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The idea that your country knows best and that your countries companies can feel free to ignore other countries laws while operating in them is -- imperialism.

GhostVII 6y ago
I think it is fair to say that the laws in the US are objectively better than in China. The US does not put hundreds of thousands of people in camps because of their religion, or heavily censor the internet, or kill hundreds or thousands of civilians to suppress pro-democracy protests.
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
  You’re on shaky ground there. The US does imprison more of its citizens on a per capita basis than any other comparable nation. The US isn’t the moral beacon it was billed to be. I’ll stop there.
  - komali2 6y ago
    And the USA did allow violence against democratic organizers last week. But those same organizers weren't shipped to Guantanamo for indefinite periods of time for "reeducation." The USA suffers from some of what it accuses the PRC - it is still not the PRC.
    - katbyte 6y ago
      This. As outraged as I have been by America’s actions towards their protestors it’s honestly a lot different then HK let along tiananmen square (which my iPhone refuses to recognize.. well that’s fucked up yet expected I guess, and least Taiwan and 🇹🇼 Are there) Trump is doing trump but a lot of politicians and others have spoken out and marched - would that happen in China?
      - jrockway 6y ago
        My iPhone doesn't attempt to censor tiananmen square. Typing "tian" into the home screen search bar yields "tiananmen square", "tiana", "tiananmen square massacre", and "tiana musarra".
        iso947 6y ago
        Indeed, it’s a major tourism draw in Beijing, why would it be censored?
        katbyte 6y ago
        Maybe it’s chrome? I got a red squiggly line under tiananmen and presumed it was iOS. That’s my bad
        jrockway 6y ago
        Maybe the spell checker wanted you to capitalize it? Discord's spell check constantly tells me I've spelled "chicago", "wednesday", and "february" wrong. They're spelled right, but because they're proper nouns, they MUST be capitalized at any cost. It drives me mad.
    - morelisp 6y ago
      > weren't shipped to Guantanamo for indefinite periods of time for "reeducation." But Ramsey Orta essentially was. The difference in the USA is solely one of pervasiveness, focus, intensity, not any particular outcome.
    - Aunche 6y ago
      Nobody is going to disagree that the US treats its citizens better, but we're talking about country's foreign influence here. China doesn't cripple the economy or bomb other countries they disagree with.
      - rayiner 6y ago
        > China doesn't cripple the economy or bomb other countries they disagree with. Is that a bad thing if we're trying to promulgate our values?
        joyfulmantis 6y ago
        Yes it is, no matter how good you think your values are the end never justifies the means
        fit2rule 6y ago
        Societies which promulgate their values by murdering innocent people don't last long. Certainly you can see some fairly decent examples on the History Channel ...
        Aunche 6y ago
        I mean from the CCP's perspective, China is promulgating their values to the Uyghurs.
      - komali2 6y ago
        Do they not? They certainly were willing to outright invade a sovereign nation of mostly peaceful monks (Tibet) with ground forces, then claim the territory as its own, something I don't think the USA has done since Puerto Rico (the expansionism specifically). They also challenge the sovereignty of Taiwan regularly - it was China who refused to allow two sovereign nations of Chinese origin when the UN switched the Chinese seat to the PRC. Different countries different tools. The PRC has only really come into its element in the last 3 decades. The USA's foreign policy advocates-through-violence (CIA) don't have the best track record for success but they do have 80 years of experience. Give China time and I expect they'll start doing the same.
  - Melting_Harps 6y ago
    > The USA suffers from some of what it accuses the PRC - it is still not the PRC. > The US isn’t the moral beacon it was billed to be. Agreed. I think one difference being that Citizens can, with great personal peril to their own safety and well being, use the Right to assemble and protest to effect change to address systemic corruption. As an activist with a background in protests in various demos myself, I just wonder what the World would have looked like if this had happened in 2008. There have been countless examples of senseless, illegal police brutality and murder during that time. I'm no fan of the movement but Occupy members were tazed, beaten, sprayed on a regular basis; and most of them were middle class white US Citizens. The Legal system has not been a viable option for most to find redress to these ills, let alone justice, so they make taking to the streets the only option. In the PRC doing that means you will be disspeared, and it can cost you your life if you speak out as seen with Li Wenlian, who's wife just had their child: https://tucson.com/news/world/widow-of-chinese-whistleblower-doctor-gives-birth-to-their-son/article_d5429ec6-c01b-5ea8-ba68-934797417e42.html https://tucson.com/news/world/widow-of-chinese-whistleblower...
    - iso947 6y ago
      People at tiannamem square protested. Tanks turned up and refused to run them over People in nyc protests, police officers ran them over Maybe China is worse than the US, but there doesn’t seem to be as much in it as there was 30 years ago.
      - rayiner 6y ago
