Hacker News Reader

Comment by cycomanic | Hacker News Reader

At some point I saw an analysis that looked at the policy/political differences between the different fractions of the Chinese communist party and compared them to the spread in a western parliament (I don't remember which one I think US or UK). They found that the spread was very similar. With that I'm not saying that the Chinese system is better, just that these statements are not as straight-forward as one things.

I think a much better metric is suppression of dissent, human rights records etc., not (the illusion of) choice at the poll booth once every 4 years.

View on HN

The marketing pitch of Western "democracy" has always been that you can criticise your government freely and the government won't jail you or murder you.

Also, consumer goods.

The voting and multiple-branches-checks-and-balances elements are sidelines.

Currently none of those promises are true in the US. The government is murdering and jailing people for whimsical and self-indulgent reasons, the consumer economy is about to crash, and the only checks-and-balances are the checks going straight to the Emperor's private accounts.

To be fair, there's some judicial pushback, and some political friction.

But Senate and Congress are wholly captured, the opposition is flaccid and foreign-funded, media independence is a myth, and the last time The People had any real influence on policy was the 70s. Possibly.

I have no idea if China is "better". From a distance China seems to be doing much better at building useful things and making long term plans.

But ruling cliques always seem to end up being run by psychopaths, so my expectations for humanity from China's rulers aren't any higher than those for the US.

Despite being formally less democratic, the Chinese government is in practice more responsive to its constituency than the US government. I have to think that class character of the parties is the determining factor. The CPC is, despite everything, still a proletarian party. In the US, the two parties are both directed by the interests of the haute bourgeoisie, with the Republicans pulling votes from the petit bourgeoisie, and the Democrats pulling votes from the professional-managerial class.

I mean the American people who will cry about humans rights records in China will also watch masked government agents shoot down their own citizens just because they're suspected to be illegal immigrants

It would be hilarious if it wasn't so sad

It's not true that people just sat by and watched.

There was massive public backlash and real organized resistance, especially in the streets of Minneapolis. People literally put their lives on the line, communities banded together to help migrants who were afraid to go to work or leave their homes, and they ultimately forced the government to retreat and change tactics. And it resulted in the firing of a cabinet secretary and the border patrol commander that was the face of the whole thing. And plummeting public approval that has only declined further since

A somewhat similar campaign occurred in Hong Kong, but the resistance sadly was not able to fare as well against China tyranny

Reply on news.ycombinator.com