One wonders if there is an entire revolutionary class within China sharing South Park videos for freedom.
Police will show up to arrest you just for posting comments online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCOAbkTs_a4
I applaud them for doing this even though it'll mean nothing but trouble for them, any positive PR they're getting this will be drowned out by pressures coming out of China and the loss of a giant market - still, good on ya mates.
Wonder what she typed.
"Oh but those things we ban here are anti-PC, so we are offended by them", sounds eerily similar to, "Oh but those things we ban here are anti-CCP, so we are offended by them".
1. it's symptomatic of Xi's government being able to do anything it wants to (including killing people to harvest their organs) without any checks and balances
2. it violates our ideal of freedom of speech
One of those is a far more serious problem than the other. A democratic society can fix laws that don't live up to its ideals. A lawless, autocratic society cannot.
China has mechanisms to change laws but they have to be routed through the proper channels. From what I understand, individuals can complain all they want, as long as they don't organize outside of these designated channels.
This definitely pisses off the % of western governments that use "grassroots" movements as an attack vector to undermine unfavorable foreign governments.
They subvert free speech with the heckler's veto, and there's nothing anyone can do about them, "democratic" or not.
1. The US has long operated offshore prisons where human rights are routinely abused (though harvesting organs is never a thing I've heard of happening in them)
2. The US routinely silences comedians when they're reported to say something impolite or against the grain - remember Kathy Griffin?
As per statements by the white house[2] and other branches[3] that twitter account is an official channel of US Government policy, I think this is reasonable and generally accepted[4].
1. https://ew.com/news/2017/06/02/kathy-griffin-donald-trump-br...
2. https://time.com/4808270/sean-spicer-donald-trump-twitter-st...
3. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/nov/14/doj-donald-...
4. https://www.forbes.com/sites/rebeccaheilweil1/2017/07/11/tru...
I agree China and the US are in radically different places, but there are serious problems of some degree in many places right now.
1. It's pretty hilarious and approachable for young minds, here's an archive version for the curious https://archive.org/details/MarxForBeginners-English
You've just described India under Modi...
For the time being, while the government may be autocratic, it is enforcing it's law and you'd be hard pressed to find anywhere in the world where the rule of law rules harder.
e.g.
> The Rule of Law is an intrinsically abstract idea, which finds itself grounded in philosophical and moral conceptions. One of its most basic tenants is that all people, whether they be at the lowest level of citizenship or the highest, being the sovereign or government ruler, are all equal under the law itself. This means that no one is above the law, and any law that is broken should be equally punished across the board, regardless of status in society or local community.
> It is also associated with the concept of natural law, which basically claims that because we all belong to the larger human community, everyone must be treated under the same laws and possess the same rights.
vs.
> In contrast, Rule by Law is a concept that sees the governing authority as somehow being above the law, and has the power to create and execute law where they find it to be convenient, despite the effect it has on larger freedoms that people enjoy. To expand on this idea, rule by law is a method that governments and people in power use to shape the behavior of people, and in terms of governing a country, mass groups of people. This usually has the end goal of psychologically or forcefully persuading people to agree with policy decisions they otherwise would not agree with.
China lacks such separation, the judicial branch cannot check the power of the party/official class, they cannot interpret law and they definitely cannot enforce what the official don’t want to enforce (see China’s constitution that with freedom of speech, assembly, and so on...). By definition, this concentration of power is authoritarian, so these things go hand in hand.
I think from country to country the amount by which different branches check one another will vary - and I agree that stronger checks leads to a stronger government - I just disagree that this is a black and white issue rather than a grey one.
I really don't disagree that China's government is crap, but things aren't black and white, all peoples everywhere are struggling for a good balanced government and pushing back against oppressive governments - that said in China, while people are disappeared, there is a general rule of law for the general populace... Normal folks can get by with a decent orderly life, it's constrained and they do lack a lot of freedoms Americans enjoy, but I would draw a stark contrast between living there and Cambodia, Pakistan, Venezuela or Russia - those are countries where law doesn't rule and personal safety is no guarantee.
As an aside - oh look at this neat thingy[2] a rule of law ranking - I had no idea it existed.
1. In theory, at least, the communist party appoints the chairman - a number of seats within this representative board are freely elected, though some are essentially super delegates that get a guaranteed seat. More on that here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organization_of_the_Communist_...
