Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 4 Jan 2022 @ 1:46am
Re:
Now, now, Bloof. You shouldn't disparage those "conservative values" Koby keeps trying to bring up here all the time. The alt-right...oops, "conservatives" highly value what comes out of their mouths even when the irrelevant majority of people think that stuff should come out of the other end.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 4 Jan 2022 @ 1:41am
Re:
"We have a Judge shopping his court to those who will benefit greatly from his rulings, but there isn't enough will to put an immediate stop to it. There is no way anyone can claim this judges antics aren't showing clear bias & even a moron in a hurry can see that defendants will not get a fair hearing."
The more I see of the US "justice" system the more I'm inclined to believe that Judge Roy Bean was the moral highlight of said system.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 4 Jan 2022 @ 1:39am
Re: But they defunded us poor cops! Wahhhh!
"It's like stealing cash from your spouse in secret, then smacking them around for accusing you, snatching the rest of their cash and heading to Vegas with your friends..."
Well, if your actions mean you get money, a power trip and a vacation without consequences there's plenty of motives to perpetuate such behavior after all.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 4 Jan 2022 @ 1:27am
Why am I not surprised?
The thing about rules is that they apply only until the opposite decides to flip the board. After which point if you keep trying to follow the rules you will lose the game your opposite just forced upon you.
Both in the OP and in that anti-gun bill in California mimicking the Texas anti-abortion bill I see that increasingly democrats are learning to fight as dirty as the republicans.
Brad Hoylman's law degree implies that his almost cartoonishly horrifying bill may have been formulated with the specific intent to force the courts to bring down a ruling which stops many of the anti-230 proponents dead in the water. Would be nice if that were the case, though assumptions re the competence of US politicians these days is like offering thoughts and prayers to the invisible unicorn allegedly patrolling your backyard.
I would expect to see a lot more of this type of legislation, with democrats increasingly showing republicans why you should never establish a precedent you don't mind being a victim of.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 4 Jan 2022 @ 1:15am
Re: Re: This holds true across party lines:
"As the majority of gun control proposals ("assault weapon" bans, magazine size limits) has aptly demonstrated for decades."
Well, what can you do?
They start off with a sensible proposal - like demanding licensing and/or demands on gun safety education as a prerequisite for owning a gun, rapidly find out that won't fly and eventually end up with a diluted token bill which effectively does nothing.
And then have to talk fast and make much noise to convince the gullible it's a major win.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 4 Jan 2022 @ 12:48am
Re:
"Any day where you can tell a Nazi to fuck off is a good day."
It really isn't to my credit that even after telling the nazi to fsck off I still have to calm myself with the realization that their deluded world view is the only thing they'll ever have in a world where their pipe dream miraculously keeps failing to produce anything for them other than misery slightly dulled by the fix of permanent grievance.
"Only one person was murdered and that person was a protestor."
So the police officer beaten to death at the door died of what, natural causes?
"Why? Why must the US get involved in yet another civil war. "
Because wisely or not the US did guarantee Ukraine aid. I guess the "american way" is now to bullshit people as bigly as possible because talk is cheap and promises worthless? But I get it, you're thinking "Why us, again?"
More in a realpolitik sense of things, then, allowing Russia yet another unopposed war of aggression (on top of Georgia) sends a message the rest of the world will hear. China will move on Taiwan the very minute they can confirm Russian troops enter Ukraine with the US sitting on its thumbs.
At that point Russia has acquired strategic supremacy in europe and China will have taken over, by force of arms, 63 whopping percent of the global semiconductor industry. The US will be out of the global game for keeps. Forget near-peer, you guys will henceforth be third place.
Somewhat closer to home, that will hurt or collapse parts of your economy, predicated as much of it is on the US being the world leader.
"It’s not fear. It’s not our problem." "Good. We have our own problems to solve."
So you do. Thing is, much of what is happening in the rest of the world is or will be your problem. Legacies of times past, consequences of past meddling...none of that just goes away simply because you're feeling sick and tired of dealing with the fights your past generations bought you.
I suppose you could try to retool the US completely. Isolate. opt out of the global market. But if you think things are bad for you personally right now then I invite you to consider the fallout of every major US corporation suddenly collapsing or evacuating because the federales don't have their backs abroad no more.
