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"I hate the government, not the people" means "I don't like those foreigners ruling themselves", i.e. a colonial mentality. People act like there's a Demon Por

"I hate the government, not the people" means "I don't like those foreigners ruling themselves", i.e. a colonial mentality. People act like there's a Demon Portal in Zhongnanhai where CCP Officials emerge from a different plane to subjugate the Real Chinese People. In reality, the government of China is made of... normal Chinese people with leadership/bureaucracy skills. You can't "separate" these two.

temp8964 5y ago
If what you said is true, the communist party doesn’t need to suppress free speech of the Chinese people.
- pphysch 5y ago
  Call me an authoritarian, but I think it is okay to suppress "free speech" like "let's gather at this location on 9/11 to learn methods used by $VIOLENT_TERRORIST_GROUP" or "kill all $ETHNIC_GROUP". At least, I am not aware of a single government that allows such speech. Are you?
  - hunterb123 5y ago
    I disagree with your premise, but that's not his point. His point was if it was the people's will, you wouldn't need authoritarianism.
    - pphysch 5y ago
      If you presume that hundreds of millions of people have a monolithic "will" i.e. they agree on pretty much every policy decision: 1) you might not need government at all and 2) you are living in a fantasy world
      - hunterb123 5y ago
        What percentage of people do you think are oppressed, censored, and forced then? The choices of the CCP are their choices by your own admission it can't be all the people. The people defending the CCP are either: 1) delusional 2) 50 cent shills
  - tick_tock_tick 5y ago
    The US allows both of them......
    - pphysch 5y ago
      In theory, yes. In practice, no. Push too far and your "free speech" gets reclassified as something illegal. See: Jan 6 dissidents, Julian Assange, Aaron Swartz, et al.
      - lalaland1125 5y ago
        The January 6 people didn't get in trouble for speech. They disrupted the legislature during the middle of a vital transfer of power process.
        pphysch 5y ago
        Exactly. Their free speech/protest was reclassified as something illegal.
        Manuel_D 5y ago
        No. The speech and protest was entirely legal. The overwhelming majority of people who protested on Jan 6. didn't invade the capitol building, and faced no legal repercussions. The ones that did get into trouble were the ones that broke into the Capitol building. Speech is legal, rioting is not. Put it more bluntly: it's fine to hold up a sign saying "meat is murder" and protest. It's not okay to break into abattoirs and trash them. Speech is legal, breaking and entering is not.
        pphysch 5y ago
        You realize the Chinese government makes this exact same argument about the recent Hong Kong riots, right?
        5y ago
  - chrisco255 5y ago
    The former is allowed as stated (learning is not prohibited, so long as it's not involving active violence) in the U.S., the latter is not as it involves a physical and imminent threat. But that's not an act of speech, that's an act of violence. Anyways, sure, you will find exceptions to any rule if you look hard enough or strain the definition hard enough. Not really particularly interesting though.
thescriptkiddie 5y ago
It's very sad that this perfectly reasonable comment is getting downvoted.
- mrtranscendence 5y ago
  So I'm literally unable to criticize any government with legitimate power besides my own, otherwise I'm engaging in colonialism? Am I allowed to have opinions at all, or is this just about expressing them? Does that extend to every country or just the ones you care about?
  - thescriptkiddie 5y ago
    It's not about your personal opinion, it's about the endless stream of opinion pieces from journalists, politicians, and military contractors saying that the US needs to "intervene" in country X. Nobody ever asks what the people in country X want, or looks into the history of how country X got to be the way it is, or acknowledges the fact that "intervention" is a euphemism for bombing. The USA is not a force for good in the world, it a world-historically vast military empire and it only cares about the people on the fringes if they have some resource that can be exploited.
Archio 5y ago
You absolutely can separate the two, and it has nothing to do with colonialism. The reason you can is because in a society where freedom of expression is curtailed, there is (and always will be) a difference between what an authoritarian government declares and the opinions of its people, even if many people agree with the authoritarian government. Only the people that agree will reasonably feel comfortable expressing their opinions. Where does the idea that "criticism of a government is criticism of its people because a government is made up of its people" logically follow? Is criticism of the American government (which I do regularly) criticism of my own American people? What about North Korea?
- pphysch 5y ago
  > The reason you can is because in a society where freedom of expression is curtailed, there is (and always will be) a difference between what an authoritarian government declares and the opinions of its people, even if many people agree with the authoritarian government. This is very abstract. Can you give a real world example of what you mean? What country should China closer resemble in your ideal world?
  - Archio 5y ago
    This is the thing. I'm not claiming to have an "ideal" version of China, or claiming that I have an understanding of what all Chinese people "really want". It's a country with over a billion people, within which I'm sure there is a vast spectrum of opinions. I would agree you if you argue it would be condescending to claim for any given issue that while the CCP argues X, people in China disagree and want Y. However, I think it's equally as condescending to claim that the opinions, behaviors, and ideologies of the CCP are fully condoned and endorsed by all of the Chinese people (and THEREFORE, criticism of one is criticism of the other). Conflating a government and its people in this way is specious for any country, but especially problematic for those where public criticism of government is unequivocally risky.
    - pphysch 5y ago
      > However, I think it's equally as condescending to claim that the opinions, behaviors, and ideologies of the CCP are fully condoned and endorsed by all of the Chinese people You can empirically test this. Harvard University did, and found that upwards of 90% of the Chinese people support their government. And why wouldn't they? QoL has skyrocketed for hundreds of millions of Chinese over the last 40 years.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mrtranscendence 5y ago
> You can't "separate" these two. What does that even mean? The Ohio State Penitentiary is made up of... normal American people. You can't "separate" these two. So I guess I shouldn't criticize murderers either, lest I criticize all US citizens! (If you respond that murderers aren't normal citizens, then you're at least partway to understanding why it's possible to "separate" the Chinese government from its citizens.)
- pphysch 5y ago
  If we bring your analogy all the way, we must assume that the majority of Chinese people secretly want imprisoned murderers freed, rather than supporting their incarceration. If imprisoned murderers are like empowered politicians, then toppling the government is like freeing the murderers. A revolution of the status quo. That's an obviously ridiculous claim to make; Chinese people do not want the dangerous murderers freed.
wolverine876 5y ago
If it is truly self-determination, why not have elections? How do they know what the people want? The people can't even talk about it. In parts of China that do and did have free expression, Taiwan and Hong Kong, the people strongly support democracy and freedom and strongly oppose the CCP. It is the oppression of the CCP that I oppose. I wish the people of China were free and could choose their government - that would be - will be - a great moment in history. > In reality, the government of China is made of... normal Chinese people with leadership/bureaucracy skills. And an absolute dictator who will remain in office for life.
- pphysch 5y ago
  China does have elections. What are you talking about?

