US is involved in human rights violations too. So where does that logic leave us?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Falun_Gong
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Go...
The US incarceration rate is rapidly declining and has been falling for ten years.
The US is pursuing drug legalization and decriminalization and is widely seeking to soften its approach overall. China is doing no such thing and has no interest in such, they regard drugs across the board to be completely opposed to their system's values.
The US is pursuing the end of its failed mass-incarceration policies, with wide-spread bi-partisan support. China is aggressively clamping down on its people in just about every possible manner. It's so aggressive at this point, it's difficult to keep up with all the stories pouring out of China about a new repression/restriction.
The US maintains extremely high degrees of freedom of speech, demonstration, expression, religion, movement. Yes, it's obviously not perfect on any given thing, that hardly needs said (and it's better at some things than others, for example it remains world-class on freedom of speech protections).
China has almost none of that and is persistently revoking the gains that had been made.
One need merely compare the vast, endless protest of Trump's Presidency and many of its policies, the terrible things that have been said about him and his family, the violent threats that are routinely made toward him across social media, the nude statue, the giant protest ducky, and on and on and on. Or, eg most media being stacked against him (~90% of all stories being negative; or just see: Colbert and Kimmel and the things they've said, which would get you immediately put into prison in China or worse).
Now contrast that with how China treats Xi, from protests (lack thereof) to media. Or to simplify, see: Winnie the Pooh. You can't even say bad things about Mao in China, that's enough to get you put into prison. Feel free to call George Washington a devil slave owning piece of trash, all day long, all over the Internet, if you like.
The US legalized gay marriage and has made vast strides over the decades in regards to equality for gay persons. China actively tortures gay people in trying to convert them and censors gay culture.
The US has millions of Muslims that have assimilated fairly well into its culture and laws. Conflicts between US non-Muslims and US Muslims are rare, despite the US being overwhelmingly a Christian/Catholic nation. No purges are occuring, no culture eradication is occuring, no mass detentions are occuring; mass killings of Muslims did not occur after 9/11. China is torturing Muslims and seeking to wipe out Muslim culture in the Xinjiang region.
What China is doing in Xinjiang is Guantanamo x1000, literally. Except Guantanamo was overwhelmingly directed at terrorists and battlefield combatants (and yes it failed at that premise on many occasions). What China is doing is targeting all Muslims because they're Muslims. And they may just be getting warmed up, if the history of dictatorships is any indication.
Trump ran on a platform of decreasing the US military's expanse and the involvement in war in the Middle East. He routinely points out the stupidity of what the US has done in the Middle East in the past, no other President has dared to say such things. He just had to be talked into staying involved in Syria by the Europeans. The American people increasingly poll that they'd like to see a draw-down of the US military on the global stage, less entanglement rather than more; Americans are beyond war weary.
China is going the opposite direction. They're violently annexing vast territory from other nations, persistently threatening Taiwan (with violent annexation seeming like an inevitability), and seeking global expansion for their military.
Factually we don't have an accurate count at all on just how vast the torture camps are in China ('re-education camps'), how many people they're putting into prison, and how many people they're executing.
Then it has the biggest military budget in the world, despite the fact no country has attacked it for centuries.
But it did invade Irak, while lying about the WMD and against the vote of almost the entire world.
Before that it used drugs to finance big entities, funded dictatorships and dropped the second bomb on Japan during WWII, ignoring that the first one did the job.
It also consider it's own population as a threat, recording everything it communicates.
Just because it doesn't do the same mistakes as another countries doesn't mean it's doing things right. You would be living in China, you would rationalize what the state does, just like you do because you are in the US.
I could do the same speech about France, my own country. Education first goal is to avoid repeating mistakes, but it works only if you can recognize how much mess we have done, or are currently doing.
It's odd how you say this but then also write about WWII and japan later on.
Also I think you're making an arguement based on fallicies, the person you are responding to is referencing things happening currently. You are referencing things that happened in previous generations, aside from the first point which is valid though certainly a bit odd to compare to organ harvesting. Perhaps a better comparison would be to China's treatment of Tibetans and the US prison population. I'm not sure. I don't really care either way, just pointing out how stupid and pointless both of your arguments are.
Beside, japan never attacked the us soil.
I'm underlying all this because i want to point out the us is a very agressive country with an history of violence internally and externally.
That's not to deny the positive things in america nor the good that it did for the world or the comfort and freedom a lot of it's population enjoy.
It's just that tye later should not make you forget the former. If you can't see both, you are blind of one eye.
This makes the US a credible "free" country while it can control the people. So it can say "but hey you can say anything you want here". Well, you can. But it is worthless if nobody is listening.
The US has figured out that the censorship system is weak. If someone tries to funnel information, your system collapses. The freedom system is strong, because in order to survive your bombardment of information has to be stronger than anyone else. So it is a superior system immune to enemy attacks as long as you can keep pace.
Russia has figured that and is actively trying to move opinions using armies of online guerillas. They are basically bombarding information with their writing on different online forums.
A. brainwashed by decades of anti-US propaganda (the source of which is generally Russia or the Soviet Union)
B. Paid Russian/Chinese shills
We say that america has done and is doing terrible things as well.