I can - thoroughly - understand your view on the US body politic. You're so sick and tired of crooked and inept old Hindenburg you've been willing to cast your vote at the strongman making all the right noises. We've seen that before. Plenty of times.
"Why is it you are so high on NATO when everything they touch turns to shite."
Pragmatism, really.
Remember when during Obama and GWB's years they both found out the biggest embezzlers had their basis in the 401(k) of the common citizenry and the central banks?
The phrase Too Big To Fail was coined at the time when pale-faced fiscal ultraconservatives had to face up to the fact that allowing any of the prime movers in the shit-show to face the music - or the appropriate firing squad - would mean letting the pension funds of half the US go up in smoke.
Meaning both GWB and Obama had to bail the industry out to the tune of trillions of dollars. You guys are still paying for that today.
Which brings us to NATO. Yes, they've been as much of a shit-show, meddling and setting up untenable situations all over. Replacing one monster with another in the ME and Asia until the current situation emerged.
This I find deplorable. Almost as deplorable as I'll find NATO removing itself from the board with all those tensions still in place. Past US policy maneuvered many parts of the world into a mexican standoff. Dropping your gun and just walking off won't end well.
"Funny, I think you actually believe that."
After watching the shit-show of Trump calling republican aides in states ordering them to find him enough votes, the whole mess around trying to have the election declared invalid, and the whole buildup to where the GOP actually haven't won the popular vote for decades and are now representing 40 million fewer americans than the dems?
Yeah, we've seen that buildup before, on this side of the pond. And ironically much thanks to americans then insisting europeans should never make that mistake again we still remember exactly how Mussolini, Franco and Hitler came to power.
I'll just hope that the successor of your beer hall coup won't prove me right here.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 3 Jan 2022 @ 5:45am
Re: Appalling
"Wow. I sure am glad I live in a country where statues and moments aren't torn down to satisfy political agendas."
Really? I think if I lived in a country which kept statuery of, say, Hermann Göring around because some benighted fuckwit thought it'd be "political" to tear it down...I'd be pretty miffed about that country.
Now if you want a slave owner and confirmed pedophile immortalized in city hall then be my fucking guest.
But don't be shy about lamenting the wokeness about not wanting to honor a man just because he kept a minor as a sex slave. It's about the type of "conservative value" I expect to hear from your lot by now.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 3 Jan 2022 @ 5:34am
Re: Re: Re:
"Censorship may "work" at keeping a society autocratic, but the best interests of any individual autocrat would be served better by heeding Daoist principles to govern better by governing less."
This would be the place where I interject my opinion that in China the "individual autocrat" always tends to be the one who can't see himself not being on the top and so never plans for that eventuality. Much like westerners in that particular regard.
"China has been autocratic a long time, but with many different autocrats. The descendants of the Ming Dynasty were not in a good place once a traitor opened the gate in their wall."
Which led to the mongols becoming just another dynasty and China being right back on track within a scant few generations. The figurehead has never been as important as the buraucratic culture which, barring minor modifications, has survived to this day. These days the mandarins wear suits and hold CEO positions where yesteryear the civil official in similar position helmed a minor clan and owned a few street stalls, a warehouse and a brothel.
With some 5000 years of unbroken history, 2,5 of which under an organized empire, something China is doing must be pretty conducive to stability and cultural preservation.
Sure, the Roman Republic, Roman Empire and the various pan-european hegemonies to arise left traces and scars but in general any union built by Europeans, Africans or South americans has historically come apart like nose wipes in a typhoon well before their 5th century.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 3 Jan 2022 @ 5:21am
Re: Re: Re:
"I'm still convinced he has a public humiliation fetish."
...that's Baghdad Bob. You know, the one with the unique knack of making three obviously false statements in two lines or less? And the inevitable accusation most often turning out to be the fault of his own side?
No, Koby has made it very clear his only interest around here is to make someone - anyone - believe that a debate around tax rates or size of government should be considered just as valid as an argument about whether <N-word> are worse than the horde of Mexican Rapists storming the Texas border or about how you can flavor your Ivermectin to get rid of the horrible aftertaste.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 3 Jan 2022 @ 5:02am
Re:
824k dead from Covid...and the loyal faithful of Dear Leader have doubled down so far on being morons there is now the need to go beyond the Darwin Award over the malicious and persistent stupidity of these people.