2. https://worldjusticeproject.org/sites/default/files/document...
Yes, China has laws and those laws are often enforced, you won’t get away with murder probably. But if an official feels like they want to intervene, all bets are off; the only recourse for justice are the whims of an even greater official.
And I’m not saying that China is a dangerous place to live: as long as you don’t go against the party’s (or a family member of such) interest, you aren’t going to be effected by a lack of rule of law (though you still have to be careful of rule by law). The pollution will kill you before anything bad happens to you in china’s legal system.
Are the actions taken by the enforcement arm of the sovereign power fairly predictable according to the code of law they publish, or is there are there numerous uncodified “rules” you must also abide by?
Are political enemies executed or punished during regime changes, or are regime changes regular, peaceful and governed by law? Are the families of political enemies also punished?
Does the legislative power pass ex post facto laws or Bills of Attainder? Are property rights respected? Do laws pass through a formal process or at whim? Are Courts of Law and Equity independent?
If the folks in UK got released 2 months later, everything's ok?
How about if the law is written so strictly that everything is an offense, such that it's impossible to enforce on everyone, and you choose to not enforce it against people you like? Any case where it is enforced, you can still point to the law and say the outcome aligned with it.
And what if the law unequivocally says a certain group of people are slaves, is this justified simply because the outcome is not arbitrary and there is a codified rule of law? Whether the law is right or wrong does matter.
Edit in reply to below: the issue in China is precisely that the government's response to criticism is unpredictable. If Xi Jinping criticizes Chinese policy, that means a new policy is now in place. If a random guy on the street criticizes Chinese policy... maybe he'll be fine? Or maybe not. Depending on where and to whom he says it and how nice public officials are feeling that day.
If China elected Xi in a free and fair election, if they developed faster than light travel and clean fusion power then everything would definitely be ok!
But here in the real world I'd like to hear the story of this hypothetical Chinese lady who got a phone call, let alone a lawyer. Was she rich and a well connected communist party official? Or more likely this is just a made up happy fantasy, like warp drives?
It also scares me that so many people are willing to say, "At least we have the rule of law unlike that video." If the end result is exactly the same, that's scary.
But also, as long as somebody can show you horrendous atrocities happening elsewhere, you are willing to let minor local infractions of the rule of law stream by? Just show orphanages getting carpet bombed and it's not a big deal if we mistreat immigrants. Show immigrants getting mistreated and it's ok if we arrest homeless for sleeping in the park.
When I was young, Germans were bad guys. Then Russians. Then Chinese or North Koreans. Back to Russians. Or Mexicans. Or Canadians. Fight for justice in Africa. Feel safe and secure in your own benevolent democracy.
Watch two videos of the exact same behavior and excuse one of them because it is happening in a place that practices the rule of law. Condemn the other because of their voting system.
Edit: the point is that neither is ok.
Whataboutism, also known as whataboutery, is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent's position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument, which in the United States is particularly associated with Soviet and Russian propaganda.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
Why does most of the Chinese use "whataboutism" to defend their country?
https://www.quora.com/Why-does-most-of-the-Chinese-use-whata...
"Privilege" has lost all meaning in today's world. It's just a word to throw around to slow how "woke" you are.
Calling our rights "privilege" is throwing out the struggle and sacrifice of everyone that fought for those rights.
You may have been Lucky to have been born in the US, but not Privileged
But isn't it the very definition of privilege, when through no effort of your own you get to enjoy the benefits for which others have "fought", "struggled", and "sacrificed"? How is it different from the privilege of being born into a rich (or just functional) family?
> You may have been Lucky to have been born in the US, but not Privileged
It looks like the word "privileged", through all these fights on social media, has got a bad rep :-) How is being privileged different than being lucky?
'a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group. "education is a right, not a privilege"'
Obviously whoever wrote that should be penalized because they mucked it up with their example, if privilege is a special right then how is education a right not a privilege?
But anyway, a privilege is something that is understood as something you have been given. The American Constitution holds that rights are something that one possesses innately, although a cynic might wonder what the difference is I think a close reading leads to the understanding that when a right is taken away it is by nature wicked that such a thing should be done, whereas the removal of a privilege would not be automatically unjust.
