5 ms·

Only a little over 30 years ago USA rolled out its police to blow up its own citizens, razing entire city block: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_MOVE_bombing

by trasz 4y ago

Only a little over 30 years ago USA rolled out its police to blow up its own citizens, razing entire city block: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_MOVE_bombing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_MOVE_bombing. They didn't need to deny or cover up anything, obviously nobody got punished for this, because the victims were black. So, yeah, while the Western people can certainly voice their opinion, it's often because their opinion doesn't matter. ("According to an article in The Lancet, between 1980 and 2018, more than 30,000 were killed by the police", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_killings_by_law_enfor...)

refurb 4y ago
Did you read your own link? The "Aftermath" section where several courts condemned those actions and awarded substantial awards to the victims. The City apologized. Independent commissions condemned the decision. Can you please list all of the acts of restitution that the Chinese government has done since 1989? Oh, and ignoring all that, you're posting an awful lot of whataboutisms. I count about 9 of them so far. What game are you playing?
- cies 4y ago
  While you are right, I think GP still has a point. Those responsible for the MOVE massacre walked from it. The broader point I think GP tries to make is: the west should not be so quick to point fingers, especially not while it's own fingers are covered in blood. The US likes to same "human rights violations" about other nations, but then commits many themselves every year, and claims to be above the The Hague court. I also believe the US has not right to use those terms while it is still misbahaving on such a large scale.
  - refurb 4y ago
    So you're suggesting that the US, since it's guilty of human rights violations, should just be silent when it sees others countries commit human rights violations? I think that's absurd. There isn't a country on this planet who hasn't committed some human rights violation in its past. By your logic, nobody should ever call out human rights violations...ever. A far better approach is to judge a country by its actions in totality. Yes the US commits human rights violations, but it also has courts where victims can seek restitution, a free press to talk about such violations, free elections where voters can choose leaders who work against human rights violations. To compare the US and China and say "well they're both guilty of the same sins" is, frankly, bizarre.
    - glenstein 4y ago
      Right, that's classic whataboutism, and it uses an inch of U.S. abuses to sweep away a mile of abuses by China. Those things just don't exist in a logical relationship of justifying, absolving, or forbidding analysis of one another. Their relation, if there is one at all, would be an and relationship, not an or, and certainly not an xor. Even a person fully invested in talking about U.S. human rights abuses and categorically disagrees with the idea that China has ever done anything wrong, you would hope that such a person wouldn't try to use the one topic to derail the other.
      - trasz 4y ago
        This above has a name: "American Exceptionalism".
        glenstein 4y ago
        I'm not sure I understand, but I like to think I was actually making a full-fledged point about the fallacy of covering for abuses by ignoring them and pointing to other abuses. Do you disagree? How can I state that point to your satisfaction without you labeling it as American exceptionalism?
        trasz 4y ago
        Except nobody was suggesting to ignore them and point to other abuses - we are talking about the idea of how this kind of problems cannot occur in Western societies, because society can do things. They do, society can't do anything, and I provided an example.
        glenstein 4y ago
        If that were the case, you've still misdiagnosed my point, which was still not a point about American Exceptionalism. That is, even if I was wrong to suggest this was an instance of ignore X, because what about Y, pointing out that such a thing is fallacious would not be an instance of imploring people to indulge in American Exceptionalism. But, I don't believe I was wrong, I believe you're just confidently incorrect. You entered a thread about one subject, changed the subject to something else, and unless you were offering it as a complete non-sequitur (which you should be clear about), you were suggesting an appropriate response to criticism of China was to ask people follow you on an academic detour to a vague and largely nonresponsive point that left behind most of the previous subject, presumably because you believed that such an exercise represented forward motion in the conversation. So I do think you really are doing the "ignore that, what about this" exercise, and that is what people mean by whataboutism.
  - watwut 4y ago
