3 ms·

No government is not your friend. The do not care about you. Whether that is US or China or EU, they do not have your best interest at heart. As soon as they no

No government is not your friend. The do not care about you. Whether that is US or China or EU, they do not have your best interest at heart. As soon as they no longer need you, you will understand.

Roark66 2y ago
In general true, but some governments are better than others. For example, would you prefer to live in Xinjang (being Uigur) in China, or let's say in Europe? Also a government of a country can change. Being raised in a communist Poland I was quite used to all government officials treating you quite famously badly. This was still pretty much in full swing around 2004 (many years after the all of Communism) when I emigrated to the UK. Then I went back, full time around 2019. Imagine my surprise when I had one of my first dealings with a tax office (I was registering my company for Vat online and I put in a wrong start date) and it wasn't through registered mail requesting I attend in person at so and so time (to wait 3 hours) and be told I'll be getting a fine. Nope, they rang me, on my phone, and asked if I can please amend it. So I thought, wow, they must have employed a new person who hasn't learned how to put people down properly yet. But then in the course of my business I dealt with social services and such and the same pattern repeated. Now, it is not all dancing cats and roses, the juidiciary is still pretty bad I'm told, but it's not so much about corruption these days, more about ineptitude, slowness and doing their own interpretation of the laws, which they aren't allowed to do in non-precedents system(they can continue mainly because of their independence - can't force people to actually obey the law if they are the law without turning it into a dictatorship, so waiting for them to retire seems to be the only option). So things are bit more nuanced than "all government is equally bad".
- snapcaster 2y ago
  I'm not saying this like it's some huge deal but i think this comment illustrates my general frustration with discussion on China. Why would you compare the most marginalized group of one society with a normal person in another? Do you think that's fair? If we wanted to do comparisons wouldn't we need to pick the most marginalized groups of people in the West to compare Uigur in Xinjang? Not saying this like China is perfect, i just don't understand why people who seemingly aren't professional propagandists seem to have this "everything china does is bad" narrative in their heads. Like any great country, many horrible _and_ wonderful things have been done there but in the US we only talk about the horrible things and it warps everyone's view

No government is not your friend. The do not care about you. Whether that is US or China or EU, they do not have your best interest at heart. As soon as they no longer need you, you will understand.

Roark66 2y ago

In general true, but some governments are better than others. For example, would you prefer to live in Xinjang (being Uigur) in China, or let's say in Europe? Also a government of a country can change. Being raised in a communist Poland I was quite used to all government officials treating you quite famously badly. This was still pretty much in full swing around 2004 (many years after the all of Communism) when I emigrated to the UK. Then I went back, full time around 2019. Imagine my surprise when I had one of my first dealings with a tax office (I was registering my company for Vat online and I put in a wrong start date) and it wasn't through registered mail requesting I attend in person at so and so time (to wait 3 hours) and be told I'll be getting a fine. Nope, they rang me, on my phone, and asked if I can please amend it. So I thought, wow, they must have employed a new person who hasn't learned how to put people down properly yet. But then in the course of my business I dealt with social services and such and the same pattern repeated. Now, it is not all dancing cats and roses, the juidiciary is still pretty bad I'm told, but it's not so much about corruption these days, more about ineptitude, slowness and doing their own interpretation of the laws, which they aren't allowed to do in non-precedents system(they can continue mainly because of their independence - can't force people to actually obey the law if they are the law without turning it into a dictatorship, so waiting for them to retire seems to be the only option). So things are bit more nuanced than "all government is equally bad".

snapcaster 2y ago
I'm not saying this like it's some huge deal but i think this comment illustrates my general frustration with discussion on China. Why would you compare the most marginalized group of one society with a normal person in another? Do you think that's fair? If we wanted to do comparisons wouldn't we need to pick the most marginalized groups of people in the West to compare Uigur in Xinjang? Not saying this like China is perfect, i just don't understand why people who seemingly aren't professional propagandists seem to have this "everything china does is bad" narrative in their heads. Like any great country, many horrible _and_ wonderful things have been done there but in the US we only talk about the horrible things and it warps everyone's view