        https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/tiananmen-square-massacre-takes-place https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/tiananmen-square... > On June 4, 1989, however, Chinese troops and security police stormed through Tiananmen Square, firing indiscriminately into the crowds of protesters. Turmoil ensued, as tens of thousands of the young students tried to escape the rampaging Chinese forces. Other protesters fought back, stoning the attacking troops and overturning and setting fire to military vehicles. Reporters and Western diplomats on the scene estimated that at least 300, and perhaps thousands, of the protesters had been killed and as many as 10,000 were arrested. > The savagery of the Chinese government’s attack shocked both its allies and Cold War enemies. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev declared that he was saddened by the events in China. He said he hoped that the government would adopt his own domestic reform program and begin to democratize the Chinese political system. In two weeks of protests around the country, 19 people are dead: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2020/06/08/14-days-of-protests-19-dead/#4f36fd024de4 https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2020/06/08/14-days.... Three were possibly shot by the police, under circumstances where the allegation is they opened fire first. Two police officers are dead as a result of drive-by shootings. The contrast with China couldn't be starker. Here we have protests that involved burning down police stations, and a heavily-armed country where gangs have used the protests as pre-texts for shootings. And we've had a handful of officer-involved deaths. In China, by contrast, police killed hundreds of people at a peaceful protest involving a disarmed population.
  - Lio 6y ago
    As long as the Americans can publicly point out that their leader is a bit fat without expecting to be punished they can point out the suppressing free speech is wrong. To be a moral beacon here America doesn’t have to be perfect. They just have to be able to say that their hypothetical leader is doing a bad job and that he should be replaced ...or not of they want to. From that all else follows.
    - fit2rule 6y ago
      Your argument falls flat as soon as Americans start protesting the innocent lives lost in America's illegal wars - at this point, American censorship and attacks on independent thought match those of the PRC, even exceeding their capabilities in some cases (Assange, etc.)
  - mellow2020 6y ago
    > You’re on shaky ground there. Would you accept prison or murder as counter-argument to this or other opinions of yours? If not, you prefer free speech. > The US isn’t the moral beacon it was billed to be. Who billed it thusly? In my books, the US or other nations don't determine the value of free speech, their respect for free speech determines their value.
  - stale2002 6y ago
    If you honestly believe that laws in China aren't worse than US law, then I don't know what to tell you... I think that most people can obviously see who has the worse laws, regarding things like censorship.
- lukevdp 6y ago
  I don’t think you can say it’s objectively better. Whether you think they’re better or not depends on your values.
- psychoslave 6y ago
  I agree that this is better to have no arrest for crime thought, no censorship, and no (government covered mass) murder. It doesn't mean that we are objective on this regard. On the contrary, at least for me, it comes from the subjective feeling that as I dislike the sentiment of being oppressed and I do feel empathy for other people, I wish them not to be oppressed either. This is all subjectivly grounded, and it's fine - to my mind at least. Let's not pretend that something is objective just because it's deeply rooted into the best part of our hearts.
- joyfulmantis 6y ago
  It is very hard to objectively judge laws specifically and political systems in general. The only way to do so is to look at their outcome, but with the large amount of variables, and the time it takes to draw conclusions, objective facts about them are hard to make. The world in general has concluded that planned economies (communism) is strongly inferior to market economies, but during the early days of communism it was not so obvious. Even in modern times there are people that argue communism was implemented prematurely and would be able to thrive during "end-stage capitalism". You also have plenty of people who while disagreeing with a complete communist revolution would still support nationalisation of key companies or even the more radical "workers being in control of the means of production". Free speech is even less clear. With america winning the cold war there was a recognition of the american way including the strong support of freedom of speech being the superior system. However lately, especially after 2016 the west seems to have lost confidence in the absolute freedom of speech. Challenging the supremacy of the freedom of speech is the idea that citizens are not capable of judging speech on it's own merit and "misinformation" "speech glorifying violence" etc should be banned. It's not really a clear cut issue, you can for example argue that limiting free speech leads to a more harmonious society (the position taken by China, and also lately the reason given by New Zealand for their decision to ban the Christchurch manifesto)
  - 0x8BADF00D 6y ago
    > It is very hard to objectively judge laws specifically and political systems in general. It’s not as hard as you might think. For instance, when the British East India company came into India, they banned the practice of Sati, revenge killings, etc. It really boils down to what version of history you subscribe to. Do you believe in the principles of the Enlightenment or not? If you do, then you’ll realize that colonization is actually a net positive for the world. Some cultures need to be told how to behave. Not all cultures progress equally or linearly.
- ShorsHammer 6y ago
  > The US does not put hundreds of thousands of people in camps because of their religion And yet still has the highest incarceration rates on Earth by far, vast majority of whom are black and haven't actually been convicted of a crime. Feel free to justify that however you want. The way I see it is that either: the laws/justice system aren't better at all, law enforcement is magically more efficient than the rest of the developed world or US citizens commit criminal acts at levels well beyond anywhere else.