Thus by the American conception of things every human has the right to free speech, that China takes that away from it's citizens thus not make American's privileged - it makes China bad and its citizens oppressed for having their rights removed.
on edit: sorry about the many typos, not going to fix though as I am dealing with pneumonia and near bed time.
A priori, in a natural state, there is no "right of free speech". It was fought for, built, implemented, and maintained. We are privileged if we are born in a country with solid institutions which grant you this right. That's all there is to the initial comment, I don't see why such a fuss.
I did not say that there was A priori, in a natural state, a right of free speech. I said what the American conception of rights is generally regarded as being - some support for my claims https://www.docsoffreedom.org/student/readings/equal-and-ina... https://www.aclu.org/other/bill-rights-brief-history - many other articles on same subject available and should be easy to find.
Aside from that one can easily determine that the authors of the bill of rights were quite clear in almost every instance not to "grant rights". For example in the first amendment it says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." most people say the First Amendment grants Freedom of Speech, but anyone with a decent grasp of the English language would have to say that it only makes it illegal to limit that freedom.
Now of course I am myself not quite happy with assuming inalienable rights to exist, it seems more reasonable in some ways to assume they were fought for or granted, that they came from somewhere and are not natural to humans. On the other hand I am at least as reluctant to assume a natural state and that I can know what rights, if any, might apply to that state.
So if you can expound on your knowledge of this natural state, please do so. I merely expounded on what the generally understood American conception of rights was, and did not presume to claim to know the truth of that conception.
The G&T program was basically training for grad school: indepdent study, project-based learning, access to computers and internet when they were rare, etc.
That training made a huge impact on my career (I am a post-scientist ML expert at a large internet company). I mentioned the program to some folks I went to school with and they pointed out this G&T program was not ever offered to them.
Interestingly, these kinds of systems end up being important for the long-term success of a country. but at the same time they tend to perpetuate privilege. Students who weren't in the highest level of classes weren't even given a chance to take the test
The reason this framing is despicable is that rights and privileges are not the same.
Being able to afford a Lexus is a privilege. Not everyone has it and that's OK.
Having access to clean water is a right. Not everyone has it and that's not OK.
Free speech is a right. Everyone should have it even if some people currently don't.
The US draws the line at true threats, and inciting imminent lawless action, among others.
New Zealand now draws the line at simply sharing a manifesto along with anything else decreed by the Chief Censor.
China is much more strict, but who's to say where the line should be drawn? Not even western governments agree.
We decide where the line should be drawn through argument and public debate, and by refusing to comply with weaker definitions from anyone who can't convince us using reason that where they want to draw the line is actually in the interest of the people.
Due process is a human right in a way that having a title is not.
(It's still a right by the way, as I said it can be both)
Edit: Anyway, I don't feel the need to argue this since it's just a semantic argument but the general thesis is that I found your narrow definition of privilege to be surprising compared to how I've experienced people using it but English differs over geography so idk.
When you have a right to free speech and then someone puts you in jail for exercising it, it isn't that you don't have the right, it's that your right is being infringed.
Calling it a privilege that you don't have any time someone is infringing on your rights would mean that nobody's rights could ever be infringed, since any time they were infringed it would merely mean that you didn't have them to begin with. But you do. People have human rights even when someone is violating them.
Human rights are defended when we as humans refuse to stand idly by while they are violated. Which is why it's still important to identify the lines that are not to be crossed.
Muddling the fundamental safeguards that allow a free society to exist with the petty jealousy of who has a bigger house is only a boon to the despots who would tear those safeguards down.
Next South Park should do an episode that shows how greedy western leaders running opium/heroin for the better part of now two centuries, turned the most populous country into a paranoid dictatorial hellhole for the Chinese people.
US introspection would be too on the nose?
You ever ask yourself what percentage of the heroin/opium supply would be pulled off the market if China could extradite people from HK? More than 50%... and who gets hurt by that?
We need to all band together to fight this or we will lose all of our privileges and rights.
Let's just discuss what your ancestors did to my ancestors! Because holy crap! That'll definitely fix our current day problems! No better cure for the present than to yell at each other about things that happened a few hundred years ago! Maybe if we turn it into a card game, we can have tournaments and see who's the most oppressed every year. As a Polish-Jew, I wonder where I'm going to be in the rankings in historical oppression. Oh wait, it doesn't matter. I'm going to focus on today instead.