By now I'm just waiting for some Seventh Day Adventist offshoot to start claiming that dying of Covid is the Rapture.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 3 Jan 2022 @ 4:13am
Re: Re:
"Only fools tell the emperor he is not wearing any clothes."
And children. Surely the revelation the emperor is, in fact, naked will prompt people to think about why they noted that fact and kept silent? Right?
Eh, who am I kidding. It's Missouri. The bystanders will all agree the kid in question is some stripe of godless liberal and beat seven kinds of shit outta the snot-nosed brat brazen enough to confirm the evidence of their own lying eyes. Because these people are long past where they'd accept even the most bitingly obvious of facts...
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 3 Jan 2022 @ 3:55am
Re: Re: Let's resolve to call them what they are:
The fact that Sayragul Sautbay's story has changed both in particulars and in general over the years is concerning.
I mean, the ethnic cleansing performed by the PRC is a given - that's just China being China.
The internment camps do exist.
Forced labor is likely as we know Uighurs have been shipped around én másse to factories.
..and with Abu Ghraib in fresh memory there is no doubt that even if the official policy of the PRC isn't torture and rape it's almost guaranteed that some or all of the camps host this, because posts holding power over other people attracts the most horrible of monsters.
But the testimony of Sayragul Sautbay itself is dubious given how much she's consistently altered it.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 3 Jan 2022 @ 3:23am
Re: The good old days. . .
"That was back when 'Merica was better at covering up or ignoring all the things like those you listed in the preceding paragraphs."
Partially. But not all of it. Back in the '60's...that part of the US golden era the MAGA hats all want to return to, the US was, albeit flawed, still a damn sight better than it is now.
Ironically that prosperity and public conscience was all based on FDR's thoroughly socialist platform which held up well until Reagan came along and gutted everything the US still had to be proud of while hollering about some imaginary welfare queen and trickle-down economics. It's gone downhill since.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 3 Jan 2022 @ 3:15am
Re:
"I think that while talking about uighurs in china, the fact that they are Muslims should be omitted."
For plenty of reasons. Primarily China didn't use to have an issue with Islam with plenty of famous generals and statesmen being muslims over the centuries.
This has begun to change, mainly because the Xinjiang suppression uses the official excuse that the Uighur liberation movement is an old affiliate of ISI and formerly of Daesch/ISIS (which is actually true), and therefore they are operating under the same rules of engagement as the US in their battle against "terrorists".
The actual reason is that the PRC couldn't care less about the religious affiliation of the Uighur. What they care about is that Uighur culture intensely references and seeks to protect the origin of the tribe as turkish rather than Chinese. For which they have plenty of historical precedent to show that every time the Uighurs start talking about being turks the result is an attempted secession.
No, the PRC will only suppress a religion which grows influential enough to bear a message undermining the state - but they'll react with disproportional aggression to any suggestion of a people within their borders claiming not to be chinese.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 3 Jan 2022 @ 2:59am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"maybe other countries could try diplomacy?"
What makes you think they aren't?
Here's the baseline; For the PRC to completely and utterly subdue HK and make it march in obedient lockstep with Beijing is a matter of national face. If you want to tell China what they can and can not do on their own soil you will first need to go to war.
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 3 Jan 2022 @ 2:56am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"This was an inevitability. Raising our hackles about it now ain’t gonna do any good."
And inevitable even way back when the british opium lords extorted HK from the Qing. China has a very long history and it's shock full of examples of the chinese empire, in their zenith, taking back what they lost in their nadir.
The sino-british joint declaration looks very amicable but the reality is the UK was facing the choice of bowing out gracefully and pretend they believed in the assurances of the PRC...or try to project significant force forever to fight a war of attrition on a mainland China which would have made taking the place a point of national pride. Last time the UK was that dumb was the Falklands.
What they could have done would have been to remind the HK residents that, in no uncertain terms, that sooner or later the PRC would reverse on the policies of "One nation two systems" and their children would live under those conditions.
And the time to leave for a life in the UK, the US or Taiwan was, sort of right bloody now.