    Nah. Note how the invocation of move bombing is not even attempt to compare the level of both countries crimes historically. It is literally just attempt to "since America has/did crimes, no one is allowed to criticize China/Israel/Russia". Moreover, while USA did in fact committed crimes either on own soil or internationally, claiming that it is exactly the same as China or Russia is just wrong. America has its own authoritarians trying to destroy its own democracy. It is has its own sociopaths in leadership too. And still, it is not currently commuting genocide, unlike China or Russia. And whatever wrong America did does not mean it is ok for China or Russia to be imperial or genocidal until America fills itself with angels only.
    - trasz 4y ago
      >It is literally just attempt to "since America has/did crimes, no one is allowed to criticize China/Israel/Russia". Not at all. Please read my comment in its context: it's a response to parent's claim that this can only happen in China, because in the West the public has the right to speak out and fix it - while in reality it happens too, and simply gets ignored, sometimes without even bothering to cover it up. Also - ever seen the racial stats for US prisons, or for police shooting victims? Doesn't it look like a genocide to you? If it doesn't - perhaps it's because you've been told your entire life that it's actually normal, same way Chinese are taught their government crimes are ok. And even if it does - do you believe you can realistically do anything about it? On the other hand in US it's at least properly documented. China does have a terrible problem with transparency, and I'm afraid it might be a cultural thing, because it's not just China.
      - refurb 4y ago
        Your entire argument is a whataboutism. You’ve still failed to explain why China’s actions against Uyghur population shouldn’t be condemned.
      - watwut 4y ago
        The whole your thing is to distract from discussing China and making it sound like China is actually ok with what it does. No it is not and nothing that happens in USA makes China actions less grave or less genocidal. > it's a response to parent's claim that this can only happen in China, because in the West the public has the right to speak out and fix it Not true. The parent said that in the Western countries can be pressured and the public has right and possibility to speak about issue. The implication is that therefore public pressure can be used to change the things. It was not that nothing bad in west ever happens. > Also - ever seen the racial stats for US prisons, or for police shooting victims? Doesn't it look like a genocide to you? Yes and actually no it does not look like genocide at all. It does look like racial bias and imprisonment rates are absurdly high. Nevertheless, it is not nearly genocide.
- trasz 4y ago
  Ah, right, they apologised. That changes everything :-> What matters is that nobody - not a single one of perpetrators of a bombing organised by police, which killed five random kids, and this is ignoring reports of police shooting at survivors fleeing the fire - got punished. "The city" paid some (public) money, that's all. It's not whataboutism, it's showing that the claim that "public condemnation against China will do nothing" because of Tienanmen is terribly misleading: those same things happen everywhere, you're just assuming they are somehow fundamentally different there. Sometimes they are, but mostly not. As for the Chinese government: Chinese prime minister responsible for Tienanmen spent the rest of his life in house arrest. Can you imagine this happening in the land of the free?
  - refurb 4y ago
    China denies the event. They just removed a memorial statue in Hong Kong. Are you seriously arguing that response is better than the US? Never mind crushing a democratic protest and killing thousands is in no way comparable to police trying to execute an arrest of a small group.
    - trasz 4y ago
      >China denies the event. It never ceases to amaze me how people still believe things like this. https://www.quora.com/What-do-Chinese-citizens-particularly-the-young-adults-think-about-events-such-as-the-June-4th-Incident-aka-the-Tiananmen-Square-massacre-when-information-around-it-has-been-so-heavily-censored/answer/Yiran-Chen-15 https://www.quora.com/What-do-Chinese-citizens-particularly-... > Are you seriously arguing that response is better than the US? Are you seriously not realising that you're making a huge assumption here? But please, tell me how putting the prime minister in house arrest for the rest of his life is a worse response than ignoring the whole thing altogether and not even pretending to prosecute. (Also: thousands? Estimates, eg Amnesty International, say few hundred up to a thousand; funny how those numbers somehow keep growing when it's about China and not US, isn't it?)
      - refurb 4y ago
        China just tore down a statue in HK commemorating the massacre. But your telling me your quora link tells me all is fine? Come on, your spending an awful lot of time defending a brutal dictatorship.

