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>protect themselves from the United States military Protect themselves from the US military how? When they start imperial subjugation campaigns...or? China's

>protect themselves from the United States military Protect themselves from the US military how? When they start imperial subjugation campaigns...or? China's malicious aspirations are the only thing the US is concerned with.

ethbr0 5y ago
Neither China nor the US are, historically or currently, moral pillars for the just use of military power. It's clear enough to note that China has short-term aspirations of invading a sovereign state, and leave it at that.
- defaultprimate 5y ago
  One actively cultivated a culture of establishing an absolutist surveillance state resulting in the death and torture of tens of millions, often at the hands of their own children, in the course of a decade or so, is currently participating in genocide, has institutionally striven to sustain an ethnostate, treats their population like cattle, and exercises extrajudicial imprisonment and execution against vast swaths of the population to preserve political power. There is no comparison of morality between the US and China. For all its faults and failures the US is unequivocally a more moral and just nation. Let's not just leave it at that. I won't let you deceptively downplay the egregious evil China is and has been responsible for. It's directly responsible for multiple events that when measured over the course of history, are the most insane human atrocities ever committed.
  - tsimionescu 5y ago
    China Oana monstrous regime to its own people, and has been exporting the technology and know-how for their monstrous treatment more and more. However, the US has killed many times more people in other countries, and brutalized countless nations - Vietnam, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Iran, Irak, Cuba, Palestine, Cambodia and many others. They are both immoral, but i d different ways at different times, like all empires have been and forever will be, from the Romans to the Arabs to the Mongols to the French, Dutch, Belgians etc.
    - BobbyJo 5y ago
      There are lots of places where your argument is nonsense, but I feel like the most important thing to address is this: > However, the US has killed many times more people in other countries That's just inaccurate. The founding of the current communist regime resulted in more deaths within China's borders than all of the US's military campaigns (and espionage) since WW2 combined. I've seen it said a lot that the "US kills more!" So I wonder if that's just a talking point the CCP is trying to disseminate to distract from their current genocide.
      - ethbr0 5y ago
        It's hard to exceed the Great Leap Forward's 15-30M+. Even the Soviet Union's Holodomor is calculated around 6M.
      - tsimionescu 5y ago
        I meant the US has killed more people abroad than China has killed abroad. So, if I were a citizen of China, I have many reasons to fear the Chinese government; if I were a citizen of the USA, I would not have much reason to fear the US government. But, if I am a citizen of, say, Lebanon, I have many more reasons to fear the USA than I have to fear China. I'm much more likely to be killed by the US government than the Chinese government.
        thereddaikon 5y ago
        Without context it is a pointless statistic. The US was involved on the just side of the two largest wars in modern history. That's where the overwhelming majority of its foreign killings comes from. And while regrettable, they were lawful and necessary. You can't call someone a murderer for defending themselves from attack.
        samhw 5y ago
        I don't see how something can be both regrettable and necessary? Also, as well as the two wars that the US was on the 'just' side of, it's also been on the quite-hard-to-call-just side of many others, where it was not exactly defending itself either.
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    Two things can simultaneously be true: (1) the US is not a very moral or just nation, especially with how it has used its military power & (2) the US is a more moral and just nation than China, especially with how they use military power. This isn't a whataboutism equivalency. It is a statement that one needs to first be honest about ones own shortcomings before disparaging another. > absolutist surveillance state I'm pretty sure that neither Google nor the rest of the world is thrilled about NSA warrantless mass surveillance programs. > is currently participating in genocide, has institutionally striven to sustain an ethnostate State supported ethnic cleansing of Native Americans in the 19th century. State supported subjugation and murder of African Americans in... well, improving, but still counting. > exercises extrajudicial imprisonment and execution... Extraordinary rendition, indefinite detention, and torture in third party countries and at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. > ... against vast swaths of the population to preserve political power 20th century voting rights struggles, in which African Americans were systemically disenfranchised with the goal of preserving white political and economic power. --- I'm a proud American, support the use of the US military on the global stage as a force for increasing moral good in the world, and consider the Chinese model of authoritarianism incompatible with the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness owed to every human. I believe the US holds individual freedom and equality before the law as much higher ideals, and delivers on them more often and fully, than China does. But there's a reason Martin Luther King Jr. talks about "self purification" as one of the three prerequisite steps before direct action, and it's because easy hatred corrupts true justice. Enumerating the ways in which your opponent looks like you, and the ways in which you've fallen short of your own ideals, isn't an argument for inaction, but a clarification and sharpening of action. 1960s racial injustice in the United States provided an embarrassing talking point while the US lectured the USSR on individual freedom. Using the evil that another does as justification for righteousness requires first accepting the evil that one has done.
    - achillesheels 5y ago
      You're belittling the Soviet Union's gulags when you describe 1960's racial injustices. The difference, if you can't register, is the the latter nation has the civilized means for progressing its justice through political means. It's astonishing how negligent this basic truth is when doing nation-state comparisons over the last century.