Yet they didn't and the parents of the current generation were, apparently, fine with dumping their children into the current mess.
"We have a lot on our plate currently with regards to keeping democracy alive in countries where it actually stands a chance."
If US democracy hadn't lost every credibility under GWB and Trump I wonder...China would still do China but I wonder in how many places the fear of western intervention would have made power-mad dictators stop and think?
Scary Devil Monastery (profile), 3 Jan 2022 @ 2:45am
Re: Fight Fight Fight
"This totally vague call to action by somebody just pecking a keyboard comfortably in the U.S. rings very hollow. A naive armchair general/statesman."
To some extent, yes. Fight the battles you can fight. This particular one, though, was lost when the parties signed the sino-british joint declaration more than twenty years ago.
What is left is to leave the dissidents left to the unkind hands of the PRC by their parents refusing to run while there was a chance, a way out and a visa.
On the post: Federal Court Tells Proud Boys Defendants That Raiding The Capitol Building Isn't Covered By The First Amendment
Re:
Now, now, Bloof. You shouldn't disparage those "conservative values" Koby keeps trying to bring up here all the time. The alt-right...oops, "conservatives" highly value what comes out of their mouths even when the irrelevant majority of people think that stuff should come out of the other end.
On the post: US Courts Realizing They Have A Judge Alan Albright Sized Problem In Waco
Re:
"We have a Judge shopping his court to those who will benefit greatly from his rulings, but there isn't enough will to put an immediate stop to it. There is no way anyone can claim this judges antics aren't showing clear bias & even a moron in a hurry can see that defendants will not get a fair hearing."
The more I see of the US "justice" system the more I'm inclined to believe that Judge Roy Bean was the moral highlight of said system.
On the post: Boston Police Department Used Forfeiture Funds To Hide Purchase Of Surveillance Tech From City Reps
Re: But they defunded us poor cops! Wahhhh!
"It's like stealing cash from your spouse in secret, then smacking them around for accusing you, snatching the rest of their cash and heading to Vegas with your friends..."
Well, if your actions mean you get money, a power trip and a vacation without consequences there's plenty of motives to perpetuate such behavior after all.
On the post: NY Senator Proposes Ridiculously Unconstitutional Social Media Law That Is The Mirror Opposite Of Equally Unconstitutional Laws In Florida & Texas
Why am I not surprised?
The thing about rules is that they apply only until the opposite decides to flip the board. After which point if you keep trying to follow the rules you will lose the game your opposite just forced upon you.
Both in the OP and in that anti-gun bill in California mimicking the Texas anti-abortion bill I see that increasingly democrats are learning to fight as dirty as the republicans.
Brad Hoylman's law degree implies that his almost cartoonishly horrifying bill may have been formulated with the specific intent to force the courts to bring down a ruling which stops many of the anti-230 proponents dead in the water. Would be nice if that were the case, though assumptions re the competence of US politicians these days is like offering thoughts and prayers to the invisible unicorn allegedly patrolling your backyard.
I would expect to see a lot more of this type of legislation, with democrats increasingly showing republicans why you should never establish a precedent you don't mind being a victim of.
On the post: NY Senator Proposes Ridiculously Unconstitutional Social Media Law That Is The Mirror Opposite Of Equally Unconstitutional Laws In Florida & Texas
Re: Re: This holds true across party lines:
"As the majority of gun control proposals ("assault weapon" bans, magazine size limits) has aptly demonstrated for decades."
Well, what can you do?
They start off with a sensible proposal - like demanding licensing and/or demands on gun safety education as a prerequisite for owning a gun, rapidly find out that won't fly and eventually end up with a diluted token bill which effectively does nothing.
And then have to talk fast and make much noise to convince the gullible it's a major win.
On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of 2021 At Techdirt
Re:
"Any day where you can tell a Nazi to fuck off is a good day."
It really isn't to my credit that even after telling the nazi to fsck off I still have to calm myself with the realization that their deluded world view is the only thing they'll ever have in a world where their pipe dream miraculously keeps failing to produce anything for them other than misery slightly dulled by the fix of permanent grievance.
I'm petty that way, I know...