  - ptomato 6y ago
    > vast majority of whom ... haven't actually been convicted of a crime This is a straightforward lie.
- dumb1224 6y ago
  > The US does not put hundreds of thousands of people in camps because of their religion, I have to say that China did a lot of things wrong but it couldn't care any less about religion. Most of the issues aren't religion related. It only makes matters more opaque and hide real issues. Hence I disagree with debates/discussions based on perceived perspectives and use these labels such as 'attack on religion'.
  - jcytong 6y ago
    It's about control. The CCP sees religion as a threat because it challenges the party's atheistic view. The underlying issue is the rejection of a pluralistic society which religion is a part of it as well as language, way of life, etc... https://nypost.com/2020/02/01/how-chinas-xi-jinping-destroyed-religion-and-made-himself-god/ https://nypost.com/2020/02/01/how-chinas-xi-jinping-destroye... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_conflict#Re-education_camps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_conflict#Re-education... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Tibetan_unrest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Tibetan_unrest
    - dumb1224 6y ago
      Don't get me wrong, of course I knew it's about regional control. But even the wiki entry acknowledges that religious freedom is different in different regions of China. Other regions don't have any restriction at all. Hence my point that accusing China for religious repression is missing the point. It doesn't justify its actions but the issues are more deeply geopolitical.
  - tekknik 6y ago
    If you have empathy then you should care about religious people regardless of your personal beliefs. How can you stand there and ask for equality for all then say something like you don’t care for a group of people? This is not equality.
- fit2rule 6y ago
  The US DOES imprison hundreds of thousands of people who do not agree with its political position, and more to the point the USA has been the #1 violator of human rights in the last two decades, a fact that is conveniently forgotten whenever Americans decide that China is their latest bad-guy. Or, did you forget the 4 million innocent people whose lives were lost in America's illegal wars?
  - rayiner 6y ago
    > The US DOES imprison hundreds of thousands of people who do not agree with its political position, and more to the point the USA has been the #1 violator of human rights in the last two decades, a fact that is conveniently forgotten whenever Americans decide that China is their latest bad-guy. What exactly are you getting at?
    - fit2rule 6y ago
      1,000 CIA Black Op sites: do YOU know what they are used for? Four million innocent people murdered since 2003 in America's countless illegal wars. Refuses to prosecute its war criminals, sanctions anyone who tries. Attempts to silence journalists who reveal the extent of the crimes against humanity committed in the name of the American people. None-stop illegal wars against innocent people. Drone assassinations. Secret wars hidden from its citizens under threat of imprisonment for anyone who dares to look for themselves. Highest proportion of its population in prison of any modern state, mostly for victimless crimes. America is not the shining city on the hill its citizens think it is. Rather, it only thinks it is.
deathgrips 6y ago
Call it whatever you want, I'll take the imperialist country that doesn't censor activists' accounts.
- pnako 6y ago
  And which country would that be? Even if the US, peer pressure is often enough to get political dissenters banned from their social media accounts, jobs, etc. Many people use the cope out that it's different when it's done by the government or by a private company, but I don't see it as being that different.
  - komali2 6y ago
    It's no cop out - businesses don't hold a monopoly on violence. They can't summarily remove the right of travel and speech (by jailing someone). A Nazi getting banned from Facebook isnt comparable to a human rights lawyer being stuck under house arrest for years.
    - pnako 6y ago
      Which Nazi got banned from Facebook? Was it Rudolf Hess?
    - pphysch 6y ago
      A whistleblower being disappeared or psychologically tortured is perhaps a fairer comparison to what goes on under Freedom & Democracy.
  - unishark 6y ago
    > And which country would that be? With your apparent standard for freedom of speech, isn't pretty much every country excluded? So now everyone is the same as an authoritarian one-party state that outlaws opposition parties and actively censors all internet websites.
    - pnako 6y ago
      I didn't say it was exactly the same, but it's not terribly different either. Many conservatives or "alt right" types get censored in the west, and some of them have to find hosting in Russia (or on Russian social networks like VK), a country we condemn for censorship. I'm not under the delusion that Russia hosts those people out of respect for freedom of speech, of course, but I find it an interesting observation. It's hard to blame China for censoring people it deems terrorists, separatists, enemies of the state or whatever, when in the west we're so quick to do it with the enemy-du-jour, sticking a label like 'Nazi' to demonize them (currently, it's the far right/alt right, previously it was communists, who knows which group it will be in ten years).
TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
The practice of those ideas is imperialism.
chrismcb 6y ago
If they don't operate in those other countries, then yeah, they should feel free to ignore the laws of that country. If they operate there, it is a different story.
rayiner 6y ago
So what? If you don't think your country is implementing the best ideas out there--what the hell are you doing?

