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Comment by derelicta | Hacker News Reader

How can you tell it is a repressive regime? They have elections, a press and they are pretty satisfied about their form of governance, actually much more than their western counterparts.

So let me sum this up. We cannot ask the people. We cannot base ourselves on how their institutions function and how well they perform.

This discussion highlights how westerners suffer from some serious superiority complex where only THEY can experience genuine freedom and democracy(probably due to their superior phenotype or some inane bs), and everything outside of their little group of friends is a masquerade. The issue with that is that westerners disconnect themselves from reality. They are losing ground and it shows.

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LOL, who ran against Xi in his last "election"?

Which "free press" runs stories against Xi?

Where is the other half of the bell curve of public opinion that's critical of the CCP?

Yeah they have elections alright, you can vote for any Xi Jingping you want to.

In Switzerland we don't elect our Federal Council, which is our executive branch. A bit like in the UK too. Would you say its what matters in a democracy?

Any thoughts on http://anthonyflood.com/rothbarddemocracy.htm?

Well Switzerland (being closer than most other countries to a direct democracy) would be the polar opposite of China though?

if people refuse to answer contentious questions about their regime... it's probably repressive.

Germans and Americans refuse to answer contentious questions about the genocide of Palestinian... They also probably live in a repressive regime, right?

(Also I agree with you, Russia is a capitalist dictatorship)

I live in Germany. It's repressive as fuck. Not being repressive in the standard ways isn't the same as not being repressive. You can say you don't like the chancellor or the party all day long, but you can get arrested for even calling the P_________n situation a g______, for saying anything bad about any person (even if true), doing pretty much anything requires a government license, owner-operators have unlimited liability for everything their business does unless they jump through a whole bunch of hoops and put up a $25k bond, and the government still keeps a registry of where every Jew lives just in case they need that again.

Everything interesting mostly flies under the government radar. There's a lot of it.

"Elections in the People's Republic of China occur under a one-party authoritarian political system controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Direct elections, except in the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau, occur only at the local level people's congresses and village committees, with all candidate nominations preapproved by the CCP. By law, all elections at all levels must adhere to the leadership of the CCP."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_China

> This discussion highlights how westerners suffer from some serious superiority complex where only THEY can experience genuine freedom and democracy(probably due to their superior phenotype or some inane bs)

There is democracy in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.

Just say, "I'm a tankie and I support Russia's invasion of Ukraine."

> Elections in the People's Republic of China occur under a one-party authoritarian political system controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Direct elections, except in the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau, occur only at the local level people's congresses and village committees, with all candidate nominations preapproved by the CCP. By law, all elections at all levels must adhere to the leadership of the CCP.

I personally see nothing wrong with this. The word "authoritarian" is virtually meaningless. And those local elections are paramount; Locally elected representatives end up electing MPs on the provincial level, then they chose MPs of the National People's Congress. The rest is common sense: just because we are used to "elect" pedophiles, racists and parasites doesn't mean all other countries should do the same.

There were/are people who didn't personally see anything wrong with Stalin et al.

> doesn't mean all other countries should do the same

That's the great part right? If you were in place like that you wouldn't know that you "elected representatives" are any of those things since there would be no free press and exposing them would probably be illegal anyway. Ignorance is bliss, I guess that's one way to experience the world..

Organisations try to measure this: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/democracy-index-eiu

You are quite literally commenting on a topic where Brits are complaining about our democracy. You will find reams of articles about the problems with western democracies.

However, you're also commenting about countries that quite literally changed our governments in the last year. USA voted in Trump, the UK voted in Labour. Germany just voted in a new party.

China and Russia, the main comparison points, have not changed government since the 90s. This is nothing to do with phenotypes, it's 100% just looking at the facts.

Russia is very similar to the rest of western democracies, so I won't comment further on that.

Regarding China, their leading party hasn't switched in 80 years, but their policies have and have plenty actually. Changing parties matters only a little bit in the grand scheme of things. I'd argue, for example, that Japan, that has been ruled by a single party for all of his modern existence, is still considered by many in the west as a functioning democracy.

> Russia is very similar to the rest of western democracies, so I won't comment further on that.

Ah yes, I recall that famous incident where Keir Starmer had his political opponents thrown out of a window. Oh, wait: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspicious_Russia-related_deat...

> Changing parties matters only a little bit in the grand scheme of things.

It's part of the package but clearly not all, as many organisations focused on improving democracy and governance will clearly point out.

> Japan, that has been ruled by a single party for all of his modern existence

Whoops: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Japan#Result_in_h...

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In any case, I think all the replies have made my point for me that your dismissal of our rhetoric as based on "western arrogance" are simply nonsense. It's in fact you who's displayed a lack of understanding of those you argue against.

> I'd argue, for example, that Japan, that has been ruled

Seems like a somewhat tangential point to make? The people in Japan did get a choice to vote for another party.

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