On the post: Tenth Circuit Appeals Court Says Fourth And Sixth Amendment Rights Are Meaningless When National Security Is On The Line
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Cons
"Only one person was murdered and that person was a protestor."
So the police officer beaten to death at the door died of what, natural causes?
"Why? Why must the US get involved in yet another civil war. "
Because wisely or not the US did guarantee Ukraine aid. I guess the "american way" is now to bullshit people as bigly as possible because talk is cheap and promises worthless? But I get it, you're thinking "Why us, again?"
More in a realpolitik sense of things, then, allowing Russia yet another unopposed war of aggression (on top of Georgia) sends a message the rest of the world will hear. China will move on Taiwan the very minute they can confirm Russian troops enter Ukraine with the US sitting on its thumbs.
At that point Russia has acquired strategic supremacy in europe and China will have taken over, by force of arms, 63 whopping percent of the global semiconductor industry. The US will be out of the global game for keeps. Forget near-peer, you guys will henceforth be third place.
Somewhat closer to home, that will hurt or collapse parts of your economy, predicated as much of it is on the US being the world leader.
"It’s not fear. It’s not our problem."
"Good. We have our own problems to solve."
So you do. Thing is, much of what is happening in the rest of the world is or will be your problem. Legacies of times past, consequences of past meddling...none of that just goes away simply because you're feeling sick and tired of dealing with the fights your past generations bought you.
I suppose you could try to retool the US completely. Isolate. opt out of the global market. But if you think things are bad for you personally right now then I invite you to consider the fallout of every major US corporation suddenly collapsing or evacuating because the federales don't have their backs abroad no more.
I can - thoroughly - understand your view on the US body politic. You're so sick and tired of crooked and inept old Hindenburg you've been willing to cast your vote at the strongman making all the right noises. We've seen that before. Plenty of times.
"Why is it you are so high on NATO when everything they touch turns to shite."
Pragmatism, really.
Remember when during Obama and GWB's years they both found out the biggest embezzlers had their basis in the 401(k) of the common citizenry and the central banks?
The phrase Too Big To Fail was coined at the time when pale-faced fiscal ultraconservatives had to face up to the fact that allowing any of the prime movers in the shit-show to face the music - or the appropriate firing squad - would mean letting the pension funds of half the US go up in smoke.
Meaning both GWB and Obama had to bail the industry out to the tune of trillions of dollars. You guys are still paying for that today.
Which brings us to NATO. Yes, they've been as much of a shit-show, meddling and setting up untenable situations all over. Replacing one monster with another in the ME and Asia until the current situation emerged.
This I find deplorable. Almost as deplorable as I'll find NATO removing itself from the board with all those tensions still in place. Past US policy maneuvered many parts of the world into a mexican standoff. Dropping your gun and just walking off won't end well.
"Funny, I think you actually believe that."
After watching the shit-show of Trump calling republican aides in states ordering them to find him enough votes, the whole mess around trying to have the election declared invalid, and the whole buildup to where the GOP actually haven't won the popular vote for decades and are now representing 40 million fewer americans than the dems?
Yeah, we've seen that buildup before, on this side of the pond. And ironically much thanks to americans then insisting europeans should never make that mistake again we still remember exactly how Mussolini, Franco and Hitler came to power.
I'll just hope that the successor of your beer hall coup won't prove me right here.
On the post: State Department Report Repeats Talking Points From Group Who Wants To Ban All Porn
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
😂
Mea Maxima Culpa.
On the post: Chinese Gov't Inflicts Its Selective Amnesia On Hong Kong, Forcing The Removal Of Tiananmen Square Massacre Monuments
Re: Appalling
"Wow. I sure am glad I live in a country where statues and moments aren't torn down to satisfy political agendas."
Really? I think if I lived in a country which kept statuery of, say, Hermann Göring around because some benighted fuckwit thought it'd be "political" to tear it down...I'd be pretty miffed about that country.
Now if you want a slave owner and confirmed pedophile immortalized in city hall then be my fucking guest.
But don't be shy about lamenting the wokeness about not wanting to honor a man just because he kept a minor as a sex slave. It's about the type of "conservative value" I expect to hear from your lot by now.
