4 ms·

Why is this evil? Most countries draw the line at aiding and abetting foreign harm to your own country, no matter how justified. I would expect no different if

by jimbob45 10mo ago

Why is this evil? Most countries draw the line at aiding and abetting foreign harm to your own country, no matter how justified. I would expect no different if it happened in America or Europe.

embedding-shape 10mo ago
[flagged]
mikkupikku 10mo ago
> Most countries draw the line at aiding and abetting foreign harm to your own country, no matter how justified On the books maybe. But for instance, America defines treason so narrowly that nobody has been convicted of it since WW2. Americans are free to sing praise of China, Russia, North Korea, whoever they like no matter how unjustified. Unless Congress has declared a war, which hasn't happened since WW2, you can talk as much smack about America or praise opposing regimes as much as you like.
- waffleiron 10mo ago
  It doesn’t matter if its called Treason, for example the Rosenbergs were executed for espionage. Aiding and abetting what the US saw was foreign harm.
  - BurningFrog 10mo ago
    Not just any espionage. They gave the Soviets the atomic bomb designs, permanently changing the global power balance!
    - greedo 10mo ago
      The Soviets would have developed the atomic bomb (and eventually the hydrogen bomb). This simply accelerated their development. And considering that for the first decade after the end of WW2 the US considered and threatened the USSR with nuclear annihilation frequently, this is probably a good development...
      - BurningFrog 10mo ago
        Soviet under Stalin was just as bad as Germany under Hitler. The west could conceivably have liberated the Soviet block after WW2 and the post war world would have been a much better place, including a non communist China. That's my guess at least. Impossible to know, of course. In reality, the Rosenberg documents wasn't very decisive. Stalin already had the Manhattan Project blueprints from Klaus Fuchs.
        greedo 10mo ago
        Stalin was undoubtedly evil with the blood of millions on his hands. I don't think that the West had any chance to liberate the Soviet bloc (I'm assuming what you meant is the Warsaw Pact countries). The Red Army was simply too big, too powerful, and too experienced at the end of WW2. Even using the few atomic bombs available between 1945-1949 (when the Soviets exploded their first atomic weapon), the USSR was just too big a country, with too many people. And if you look at the willingness to take casualties that the Red Army demonstrated while fighting the Nazis, trying to take on the USSR would have been folly. The West was spent after WW2 (as were the Soviets), with no appetite for further conflict. Even the US was tired of war, and only the drumbeat against the Red Menace did much to motivate the populace.
        BurningFrog 10mo ago
        Yeah, that's about it. General Patton, John von Neuman were among those advocating for it, and in hindsight I think it would have been a good thing to avoid the Cold War and the communist era, saving China from the horrific Mao era, etc. But I agree that turning on an ally, sacrificing millions more of your soldiers etc at that point would have been a very hard sell. I'm sure I would have been opposed to it at the time.
        greedo 10mo ago
        Of course avoiding the Cold War would have been beneficial to humanity, but it wasn't realistic considering the state of the world at the time.
- intalentive 10mo ago
  If you start a website that is too friendly to a foreign regime, it risks being shut down by the FBI. That’s what happened to the American Heritage Tribune. The US power nexus absolutely suppresses dissident speech, whether through lawsuits, deplatforming, de-banking, or any of a variety of other means.
- ta20240528 10mo ago
  ‘ WW2, you can talk as much smack about America or praise opposing regime’ Perhaps, but what you cannot do in over thirty states is criticise Israel and then do business with a government organisation.
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
n4r9 10mo ago
As far as I can tell, the prosecution's entire case relies on an unfounded grand conspiracy argument. That by running a newspaper which supported democracy, Lai was implicitly calling on the US to impose sanctions on China.
- skippyboxedhero 10mo ago
  Lai admitted to explicitly doing this - https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-and-crime/article/3288559/hong-kongs-jimmy-lai-admits-lobbying-international-support https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-and-crime/article/32... - I believe he said he did this on multiple occasions. His arguments make no sense at all because, given his background, the only possible interpretation of that course of action would be to use sanctions to change the government. Also, if Lai genuinely believed (as I think he must have done) that the US was going to help in any way then he was delusional. In almost every case, "freedom" fighters end up relying on the resources of hostile foreign governments to continue their activities. There is no way that the US was going to offer anything other than a publicity stunt.
  - n4r9 10mo ago
    Hard to address evidence that's behind the paywall of an organisation where there's concerns over editorial independence. I found an archived copy of the article you linked [0] only to find a nested link [1] for the meeting with Pence & Pompeo, which I could not find an archived copy of. As far as I can tell, the claim of admitting to lobbying could be massively overblown. [0] https://archive.ph/Dc7U7 https://archive.ph/Dc7U7 [1] https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3017868/beijing-foreign-office-slams-hong-kong-tycoon-jimmy-lai-and https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3017868...