temp8964 5y ago

If what you said is true, the communist party doesn’t need to suppress free speech of the Chinese people.

pphysch 5y ago
Call me an authoritarian, but I think it is okay to suppress "free speech" like "let's gather at this location on 9/11 to learn methods used by $VIOLENT_TERRORIST_GROUP" or "kill all $ETHNIC_GROUP". At least, I am not aware of a single government that allows such speech. Are you?
- hunterb123 5y ago
  I disagree with your premise, but that's not his point. His point was if it was the people's will, you wouldn't need authoritarianism.
  - pphysch 5y ago
    If you presume that hundreds of millions of people have a monolithic "will" i.e. they agree on pretty much every policy decision: 1) you might not need government at all and 2) you are living in a fantasy world
    - hunterb123 5y ago
      What percentage of people do you think are oppressed, censored, and forced then? The choices of the CCP are their choices by your own admission it can't be all the people. The people defending the CCP are either: 1) delusional 2) 50 cent shills
- tick_tock_tick 5y ago
  The US allows both of them......
  - pphysch 5y ago
    In theory, yes. In practice, no. Push too far and your "free speech" gets reclassified as something illegal. See: Jan 6 dissidents, Julian Assange, Aaron Swartz, et al.
    - lalaland1125 5y ago
      The January 6 people didn't get in trouble for speech. They disrupted the legislature during the middle of a vital transfer of power process.
      - pphysch 5y ago
        Exactly. Their free speech/protest was reclassified as something illegal.
        Manuel_D 5y ago
        No. The speech and protest was entirely legal. The overwhelming majority of people who protested on Jan 6. didn't invade the capitol building, and faced no legal repercussions. The ones that did get into trouble were the ones that broke into the Capitol building. Speech is legal, rioting is not. Put it more bluntly: it's fine to hold up a sign saying "meat is murder" and protest. It's not okay to break into abattoirs and trash them. Speech is legal, breaking and entering is not.
        pphysch 5y ago
        You realize the Chinese government makes this exact same argument about the recent Hong Kong riots, right?
        5y ago
- chrisco255 5y ago
  The former is allowed as stated (learning is not prohibited, so long as it's not involving active violence) in the U.S., the latter is not as it involves a physical and imminent threat. But that's not an act of speech, that's an act of violence. Anyways, sure, you will find exceptions to any rule if you look hard enough or strain the definition hard enough. Not really particularly interesting though.