by trasz 4y ago

refurb 4y ago

Did you read your own link? The "Aftermath" section where several courts condemned those actions and awarded substantial awards to the victims. The City apologized. Independent commissions condemned the decision. Can you please list all of the acts of restitution that the Chinese government has done since 1989? Oh, and ignoring all that, you're posting an awful lot of whataboutisms. I count about 9 of them so far. What game are you playing?

cies 4y ago
While you are right, I think GP still has a point. Those responsible for the MOVE massacre walked from it. The broader point I think GP tries to make is: the west should not be so quick to point fingers, especially not while it's own fingers are covered in blood. The US likes to same "human rights violations" about other nations, but then commits many themselves every year, and claims to be above the The Hague court. I also believe the US has not right to use those terms while it is still misbahaving on such a large scale.
- refurb 4y ago
  So you're suggesting that the US, since it's guilty of human rights violations, should just be silent when it sees others countries commit human rights violations? I think that's absurd. There isn't a country on this planet who hasn't committed some human rights violation in its past. By your logic, nobody should ever call out human rights violations...ever. A far better approach is to judge a country by its actions in totality. Yes the US commits human rights violations, but it also has courts where victims can seek restitution, a free press to talk about such violations, free elections where voters can choose leaders who work against human rights violations. To compare the US and China and say "well they're both guilty of the same sins" is, frankly, bizarre.
  - glenstein 4y ago
    Right, that's classic whataboutism, and it uses an inch of U.S. abuses to sweep away a mile of abuses by China. Those things just don't exist in a logical relationship of justifying, absolving, or forbidding analysis of one another. Their relation, if there is one at all, would be an and relationship, not an or, and certainly not an xor. Even a person fully invested in talking about U.S. human rights abuses and categorically disagrees with the idea that China has ever done anything wrong, you would hope that such a person wouldn't try to use the one topic to derail the other.
    - trasz 4y ago
      This above has a name: "American Exceptionalism".
      - glenstein 4y ago
        I'm not sure I understand, but I like to think I was actually making a full-fledged point about the fallacy of covering for abuses by ignoring them and pointing to other abuses. Do you disagree? How can I state that point to your satisfaction without you labeling it as American exceptionalism?
        trasz 4y ago
        Except nobody was suggesting to ignore them and point to other abuses - we are talking about the idea of how this kind of problems cannot occur in Western societies, because society can do things. They do, society can't do anything, and I provided an example.
        glenstein 4y ago
        If that were the case, you've still misdiagnosed my point, which was still not a point about American Exceptionalism. That is, even if I was wrong to suggest this was an instance of ignore X, because what about Y, pointing out that such a thing is fallacious would not be an instance of imploring people to indulge in American Exceptionalism. But, I don't believe I was wrong, I believe you're just confidently incorrect. You entered a thread about one subject, changed the subject to something else, and unless you were offering it as a complete non-sequitur (which you should be clear about), you were suggesting an appropriate response to criticism of China was to ask people follow you on an academic detour to a vague and largely nonresponsive point that left behind most of the previous subject, presumably because you believed that such an exercise represented forward motion in the conversation. So I do think you really are doing the "ignore that, what about this" exercise, and that is what people mean by whataboutism.
- watwut 4y ago
  Nah. Note how the invocation of move bombing is not even attempt to compare the level of both countries crimes historically. It is literally just attempt to "since America has/did crimes, no one is allowed to criticize China/Israel/Russia". Moreover, while USA did in fact committed crimes either on own soil or internationally, claiming that it is exactly the same as China or Russia is just wrong. America has its own authoritarians trying to destroy its own democracy. It is has its own sociopaths in leadership too. And still, it is not currently commuting genocide, unlike China or Russia. And whatever wrong America did does not mean it is ok for China or Russia to be imperial or genocidal until America fills itself with angels only.
  - trasz 4y ago
    >It is literally just attempt to "since America has/did crimes, no one is allowed to criticize China/Israel/Russia". Not at all. Please read my comment in its context: it's a response to parent's claim that this can only happen in China, because in the West the public has the right to speak out and fix it - while in reality it happens too, and simply gets ignored, sometimes without even bothering to cover it up. Also - ever seen the racial stats for US prisons, or for police shooting victims? Doesn't it look like a genocide to you? If it doesn't - perhaps it's because you've been told your entire life that it's actually normal, same way Chinese are taught their government crimes are ok. And even if it does - do you believe you can realistically do anything about it? On the other hand in US it's at least properly documented. China does have a terrible problem with transparency, and I'm afraid it might be a cultural thing, because it's not just China.
    - refurb 4y ago
      Your entire argument is a whataboutism. You’ve still failed to explain why China’s actions against Uyghur population shouldn’t be condemned.
    - watwut 4y ago
      The whole your thing is to distract from discussing China and making it sound like China is actually ok with what it does. No it is not and nothing that happens in USA makes China actions less grave or less genocidal. > it's a response to parent's claim that this can only happen in China, because in the West the public has the right to speak out and fix it Not true. The parent said that in the Western countries can be pressured and the public has right and possibility to speak about issue. The implication is that therefore public pressure can be used to change the things. It was not that nothing bad in west ever happens. > Also - ever seen the racial stats for US prisons, or for police shooting victims? Doesn't it look like a genocide to you? Yes and actually no it does not look like genocide at all. It does look like racial bias and imprisonment rates are absurdly high. Nevertheless, it is not nearly genocide.
trasz 4y ago
Ah, right, they apologised. That changes everything :-> What matters is that nobody - not a single one of perpetrators of a bombing organised by police, which killed five random kids, and this is ignoring reports of police shooting at survivors fleeing the fire - got punished. "The city" paid some (public) money, that's all. It's not whataboutism, it's showing that the claim that "public condemnation against China will do nothing" because of Tienanmen is terribly misleading: those same things happen everywhere, you're just assuming they are somehow fundamentally different there. Sometimes they are, but mostly not. As for the Chinese government: Chinese prime minister responsible for Tienanmen spent the rest of his life in house arrest. Can you imagine this happening in the land of the free?
- refurb 4y ago
  China denies the event. They just removed a memorial statue in Hong Kong. Are you seriously arguing that response is better than the US? Never mind crushing a democratic protest and killing thousands is in no way comparable to police trying to execute an arrest of a small group.
  - trasz 4y ago
    >China denies the event. It never ceases to amaze me how people still believe things like this. https://www.quora.com/What-do-Chinese-citizens-particularly-the-young-adults-think-about-events-such-as-the-June-4th-Incident-aka-the-Tiananmen-Square-massacre-when-information-around-it-has-been-so-heavily-censored/answer/Yiran-Chen-15 https://www.quora.com/What-do-Chinese-citizens-particularly-... > Are you seriously arguing that response is better than the US? Are you seriously not realising that you're making a huge assumption here? But please, tell me how putting the prime minister in house arrest for the rest of his life is a worse response than ignoring the whole thing altogether and not even pretending to prosecute. (Also: thousands? Estimates, eg Amnesty International, say few hundred up to a thousand; funny how those numbers somehow keep growing when it's about China and not US, isn't it?)
    - refurb 4y ago
      China just tore down a statue in HK commemorating the massacre. But your telling me your quora link tells me all is fine? Come on, your spending an awful lot of time defending a brutal dictatorship.