The point to that statement, instead of trying to use this as a situation where America is to blame, because it always is, let's stick to the discussion at hand with China and their CURRENT atrocities. Because no country is innocent, no country is heaven sent. We're all trying to live in a world where this shit doesn't happen anymore. If we just look around and go "Well you're ancestors did this!" "And your ancestors did that first!", we're going to get no where.
Privileges are things granted to you, often conditionally, by someone else. Using the word often sounds quasi-religious to me: "Thank Privilege for this meal we are about to eat, and our safe home, ...".
most people didn't do anything do get whatever rights they are enjoying - they were just born into these rights while many other people don't have those rights. Pretty much definition of privilege.
> Calling our rights "privilege" is throwing out the struggle and sacrifice of everyone that fought for those rights.
That argument works for the Lords Privileges in England too - the ancestors of those Lords were brutal knights who fought bloodily to become the Lords and to get and enjoy the Privileges themselves and by their descendants.
"Being born "into" these rights" is close to accurate, but misses the point. You (and everyone else) are born with a basic set of natural rights which exist regardless of how much or how little you can/do exercise them. People have been struggling for hundreds of years to avoid having those rights infringed upon, not to "create" them.
Privileges on the other hand, derive their authority from a secondary source. Driving, public education, etc are good examples of "Privileges" where society builds/pays for something, and members of that society are granted the privilege of its use. Compared with your right to free speech, which doesn't disappear because someone/something infringes upon it.
There is no such thing as the "natural rights" except may be for the right to die (and even that is contested by many governments (and super-government-powerful organizations of the past like the Church was for example)). Any rights are created as a result of an [usually temporary] equilibrium between various participating forces established and supported by violence or a credible threat of a such.
Wouldn't the world be wonderful if all 7 billion people had free speech?
when it is had by everyone then it is a right. Until that it is a privilege. For example voting in US was in the past a privilege of white male property owners, and today it is pretty much a right (if one discounts voter suppression state laws, etc).
Another example - free speech can, in theory, be had by everyone in Russia or China, yet it is really far from everybody having it there. Thus it isn't a right there despite that "can, in theory".
But the reality is that as a white middle class male in the US, I do have the privilege to say things and do things in public that people who aren't white or middle class can't. The freedoms we have aren't equally distributed due to systemic racism and sexism.
I'm pretty anti-woke, actually, I hate the term.
And I think there are plenty of things that are "privileges", but it's based on the idea that it is impossible to extend it to everyone. Being admitted to a top school is impossible to extend to everyone by the definition of a top school. Being believed in a court of law when it's just your word over someone else's, but being more trusted because you belong to a particular group is a privilege. Being let off with a warning at a traffic stop because you have the right face is a privilege. Living in the "good" part of town is a privilege.
Surviving a traffic stop without being shot by the cop should not be called a privilege. Being able to receive a competent education should not be called a privilege. These are things that can be extended to everyone and the words should reflect it, so that it's clear which things we should be fighting for, vs the things that are impossible for everyone to have.
This all sounds like a confusing semantics game.
A right gains its power from people's belief that it should be universally granted, and that they will stick up for others when that right gets breached. Once a thing gets redefined as a privilege there is no expectation for people to stand up for other privilege.
The left has tried to redefine harm to include "unequal result or outcome," which makes the entire principle meaningless.
In addition, I am not viewed by a certain portion of the population as a oppressor based on my skin color.
If anything, sometimes I feel sorry for my white friends and am happy for my minority privilege of not being held responsible for things my ancestors did long before I was born.
If you’re a female, it’s more difficult to be taken seriously or heard in meetings, and people constantly talk over you.
If you’re basically anything that’s not white, people will embarrassingly coddle or patronize you, if they’re not prejudicing you.
I never really thought about specific examples until I read this comment, but this is what came to mind.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia required Supreme Court to override laws that violated the constitution.
If that's your standard for "least oppressed", I think your standards are very low.
What is ridiculous is to think that is an argument against the truth of parent's statement.
I question your definition of "objectively" in this situation
"Least oppressed society in HISTORY", this reads like a Trump tweet. Sure is some egregious lack of self-awareness.
To clarify - this is via them losing access to representation by being deemed a felon, and a lot more African Americans are sentenced with drug possession or intent to distribute than any other racial group proportionally.
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/black-people-more...