Why is this evil? Most countries draw the line at aiding and abetting foreign harm to your own country, no matter how justified. I would expect no different if it happened in America or Europe.

embedding-shape 10mo ago

[flagged]

mikkupikku 10mo ago

> Most countries draw the line at aiding and abetting foreign harm to your own country, no matter how justified On the books maybe. But for instance, America defines treason so narrowly that nobody has been convicted of it since WW2. Americans are free to sing praise of China, Russia, North Korea, whoever they like no matter how unjustified. Unless Congress has declared a war, which hasn't happened since WW2, you can talk as much smack about America or praise opposing regimes as much as you like.

waffleiron 10mo ago
It doesn’t matter if its called Treason, for example the Rosenbergs were executed for espionage. Aiding and abetting what the US saw was foreign harm.
- BurningFrog 10mo ago
  Not just any espionage. They gave the Soviets the atomic bomb designs, permanently changing the global power balance!
  - greedo 10mo ago
    The Soviets would have developed the atomic bomb (and eventually the hydrogen bomb). This simply accelerated their development. And considering that for the first decade after the end of WW2 the US considered and threatened the USSR with nuclear annihilation frequently, this is probably a good development...
    - BurningFrog 10mo ago
      Soviet under Stalin was just as bad as Germany under Hitler. The west could conceivably have liberated the Soviet block after WW2 and the post war world would have been a much better place, including a non communist China. That's my guess at least. Impossible to know, of course. In reality, the Rosenberg documents wasn't very decisive. Stalin already had the Manhattan Project blueprints from Klaus Fuchs.
      - greedo 10mo ago
        Stalin was undoubtedly evil with the blood of millions on his hands. I don't think that the West had any chance to liberate the Soviet bloc (I'm assuming what you meant is the Warsaw Pact countries). The Red Army was simply too big, too powerful, and too experienced at the end of WW2. Even using the few atomic bombs available between 1945-1949 (when the Soviets exploded their first atomic weapon), the USSR was just too big a country, with too many people. And if you look at the willingness to take casualties that the Red Army demonstrated while fighting the Nazis, trying to take on the USSR would have been folly. The West was spent after WW2 (as were the Soviets), with no appetite for further conflict. Even the US was tired of war, and only the drumbeat against the Red Menace did much to motivate the populace.
        BurningFrog 10mo ago
        Yeah, that's about it. General Patton, John von Neuman were among those advocating for it, and in hindsight I think it would have been a good thing to avoid the Cold War and the communist era, saving China from the horrific Mao era, etc. But I agree that turning on an ally, sacrificing millions more of your soldiers etc at that point would have been a very hard sell. I'm sure I would have been opposed to it at the time.
        greedo 10mo ago
        Of course avoiding the Cold War would have been beneficial to humanity, but it wasn't realistic considering the state of the world at the time.
intalentive 10mo ago
If you start a website that is too friendly to a foreign regime, it risks being shut down by the FBI. That’s what happened to the American Heritage Tribune. The US power nexus absolutely suppresses dissident speech, whether through lawsuits, deplatforming, de-banking, or any of a variety of other means.
ta20240528 10mo ago
‘ WW2, you can talk as much smack about America or praise opposing regime’ Perhaps, but what you cannot do in over thirty states is criticise Israel and then do business with a government organisation.

deleted 10mo ago

[deleted]

n4r9 10mo ago

As far as I can tell, the prosecution's entire case relies on an unfounded grand conspiracy argument. That by running a newspaper which supported democracy, Lai was implicitly calling on the US to impose sanctions on China.

skippyboxedhero 10mo ago
Lai admitted to explicitly doing this - https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-and-crime/article/3288559/hong-kongs-jimmy-lai-admits-lobbying-international-support https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-and-crime/article/32... - I believe he said he did this on multiple occasions. His arguments make no sense at all because, given his background, the only possible interpretation of that course of action would be to use sanctions to change the government. Also, if Lai genuinely believed (as I think he must have done) that the US was going to help in any way then he was delusional. In almost every case, "freedom" fighters end up relying on the resources of hostile foreign governments to continue their activities. There is no way that the US was going to offer anything other than a publicity stunt.
- n4r9 10mo ago
  Hard to address evidence that's behind the paywall of an organisation where there's concerns over editorial independence. I found an archived copy of the article you linked [0] only to find a nested link [1] for the meeting with Pence & Pompeo, which I could not find an archived copy of. As far as I can tell, the claim of admitting to lobbying could be massively overblown. [0] https://archive.ph/Dc7U7 https://archive.ph/Dc7U7 [1] https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3017868/beijing-foreign-office-slams-hong-kong-tycoon-jimmy-lai-and https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3017868...