GhostVII 6y ago

I think it is fair to say that the laws in the US are objectively better than in China. The US does not put hundreds of thousands of people in camps because of their religion, or heavily censor the internet, or kill hundreds or thousands of civilians to suppress pro-democracy protests.

TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
You’re on shaky ground there. The US does imprison more of its citizens on a per capita basis than any other comparable nation. The US isn’t the moral beacon it was billed to be. I’ll stop there.
- komali2 6y ago
  And the USA did allow violence against democratic organizers last week. But those same organizers weren't shipped to Guantanamo for indefinite periods of time for "reeducation." The USA suffers from some of what it accuses the PRC - it is still not the PRC.
  - katbyte 6y ago
    This. As outraged as I have been by America’s actions towards their protestors it’s honestly a lot different then HK let along tiananmen square (which my iPhone refuses to recognize.. well that’s fucked up yet expected I guess, and least Taiwan and 🇹🇼 Are there) Trump is doing trump but a lot of politicians and others have spoken out and marched - would that happen in China?
    - jrockway 6y ago
      My iPhone doesn't attempt to censor tiananmen square. Typing "tian" into the home screen search bar yields "tiananmen square", "tiana", "tiananmen square massacre", and "tiana musarra".
      - iso947 6y ago
        Indeed, it’s a major tourism draw in Beijing, why would it be censored?
      - katbyte 6y ago
        Maybe it’s chrome? I got a red squiggly line under tiananmen and presumed it was iOS. That’s my bad
        jrockway 6y ago
        Maybe the spell checker wanted you to capitalize it? Discord's spell check constantly tells me I've spelled "chicago", "wednesday", and "february" wrong. They're spelled right, but because they're proper nouns, they MUST be capitalized at any cost. It drives me mad.
  - morelisp 6y ago
    > weren't shipped to Guantanamo for indefinite periods of time for "reeducation." But Ramsey Orta essentially was. The difference in the USA is solely one of pervasiveness, focus, intensity, not any particular outcome.
  - Aunche 6y ago
    Nobody is going to disagree that the US treats its citizens better, but we're talking about country's foreign influence here. China doesn't cripple the economy or bomb other countries they disagree with.
    - rayiner 6y ago
      > China doesn't cripple the economy or bomb other countries they disagree with. Is that a bad thing if we're trying to promulgate our values?
      - joyfulmantis 6y ago
        Yes it is, no matter how good you think your values are the end never justifies the means
      - fit2rule 6y ago
        Societies which promulgate their values by murdering innocent people don't last long. Certainly you can see some fairly decent examples on the History Channel ...
      - Aunche 6y ago
        I mean from the CCP's perspective, China is promulgating their values to the Uyghurs.
    - komali2 6y ago
      Do they not? They certainly were willing to outright invade a sovereign nation of mostly peaceful monks (Tibet) with ground forces, then claim the territory as its own, something I don't think the USA has done since Puerto Rico (the expansionism specifically). They also challenge the sovereignty of Taiwan regularly - it was China who refused to allow two sovereign nations of Chinese origin when the UN switched the Chinese seat to the PRC. Different countries different tools. The PRC has only really come into its element in the last 3 decades. The USA's foreign policy advocates-through-violence (CIA) don't have the best track record for success but they do have 80 years of experience. Give China time and I expect they'll start doing the same.
- Melting_Harps 6y ago
  > The USA suffers from some of what it accuses the PRC - it is still not the PRC. > The US isn’t the moral beacon it was billed to be. Agreed. I think one difference being that Citizens can, with great personal peril to their own safety and well being, use the Right to assemble and protest to effect change to address systemic corruption. As an activist with a background in protests in various demos myself, I just wonder what the World would have looked like if this had happened in 2008. There have been countless examples of senseless, illegal police brutality and murder during that time. I'm no fan of the movement but Occupy members were tazed, beaten, sprayed on a regular basis; and most of them were middle class white US Citizens. The Legal system has not been a viable option for most to find redress to these ills, let alone justice, so they make taking to the streets the only option. In the PRC doing that means you will be disspeared, and it can cost you your life if you speak out as seen with Li Wenlian, who's wife just had their child: https://tucson.com/news/world/widow-of-chinese-whistleblower-doctor-gives-birth-to-their-son/article_d5429ec6-c01b-5ea8-ba68-934797417e42.html https://tucson.com/news/world/widow-of-chinese-whistleblower...
  - iso947 6y ago