Not great, and certainly unacceptable, but not equivalent to not being able to "simply leave the house".
On another note, when did Caucasian become a term for white people? As an actual Caucasian, having immigrated to the US from a region near Caucasus, I don't get why people use the term so loosely. The debate is about skin color, just use skin color.
You: "yeah but I grew up in so and so and I never saw anything like that, plus I have a friend who is black and bla bla bla"
Come on...
Go ahead and reduce my argument to a strawman and put words into my mouth, but don't act like you're contributing to the conversation.
Ha! Gets me chuckling during every intense race-relation debate. I can't not hear it, now!
These are just two incidents that immediately spring to mind to counter your cherry picking. White people are not free from the danger of being shot by police. In fact, there is evidence [3] that white people may be more vulnerable than black people in any given scenario, because scrutiny on police use of force has been applied disproportionately in cases of black victims.
1. https://reason.com/2012/06/12/family-of-west-point-graduate-...
2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/12/0...
3. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2016/04/27...
This could all be in my head, but based on reporting and anecdotes from friends, I firmly believe that if a cop's being a dick and I call him/her on it, the cuffs will go on much more slowly than if I were another color or lived in a different neighborhood.
They shoot innocent, unarmed men to death as a matter of course, and get off with a few months' suspension, but somehow you think you can charge a cop for a "hate crime" for getting pulled over (conveniently concluding then that it's the black folk who are "privileged").
It gets thrown around a lot, but it absolutely has a meaning.
Ever know anyone who says that "they ignore politics"? In many cases, those people come from a place that they can do that because it doesn't affect them that much, and certainly not as much as other people.
For instance: today the supreme court in the US is deciding whether it's ok to fire people for merely being gay.
To not have to worry about that is 'privilege'.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-1/t...
I mean at this rate, I seriously think in a decade or two, we're going to find a Holocaust level event has been going on in China that's going to make the Nazis look like amateurs. But instead, we're focused on stupid left/right political differences and figuring out whether gender binary bathrooms cause anxiety.
[1] https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/02/05/who-killed-more-hit... [2] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7546833/amp/Chinese...
Mao killed way over 30 million. Absolutely incompetent, he manage to remain in power just using terror.
The other day there was an 70th anniversary of the founding of PRC and this criminal's gigantic picture was at the hotspot.
Not trying to defend either of them of course. But just for the record books we would should have a saner way of counting.
If you're going to attribute deaths due to lack of foresight then the inventor of cars probably have one of the highest kill counts. Or Genghis Khan for fathering such a large population of mortals who eventually needs to die.
I think you are overattributing his stupidity here. Engineered famine is a fantastic way to make sure populations that don't like you are less of a problem in the future. The Holdomor and Irish Potato Famine are two other obvious examples.
You kill everyone that doesn't agree with you, along with their family. That's anyone who didn't fight with you either. Let along just against. The 20-45 million that died from famine is in addition to a rough estimate of 30 million killed during and shortly after the revolution. You see the same in Russia too. Oh and in Cambodia. They all actually focused on the "intelligentsia" community first. Cambodia just decided to wipe them all out. Russia and China were big on making double sure they were with the party (not just neutral), before they passed up on killing them. The book 1984 really wasn't accidental in that regard. The more you could think for yourself, the more dangerous you were to the party.
It's not an accident that people are scared to criticize these governments. That's where John Steinbeck really fucked up in his book the Russian Journal. Saying "Oh, do you know anyone that's disappeared because of the soviet regime". If you don't know any Russians (at the time)... I mean, duh, you're probably not going to. But talk to even one dissident against the soviet regime in any of the eastern bloc, they'll give you a list of names of who they personally know.
Yep. But maybe we should fix Guantanamo first
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Liberties_Act_of_1988
- https://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/1988-government-apologizes...
I've noticed a trend on this site in particular where we collectively wonder if our western media is a part of Chinese counter-culture. Is this hubris uniquely American?
Of course Western media is part of Chinese counter-culture. We live in a global society. The interesting question is how large a part - and which media?
I believe many Chinese citizens are aware that their situation is not ideal ("oppressed" is probably not quite the right word), because I believe at least some subset of Chinese citizens are not brainwashed morons and any idiot can see what's going on.
If they really had overwhelming support, they wouldn't need to censor so hard. Banning images of Winnie the Pooh demonstrates weakness.