But i can play your game too. Look :
IN my experience, people that have your opinion are generally :
- brain washed by decades of pro us propaganda.
- paid by the nsa / gun industry shills
Why don't you try taking my comment in the context of the entire thread and practicing a little critical thinking? You are not playing my game and your comment is a rehash of the parent post. Congrats. Also great job capitalizing "IN" to emphasize it.
Some have argued that people in the US are brainwashed by the media, but that theory can't explain how Trump won.
The wonder and the beauty of the American system is that we brainwash ourselves. (In fact, I think most people in government would prefer that Americans were a bit more grounded in reality, not electing Yosemite Sam and whatnot.)
If you want to understand how America really works you have to watch "Deadwood" (the HBO series. I'll elaborate if asked.)
> But it is worthless if nobody is listening.
Bullshit. It's infinitely harder for a society to change if people are thrown in prison for even bringing something up. You or I may not like something about the U.S. but I would argue that its government is objectively better than e.g. the CCP, which tries to actively control "history". Here in America we can, however slowly and painfully, process our shit (and we have some messed up shit to get through.) But if the Chinese people can't even talk about e.g. Tiananmen Square..? That's effed up.
US has its own issues but as long the people are free to talk about them and hold FREE elections I'm sure they can/will find solutions.
Do you fancy a ruler for life? Go to China or other such countries that I won't name! Live a life ruled by people you can't even speak bad about even if they make your life miserable.
And no one should dispute that the us has way too large a prison population, one of the sad ways we are superlative.
Secondly, only twice ? What kind of argument is that ?
And you went to war on vietnam. And afghanistan. You've been at war non stop after 1945.
Then you talk about nine eleven, which is a terorist act, not another country attacking. Juste an isolated act, and as usual, the us over reacted.
Other countries in the world are targets of terrorist attacks too. Do you thing we go wiping out a country where the bad guys are hidding because of it ?
Just the fact you are justifiying the war monger attitude like it's a casual brunch is scary to me.
But it also makes my point about america vs china. China is terrible. But america is a bully in this world.
Japan did take the aggressive initiative. Hawaii was part of the US of course, although it was a territory. Late in the war Japan did shell the west coast from a submarine [1]. Japan didn't have to attack the US.
I agree that the US is a bully.
At least America doesn't jail or kill its political activists and journalists, doesn't have what is effectively a dictator for life, doesn't directly control all media in the country, has a semblance of real democracy, doesn't keep it's states by threatening them with military action, doesn't overly and actively censor it's citizen (although it does spy on them).
I think it arises from a misguided attempt at calling out hypocrisy, but the result is a race to the bottom where any other example negates any criticism. Nobody is perfect so if you have to be perfect to criticize no criticism is possible.
Not saying that’s the case here on HN, or in this particular thread. But it is still something to be aware of.
That's quite a good analysis.
And it's literally the case here. OP was going all "white knight", being judgmental and saying how could people help such a bad country as China.
Which is both a limited view and hypocrisy at it's finest. I'm veggie, but I don't stop being friends with meat eating people, although I do consider it something cruel.
The world is not black and white.
It's not because we don't know it's not a proper civilized argument. It's because it was not meant to be an argument in the first place. Just a way to keep OP in check.
But yeah, that's a big fail.
There may be some tiny overlap in some areas, but in my estimation, it's massively and significantly different and equivocating is highly misleading.
It seems to me that once we reach adulthood we spend most days choosing the lesser the of two or more evils.
While no country is perfect, the USA is still leaps and bounds ahead of China on human rights. As an example, what does the USA do that compares to this linked story?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/former-inm...
edit: as an immigrant to the USA, I sometimes feel like I am much more appreciative of the relative freedoms in the USA than folks born here.
I don’t know how convinced I am by this any more. Between the many wars, the torture, and slavery in the largest prison system on Earth it’s harder to argue. I still don’t want to live in a China, but I don’t want to live in the US either.
If you try to challenge power structures in China directly they roll over you with tanks. The last time people em masse did the same in the US they were beaten, lynched, killed, jailed, firehosed and attacked with dogs.
A higher percent of the US population enjoy a lot of freedom and comfort than the chinese population. In China, only the very rich have what the american middle class has. Also the US hasn't been employing children to manufacture things on his soil for a while (well, it does delegate that to China, but it's another debate).
So no, definitely not on the same scale.
But if I had to pick which one is the most dangerous for the world, I'd pick the US. They are very aggressive, they always have been, and they think they are the best country in the world and that everything they do, no matter how bad, is justify because of how awesome they are.
If you read some of the comments of the threads, you'll see that some people completely dismiss their military activity like it's nothing. Like was is not a huge terrible deal. Like they had to do it, and it was right.
My favorite is "we only invaded Irak twice".
So yeah, for WWIII, the US is definitly in my favorite pool. Especially with their social and economical crisis, that will be easier to distract from using scape goats and guns than to solve.
Can you say the US is on par with China,? No, that's ridiculous. See: any of the above articles.
> "...or anyone else involved in human rights violations."
My point is that the original argument is a simplistic argument. Not that US government is the same as China's government.
And just because you are better on some part does not mean you should say "how come you can do such thing ?".
We all do terrible things. You know how come. That's not making anything better.