    People at tiannamem square protested. Tanks turned up and refused to run them over People in nyc protests, police officers ran them over Maybe China is worse than the US, but there doesn’t seem to be as much in it as there was 30 years ago.
    - rayiner 6y ago
      https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/tiananmen-square-massacre-takes-place https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/tiananmen-square... > On June 4, 1989, however, Chinese troops and security police stormed through Tiananmen Square, firing indiscriminately into the crowds of protesters. Turmoil ensued, as tens of thousands of the young students tried to escape the rampaging Chinese forces. Other protesters fought back, stoning the attacking troops and overturning and setting fire to military vehicles. Reporters and Western diplomats on the scene estimated that at least 300, and perhaps thousands, of the protesters had been killed and as many as 10,000 were arrested. > The savagery of the Chinese government’s attack shocked both its allies and Cold War enemies. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev declared that he was saddened by the events in China. He said he hoped that the government would adopt his own domestic reform program and begin to democratize the Chinese political system. In two weeks of protests around the country, 19 people are dead: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2020/06/08/14-days-of-protests-19-dead/#4f36fd024de4 https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2020/06/08/14-days.... Three were possibly shot by the police, under circumstances where the allegation is they opened fire first. Two police officers are dead as a result of drive-by shootings. The contrast with China couldn't be starker. Here we have protests that involved burning down police stations, and a heavily-armed country where gangs have used the protests as pre-texts for shootings. And we've had a handful of officer-involved deaths. In China, by contrast, police killed hundreds of people at a peaceful protest involving a disarmed population.
- Lio 6y ago
  As long as the Americans can publicly point out that their leader is a bit fat without expecting to be punished they can point out the suppressing free speech is wrong. To be a moral beacon here America doesn’t have to be perfect. They just have to be able to say that their hypothetical leader is doing a bad job and that he should be replaced ...or not of they want to. From that all else follows.
  - fit2rule 6y ago
    Your argument falls flat as soon as Americans start protesting the innocent lives lost in America's illegal wars - at this point, American censorship and attacks on independent thought match those of the PRC, even exceeding their capabilities in some cases (Assange, etc.)
- mellow2020 6y ago
  > You’re on shaky ground there. Would you accept prison or murder as counter-argument to this or other opinions of yours? If not, you prefer free speech. > The US isn’t the moral beacon it was billed to be. Who billed it thusly? In my books, the US or other nations don't determine the value of free speech, their respect for free speech determines their value.
- stale2002 6y ago
  If you honestly believe that laws in China aren't worse than US law, then I don't know what to tell you... I think that most people can obviously see who has the worse laws, regarding things like censorship.
lukevdp 6y ago
I don’t think you can say it’s objectively better. Whether you think they’re better or not depends on your values.
psychoslave 6y ago
I agree that this is better to have no arrest for crime thought, no censorship, and no (government covered mass) murder. It doesn't mean that we are objective on this regard. On the contrary, at least for me, it comes from the subjective feeling that as I dislike the sentiment of being oppressed and I do feel empathy for other people, I wish them not to be oppressed either. This is all subjectivly grounded, and it's fine - to my mind at least. Let's not pretend that something is objective just because it's deeply rooted into the best part of our hearts.
joyfulmantis 6y ago
It is very hard to objectively judge laws specifically and political systems in general. The only way to do so is to look at their outcome, but with the large amount of variables, and the time it takes to draw conclusions, objective facts about them are hard to make. The world in general has concluded that planned economies (communism) is strongly inferior to market economies, but during the early days of communism it was not so obvious. Even in modern times there are people that argue communism was implemented prematurely and would be able to thrive during "end-stage capitalism". You also have plenty of people who while disagreeing with a complete communist revolution would still support nationalisation of key companies or even the more radical "workers being in control of the means of production". Free speech is even less clear. With america winning the cold war there was a recognition of the american way including the strong support of freedom of speech being the superior system. However lately, especially after 2016 the west seems to have lost confidence in the absolute freedom of speech. Challenging the supremacy of the freedom of speech is the idea that citizens are not capable of judging speech on it's own merit and "misinformation" "speech glorifying violence" etc should be banned. It's not really a clear cut issue, you can for example argue that limiting free speech leads to a more harmonious society (the position taken by China, and also lately the reason given by New Zealand for their decision to ban the Christchurch manifesto)