When the majority of the people think as described above the only thing that can bring change is an economic downturn, but would that change be for the better or would it be in the direction the North Korea is taking?
I always find this argument preposterous as someone ethnically Chinese hearing it from a nationalistic Chinese, 10 years younger, from China full of fervour. What exactly have they experience in life that is so full of hardship? To me, it seems like a convenient excuse to brush away any criticism of their actions. No one can criticise them because of what X and Y did to them 150 years ago. Seems like a cop out to me.
I suspect the Chinese government has something to do with this mentality.
Yes? Would you want to try circumventing the great firewall without getting caught?
I fear the Chinese are mostly supportive. Most Germans also supported Hitler before things went awry, and his election results were superb even before massive manipulation began.
There was still a substantial minority that didn't support him and resisted at great personal cost, much like some educated Chinese citizens are resisting at great personal cost now, knowing that many share their sentiments, but assuming that most people will find a way to look beyond the propaganda seems overly optimistic to me.
My insight into this comes mainly from professional Chinese scientists who were previously trained in the US but returned to China because there were better scientific opportunities. Many of them have told me (in person, while visitng the US) that they have to use VPNs to get their work done, and as long as they are relatively cautious, circumspect, and don't repeat what they see to others, they are tolerated.
It seems we agree.
>assuming that most people will find a way to look beyond the propaganda seems overly optimistic to me.
Most people? Yes, that would be overly optimistic. But enough people to render "overwhelming support" inaccurate? Not overly optimistic at all.
China comes from having the majority of its population starve, thanks to Mao.
And before that there were 5 centuries of China going down that ended in things like USA ships patrolling its rivers, and Europeans their coast being in practice a colony and experiencing humiliation of watching external powers siphon out your wealth being too weak to protect yourself.
When the tendency is good everything if fine. When the tendency goes down, things will change.
One of the lessons from the falls of authoritarian governments was how big a gap there was between public expressions of support and peoples' true feelings.
The neoliberal experiment that started with Reagan and Thatcher put paid to that, and it's become all about the individual. Even when it is clearly to the detriment of individuals.
And North Korean's overwhelmingly praise the "Supreme Leader" with tears in their eyes. Ever see old video of Hitler addressing the masses? The people seem overwhelmingly supportive.
Probably not, but evidence does point towards a general attitude of "surely everyone wants to be like us, we are the best country in the world afterall"
To be fair, that's generated from many immigrants who come to the USA with the feeling that "this is the land of opportunities and freedom". Granted, when you come from somewhere like soviet occupied Poland, it doesn't really take much to find a land of opportunity and freedom. But other immigrants from other countries say the same.
If you're an American and a majority of your experience with foreigners are the people that come in saying that, and one of their proudest days is becoming an American citizen, you generally get an idea that America is a pretty good country. As a first gen, I don't see American's having pride in their country as fully unwarranted. It's not like other countries are without their fuck ups.
It's interesting that we used to think the more connected we were the more other countries would see and appreciate our democracy and start to adapt it.
This is the first time I can remember communism and censorship flowing the other way.
> “It’s not worth living in a world where China controls my country’s art,” says one character in the episode.
About sums it up.
Communist regimes collapsed not because they deprived people of their freedom but because their economies failed.
Autocrats like Putin and Xi are popular at home because their economies are growing and people's lives are improving, even though individual freedoms are slowly but surely eroding.
Trump was elected and is still in office because he gave hope for prosperity to people who had long lost it, and they will support him no matter how damaging he is for the rest of the country, the world, or their own freedom.
Neither Russia nor China have free elections. The Russian economy is shrinking fast and Putin's popularity is disingenuous. That may not be true for Xi. The Chinese are riding a humongous economic growth, they don't question their party much because they like the results and don't want to rock the boat.
I got that impression because I watched "Mexican Joker" after that, and when the immigrant kids arrive at the detention center, and the welcome is being translated for them, the mangled Spanish, while brief, was brilliant in its mangling. I appreciate that care to detail.
Oh, there certainly is, especially among the richest of the rich. The whole point of censorship is for control.
Censorship is an up hill battle. It is way easier to defy them than it is for them to block us.
There certainly is an entire generation who is ready for reforms if not an outright democratic revolution, but no I don't believe their end goal is freedom to pirate South Park video clips.