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>You gotta admire the Chinese bureaucracy for not using kid's gloves when dealing with a problem Do you feel the same way when the "problem" is "people who wan

by xoa 4y ago

>You gotta admire the Chinese bureaucracy for not using kid's gloves when dealing with a problem Do you feel the same way when the "problem" is "people who want a say in government" or "student activists" or "Uyghurs" and "dealing" with it involves genocide? It's true that authoritarian countries can act decisively on real problems sometimes, when their own private politics align. But they far more regularly act "decisively" to make things worse, to crush freedoms, to cover up their own corruption, etc. It's not particularly admirable that once in a while they have good issues too.

suoduandao2 4y ago
>they far more regularly act "decisively" to make things worse, to crush freedoms, to cover up their own corruption, etc. That's why Democracy is the worst form of government excluding the alternatives. But it would be nice to have a democratic government that is also capable of acting decisively. I don't have any ideas how you'd do that, but it doesn't seem wrong to express the desire.
- effie 4y ago
  This would be possible only when all in the parliament would agree and want the same policy and same law as soon as possible. This is indeed rare, even in dire circumstances like hospitals full of sick people and more coming, or energy crisis in Europe. Democracy being swift like autocracy is basically impossible. Any pretense of democratic government action needs the discussion to happen, which takes lots of time, and this makes the action not swift. Instead, the way western governments seem to approach these crises is that lawful process is violated by the government more or less, tough dubious measures are introduced more or less in the interest of the country, then some people protest, maybe lawsuits get filed, then justice system gets bogged down for years, and in some cases we get rulings that government broke the law. This usually changes nothing.

by xoa 4y ago

suoduandao2 4y ago

>they far more regularly act "decisively" to make things worse, to crush freedoms, to cover up their own corruption, etc. That's why Democracy is the worst form of government excluding the alternatives. But it would be nice to have a democratic government that is also capable of acting decisively. I don't have any ideas how you'd do that, but it doesn't seem wrong to express the desire.

effie 4y ago
This would be possible only when all in the parliament would agree and want the same policy and same law as soon as possible. This is indeed rare, even in dire circumstances like hospitals full of sick people and more coming, or energy crisis in Europe. Democracy being swift like autocracy is basically impossible. Any pretense of democratic government action needs the discussion to happen, which takes lots of time, and this makes the action not swift. Instead, the way western governments seem to approach these crises is that lawful process is violated by the government more or less, tough dubious measures are introduced more or less in the interest of the country, then some people protest, maybe lawsuits get filed, then justice system gets bogged down for years, and in some cases we get rulings that government broke the law. This usually changes nothing.