ethbr0 5y ago

Neither China nor the US are, historically or currently, moral pillars for the just use of military power. It's clear enough to note that China has short-term aspirations of invading a sovereign state, and leave it at that.

defaultprimate 5y ago
One actively cultivated a culture of establishing an absolutist surveillance state resulting in the death and torture of tens of millions, often at the hands of their own children, in the course of a decade or so, is currently participating in genocide, has institutionally striven to sustain an ethnostate, treats their population like cattle, and exercises extrajudicial imprisonment and execution against vast swaths of the population to preserve political power. There is no comparison of morality between the US and China. For all its faults and failures the US is unequivocally a more moral and just nation. Let's not just leave it at that. I won't let you deceptively downplay the egregious evil China is and has been responsible for. It's directly responsible for multiple events that when measured over the course of history, are the most insane human atrocities ever committed.
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  China Oana monstrous regime to its own people, and has been exporting the technology and know-how for their monstrous treatment more and more. However, the US has killed many times more people in other countries, and brutalized countless nations - Vietnam, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Iran, Irak, Cuba, Palestine, Cambodia and many others. They are both immoral, but i d different ways at different times, like all empires have been and forever will be, from the Romans to the Arabs to the Mongols to the French, Dutch, Belgians etc.
  - BobbyJo 5y ago
    There are lots of places where your argument is nonsense, but I feel like the most important thing to address is this: > However, the US has killed many times more people in other countries That's just inaccurate. The founding of the current communist regime resulted in more deaths within China's borders than all of the US's military campaigns (and espionage) since WW2 combined. I've seen it said a lot that the "US kills more!" So I wonder if that's just a talking point the CCP is trying to disseminate to distract from their current genocide.
    - ethbr0 5y ago
      It's hard to exceed the Great Leap Forward's 15-30M+. Even the Soviet Union's Holodomor is calculated around 6M.
    - tsimionescu 5y ago
      I meant the US has killed more people abroad than China has killed abroad. So, if I were a citizen of China, I have many reasons to fear the Chinese government; if I were a citizen of the USA, I would not have much reason to fear the US government. But, if I am a citizen of, say, Lebanon, I have many more reasons to fear the USA than I have to fear China. I'm much more likely to be killed by the US government than the Chinese government.
      - thereddaikon 5y ago
        Without context it is a pointless statistic. The US was involved on the just side of the two largest wars in modern history. That's where the overwhelming majority of its foreign killings comes from. And while regrettable, they were lawful and necessary. You can't call someone a murderer for defending themselves from attack.
        samhw 5y ago
        I don't see how something can be both regrettable and necessary? Also, as well as the two wars that the US was on the 'just' side of, it's also been on the quite-hard-to-call-just side of many others, where it was not exactly defending itself either.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  Two things can simultaneously be true: (1) the US is not a very moral or just nation, especially with how it has used its military power & (2) the US is a more moral and just nation than China, especially with how they use military power. This isn't a whataboutism equivalency. It is a statement that one needs to first be honest about ones own shortcomings before disparaging another. > absolutist surveillance state I'm pretty sure that neither Google nor the rest of the world is thrilled about NSA warrantless mass surveillance programs. > is currently participating in genocide, has institutionally striven to sustain an ethnostate State supported ethnic cleansing of Native Americans in the 19th century. State supported subjugation and murder of African Americans in... well, improving, but still counting. > exercises extrajudicial imprisonment and execution... Extraordinary rendition, indefinite detention, and torture in third party countries and at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. > ... against vast swaths of the population to preserve political power 20th century voting rights struggles, in which African Americans were systemically disenfranchised with the goal of preserving white political and economic power. --- I'm a proud American, support the use of the US military on the global stage as a force for increasing moral good in the world, and consider the Chinese model of authoritarianism incompatible with the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness owed to every human. I believe the US holds individual freedom and equality before the law as much higher ideals, and delivers on them more often and fully, than China does. But there's a reason Martin Luther King Jr. talks about "self purification" as one of the three prerequisite steps before direct action, and it's because easy hatred corrupts true justice. Enumerating the ways in which your opponent looks like you, and the ways in which you've fallen short of your own ideals, isn't an argument for inaction, but a clarification and sharpening of action. 1960s racial injustice in the United States provided an embarrassing talking point while the US lectured the USSR on individual freedom. Using the evil that another does as justification for righteousness requires first accepting the evil that one has done.
  - achillesheels 5y ago
    You're belittling the Soviet Union's gulags when you describe 1960's racial injustices. The difference, if you can't register, is the the latter nation has the civilized means for progressing its justice through political means. It's astonishing how negligent this basic truth is when doing nation-state comparisons over the last century.