- 0x8BADF00D 6y ago
  > It is very hard to objectively judge laws specifically and political systems in general. It’s not as hard as you might think. For instance, when the British East India company came into India, they banned the practice of Sati, revenge killings, etc. It really boils down to what version of history you subscribe to. Do you believe in the principles of the Enlightenment or not? If you do, then you’ll realize that colonization is actually a net positive for the world. Some cultures need to be told how to behave. Not all cultures progress equally or linearly.
ShorsHammer 6y ago
> The US does not put hundreds of thousands of people in camps because of their religion And yet still has the highest incarceration rates on Earth by far, vast majority of whom are black and haven't actually been convicted of a crime. Feel free to justify that however you want. The way I see it is that either: the laws/justice system aren't better at all, law enforcement is magically more efficient than the rest of the developed world or US citizens commit criminal acts at levels well beyond anywhere else.
- ptomato 6y ago
  > vast majority of whom ... haven't actually been convicted of a crime This is a straightforward lie.
dumb1224 6y ago
> The US does not put hundreds of thousands of people in camps because of their religion, I have to say that China did a lot of things wrong but it couldn't care any less about religion. Most of the issues aren't religion related. It only makes matters more opaque and hide real issues. Hence I disagree with debates/discussions based on perceived perspectives and use these labels such as 'attack on religion'.
- jcytong 6y ago
  It's about control. The CCP sees religion as a threat because it challenges the party's atheistic view. The underlying issue is the rejection of a pluralistic society which religion is a part of it as well as language, way of life, etc... https://nypost.com/2020/02/01/how-chinas-xi-jinping-destroyed-religion-and-made-himself-god/ https://nypost.com/2020/02/01/how-chinas-xi-jinping-destroye... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_conflict#Re-education_camps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_conflict#Re-education... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Tibetan_unrest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Tibetan_unrest
  - dumb1224 6y ago
    Don't get me wrong, of course I knew it's about regional control. But even the wiki entry acknowledges that religious freedom is different in different regions of China. Other regions don't have any restriction at all. Hence my point that accusing China for religious repression is missing the point. It doesn't justify its actions but the issues are more deeply geopolitical.
- tekknik 6y ago
  If you have empathy then you should care about religious people regardless of your personal beliefs. How can you stand there and ask for equality for all then say something like you don’t care for a group of people? This is not equality.
fit2rule 6y ago
The US DOES imprison hundreds of thousands of people who do not agree with its political position, and more to the point the USA has been the #1 violator of human rights in the last two decades, a fact that is conveniently forgotten whenever Americans decide that China is their latest bad-guy. Or, did you forget the 4 million innocent people whose lives were lost in America's illegal wars?
- rayiner 6y ago
  > The US DOES imprison hundreds of thousands of people who do not agree with its political position, and more to the point the USA has been the #1 violator of human rights in the last two decades, a fact that is conveniently forgotten whenever Americans decide that China is their latest bad-guy. What exactly are you getting at?
  - fit2rule 6y ago
    1,000 CIA Black Op sites: do YOU know what they are used for? Four million innocent people murdered since 2003 in America's countless illegal wars. Refuses to prosecute its war criminals, sanctions anyone who tries. Attempts to silence journalists who reveal the extent of the crimes against humanity committed in the name of the American people. None-stop illegal wars against innocent people. Drone assassinations. Secret wars hidden from its citizens under threat of imprisonment for anyone who dares to look for themselves. Highest proportion of its population in prison of any modern state, mostly for victimless crimes. America is not the shining city on the hill its citizens think it is. Rather, it only thinks it is.

