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Comment by tmptmp | Hacker News Reader

I feel sad about the Chinese people and people living under communist/Marxist regimes.

Communism/Marxism is one of the worst ideologies out there (along with intolerant religions). The western democracy is the best model the humans have invented yet. This is not to say we must not strive to improve it. But Communism/Marxism is not at all an improvement, it's an outright societal cancer. But I am seeing is the increase in criticism of US (and western democracies) by leftists and liberals. That in itself would not have been a big deal but these leftists praise Communism/Marxism.

This is a wake-up call to the people of united states who are listening too much to the unjust and undue criticism of the US govt for surveillance. Post-Snowden some leftists are taking undue advantage of the atmosphere to spread their fear mongering anti-democracy propaganda amongst US citizens.

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China is not a communist state these days nor I'm not aware of mainstream Western liberals praising communism. (sources on the latter?)

>>China is not a communist state these days

That's your opinion. FYI, China has the dreaded communist politburo running the show.

> This is a wake-up call to the people of united states who are listening too much to the unjust and undue criticism of the US govt for surveillance. Post-Snowden some leftists are taking undue advantage of the atmosphere to spread their fear mongering anti-democracy propaganda amongst US citizens.

I don't know why you would equate opposition of mass surveillance with "anti-democracy propaganda". A major point of opposing mass surveillance is that it's anti-democratic for the government to be able to dig up dirt on anybody with the press of a button.

You are total wrong. In fact,today China is not communist/Marxist at all.China is more Capitalism than USA. The word communist/Marxist is only mentioned when holding big meetings.

China is definitely not communist, but it is definitely less capitalist than the US. Fundamentally the "Communist" Party is about control, which is directly opposed to a free market (i.e., capitalism). For example, the Chinese government wants a stock market. But, they want this market to always go up. (down = people lose money = risk of social unrest) So this year they tried stopping the market if it fell too far, suspending trading of certain companies, telling fund and/or brokerages that they could not sell certain companies. NOT capitalism. Also, the economy is dominated by large state-owned-enterprises (SOEs) which receive strong direction from the government. The government tells factories around Beijing to close whenever a government meeting is in town, so the air will be clean. Note how none of those things happen in the US.

>>China is more Capitalism than USA.

China is not at all capitalist as there is no free market, and you may say it's not communist/marxist if it pleases you but it's a communist party controlled tyranny. *

If anything, China is much, much more tyrannical and dictatorial than USA. Tyranny and brutal dictatorships is only what communism/Marxism have produced in large amounts. The communism/Marxism have produced very little good and very large evil wherever they got foothold.

* A Chinese citizen cannot even move within China without getting permits from the communist politburo approved officials, forget about him/her being able to launch a business freely.

Edit: added * details

Communism/Marxism =/= tyranny and brutal dictatorships. They aren't mutually exclusive, but one doesn't imply the other. There was Marxism and tyranny in the Soviet Union, modern China only has tyranny.

The modern Chinese regime has nothing even remotely close to neither communism or Marxism except the imagery.

Frankly, I think it is the far Right that are closer to anti-democracy. Witness: Trump claiming he won't accept the results of the election, that's about as undemocratic as you can get.

Where did Trump claim that he won't accept the results of the election? In the debates, he refrained from saying one way or another.[0] There's a big difference between what he said and what you're saying he said.

[0]: Trump: What I’m saying is that I will tell you at the time. I'll keep you in suspense, okay?

I think it is very undemocratic to even suggest that that you might not accept the results. In fact, it is even slimier, because it provides maximal disruption in trust of the democratic system while allowing him to claim exactly what you are saying.

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