seem motivated by the idea that you are free to do as you please so long as you can prevent others from knowing about it, rather than depending on having strong rights to do as you please whether others know or not. Strong privacy is the "security by obscurity" solution to being free.