thescriptkiddie 5y ago

It's very sad that this perfectly reasonable comment is getting downvoted.

mrtranscendence 5y ago
So I'm literally unable to criticize any government with legitimate power besides my own, otherwise I'm engaging in colonialism? Am I allowed to have opinions at all, or is this just about expressing them? Does that extend to every country or just the ones you care about?
- thescriptkiddie 5y ago
  It's not about your personal opinion, it's about the endless stream of opinion pieces from journalists, politicians, and military contractors saying that the US needs to "intervene" in country X. Nobody ever asks what the people in country X want, or looks into the history of how country X got to be the way it is, or acknowledges the fact that "intervention" is a euphemism for bombing. The USA is not a force for good in the world, it a world-historically vast military empire and it only cares about the people on the fringes if they have some resource that can be exploited.

Archio 5y ago

You absolutely can separate the two, and it has nothing to do with colonialism. The reason you can is because in a society where freedom of expression is curtailed, there is (and always will be) a difference between what an authoritarian government declares and the opinions of its people, even if many people agree with the authoritarian government. Only the people that agree will reasonably feel comfortable expressing their opinions. Where does the idea that "criticism of a government is criticism of its people because a government is made up of its people" logically follow? Is criticism of the American government (which I do regularly) criticism of my own American people? What about North Korea?

pphysch 5y ago
> The reason you can is because in a society where freedom of expression is curtailed, there is (and always will be) a difference between what an authoritarian government declares and the opinions of its people, even if many people agree with the authoritarian government. This is very abstract. Can you give a real world example of what you mean? What country should China closer resemble in your ideal world?
- Archio 5y ago
  This is the thing. I'm not claiming to have an "ideal" version of China, or claiming that I have an understanding of what all Chinese people "really want". It's a country with over a billion people, within which I'm sure there is a vast spectrum of opinions. I would agree you if you argue it would be condescending to claim for any given issue that while the CCP argues X, people in China disagree and want Y. However, I think it's equally as condescending to claim that the opinions, behaviors, and ideologies of the CCP are fully condoned and endorsed by all of the Chinese people (and THEREFORE, criticism of one is criticism of the other). Conflating a government and its people in this way is specious for any country, but especially problematic for those where public criticism of government is unequivocally risky.
  - pphysch 5y ago
    > However, I think it's equally as condescending to claim that the opinions, behaviors, and ideologies of the CCP are fully condoned and endorsed by all of the Chinese people You can empirically test this. Harvard University did, and found that upwards of 90% of the Chinese people support their government. And why wouldn't they? QoL has skyrocketed for hundreds of millions of Chinese over the last 40 years.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

mrtranscendence 5y ago

> You can't "separate" these two. What does that even mean? The Ohio State Penitentiary is made up of... normal American people. You can't "separate" these two. So I guess I shouldn't criticize murderers either, lest I criticize all US citizens! (If you respond that murderers aren't normal citizens, then you're at least partway to understanding why it's possible to "separate" the Chinese government from its citizens.)

pphysch 5y ago
If we bring your analogy all the way, we must assume that the majority of Chinese people secretly want imprisoned murderers freed, rather than supporting their incarceration. If imprisoned murderers are like empowered politicians, then toppling the government is like freeing the murderers. A revolution of the status quo. That's an obviously ridiculous claim to make; Chinese people do not want the dangerous murderers freed.

wolverine876 5y ago

If it is truly self-determination, why not have elections? How do they know what the people want? The people can't even talk about it. In parts of China that do and did have free expression, Taiwan and Hong Kong, the people strongly support democracy and freedom and strongly oppose the CCP. It is the oppression of the CCP that I oppose. I wish the people of China were free and could choose their government - that would be - will be - a great moment in history. > In reality, the government of China is made of... normal Chinese people with leadership/bureaucracy skills. And an absolute dictator who will remain in office for life.

pphysch 5y ago
China does have elections. What are you talking about?