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Comment by hugh3 | Hacker News Reader

They have a "government" which wasn't elected. If you claim sovereignty over a bunch of land and its people, and you haven't been elected by those people as their representative, then you are not a legitimate government, you're merely a bunch of armed thugs who happen to control some territory. (I have no interest in debating whether your definition of "dictatorship" varies from mine.)

Getting rid of folks who claim sovereignty over a nation without the expressed and open consent of its people is, as I see it, the great moral challenge of the 21st century, much as ending slavery was the great moral challenge of the 19th.

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So every single government in the history of mankind, up until the last couple of hundred years, has been illegitimate?

The legitimate sovereign is the one the people permit to exist - if the Chinese government's rule was that of the iron fist against the vast majority who are itching for revolution, then sure, you might have a point.

But this is not how China is right now - there is no pent-up demand for revolution, and the people campaigning against the government are a vanishingly small minority at best.

By your logic, U.S. government are a bunch of armed thugs who happen to control some territory. 50% of the U.S. population aren't voting. 50% of the remaining 50% decides the next government. Basically 25% of the population impose their will on the rest of the 75% of people. That's tyranny.

In Civil War era, the Southern States had democratically voted to leave the Union. The North ignored the democratic result and went to war to bring them back, killing half of millions in the process.

The Southern States had voted democratically, with super majority, to keep blacks as slaves. By your logic, that's just a-ok.

Some democracy at work.

> Basically 25% of the population impose their will on the rest of the 75% of people.

If 4% of the US people own 75% of the assets, then your 25% ruling 75% of the people is off by a few factors.

Actually in many democratic nations more than 50% (due to first past the post style voting) did not want the ruling faction in power. If an unelected government can achieve the same percentage of satisfaction (without violence of course) then I fail to see how they are any less legitimate.

Were the majority of governments in human history, many lasting hundreds of years and immensely beneficial to their populaces, not legitimate?

And dare I ask what was the great moral challenge of the 20th?

Fighting fundamentally bad ideas.

I think there was a revolution at some point which brought in the communist party. I think at that point the revolution probably had a lot of support, thus, legitimacy. Just because people did not hold election does not make their government illegitimate unless power is taken by force.

The government does become illegitimate however if power is kept by brutal force. A lot of people died in the 1990s protests in China, the only country where the mass protests of people did not lead to a change of regime from communism to democracy.

But they are doing well now. They are kind of doing what Gorbachev did in the 80s, before the overthrow of the regime, that is slowly and gradually opening up. SO the people might overthrow their government soon as they did in Russia, or they might collectively decide some other form of governance. Democracy is not the only optimal option. We just have not thought of any other because we have not had to and just as the guys in china put up with communism, we do with democracy.

My point is, leave China to the sovereignty and will of its own people. Now, North Korea does need help.

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