deathgrips 6y ago

Call it whatever you want, I'll take the imperialist country that doesn't censor activists' accounts.

pnako 6y ago
And which country would that be? Even if the US, peer pressure is often enough to get political dissenters banned from their social media accounts, jobs, etc. Many people use the cope out that it's different when it's done by the government or by a private company, but I don't see it as being that different.
- komali2 6y ago
  It's no cop out - businesses don't hold a monopoly on violence. They can't summarily remove the right of travel and speech (by jailing someone). A Nazi getting banned from Facebook isnt comparable to a human rights lawyer being stuck under house arrest for years.
  - pnako 6y ago
    Which Nazi got banned from Facebook? Was it Rudolf Hess?
  - pphysch 6y ago
    A whistleblower being disappeared or psychologically tortured is perhaps a fairer comparison to what goes on under Freedom & Democracy.
- unishark 6y ago
  > And which country would that be? With your apparent standard for freedom of speech, isn't pretty much every country excluded? So now everyone is the same as an authoritarian one-party state that outlaws opposition parties and actively censors all internet websites.
  - pnako 6y ago
    I didn't say it was exactly the same, but it's not terribly different either. Many conservatives or "alt right" types get censored in the west, and some of them have to find hosting in Russia (or on Russian social networks like VK), a country we condemn for censorship. I'm not under the delusion that Russia hosts those people out of respect for freedom of speech, of course, but I find it an interesting observation. It's hard to blame China for censoring people it deems terrorists, separatists, enemies of the state or whatever, when in the west we're so quick to do it with the enemy-du-jour, sticking a label like 'Nazi' to demonize them (currently, it's the far right/alt right, previously it was communists, who knows which group it will be in ten years).

TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago

The practice of those ideas is imperialism.

chrismcb 6y ago

If they don't operate in those other countries, then yeah, they should feel free to ignore the laws of that country. If they operate there, it is a different story.

rayiner 6y ago

So what? If you don't think your country is implementing the best ideas out there--what the hell are you doing?