On the post: Chinese Gov't Inflicts Its Selective Amnesia On Hong Kong, Forcing The Removal Of Tiananmen Square Massacre Monuments
Re: Re: Re:
"Censorship may "work" at keeping a society autocratic, but the best interests of any individual autocrat would be served better by heeding Daoist principles to govern better by governing less."
This would be the place where I interject my opinion that in China the "individual autocrat" always tends to be the one who can't see himself not being on the top and so never plans for that eventuality. Much like westerners in that particular regard.
"China has been autocratic a long time, but with many different autocrats. The descendants of the Ming Dynasty were not in a good place once a traitor opened the gate in their wall."
Which led to the mongols becoming just another dynasty and China being right back on track within a scant few generations. The figurehead has never been as important as the buraucratic culture which, barring minor modifications, has survived to this day. These days the mandarins wear suits and hold CEO positions where yesteryear the civil official in similar position helmed a minor clan and owned a few street stalls, a warehouse and a brothel.
With some 5000 years of unbroken history, 2,5 of which under an organized empire, something China is doing must be pretty conducive to stability and cultural preservation.
Sure, the Roman Republic, Roman Empire and the various pan-european hegemonies to arise left traces and scars but in general any union built by Europeans, Africans or South americans has historically come apart like nose wipes in a typhoon well before their 5th century.
On the post: Weeks After Blasting Twitter For 'Strangling Free Expression' GETTR Bans The Term 'Groyper' In Effort To Stop White Nationalist Spam
Re: Re: Re:
"I'm still convinced he has a public humiliation fetish."
...that's Baghdad Bob. You know, the one with the unique knack of making three obviously false statements in two lines or less? And the inevitable accusation most often turning out to be the fault of his own side?
No, Koby has made it very clear his only interest around here is to make someone - anyone - believe that a debate around tax rates or size of government should be considered just as valid as an argument about whether <N-word> are worse than the horde of Mexican Rapists storming the Texas border or about how you can flavor your Ivermectin to get rid of the horrible aftertaste.
On the post: Missouri Governor Still Expects Journalists To Be Prosecuted For Showing How His Admin Leaked Teacher Social Security Numbers
Re:
824k dead from Covid...and the loyal faithful of Dear Leader have doubled down so far on being morons there is now the need to go beyond the Darwin Award over the malicious and persistent stupidity of these people.
By now I'm just waiting for some Seventh Day Adventist offshoot to start claiming that dying of Covid is the Rapture.
On the post: Missouri Governor Still Expects Journalists To Be Prosecuted For Showing How His Admin Leaked Teacher Social Security Numbers
Re: Re:
"Only fools tell the emperor he is not wearing any clothes."
And children. Surely the revelation the emperor is, in fact, naked will prompt people to think about why they noted that fact and kept silent? Right?
Eh, who am I kidding. It's Missouri. The bystanders will all agree the kid in question is some stripe of godless liberal and beat seven kinds of shit outta the snot-nosed brat brazen enough to confirm the evidence of their own lying eyes. Because these people are long past where they'd accept even the most bitingly obvious of facts...
On the post: Internal Documents Show Huawei Is Staying On The Cutting Edge Of Oppression Tech
Re: Re: Let's resolve to call them what they are:
The fact that Sayragul Sautbay's story has changed both in particulars and in general over the years is concerning.
I mean, the ethnic cleansing performed by the PRC is a given - that's just China being China.
The internment camps do exist.
Forced labor is likely as we know Uighurs have been shipped around én másse to factories.
..and with Abu Ghraib in fresh memory there is no doubt that even if the official policy of the PRC isn't torture and rape it's almost guaranteed that some or all of the camps host this, because posts holding power over other people attracts the most horrible of monsters.
But the testimony of Sayragul Sautbay itself is dubious given how much she's consistently altered it.
On the post: Internal Documents Show Huawei Is Staying On The Cutting Edge Of Oppression Tech
Re: The good old days. . .
"That was back when 'Merica was better at covering up or ignoring all the things like those you listed in the preceding paragraphs."
Partially. But not all of it. Back in the '60's...that part of the US golden era the MAGA hats all want to return to, the US was, albeit flawed, still a damn sight better than it is now.
Ironically that prosperity and public conscience was all based on FDR's thoroughly socialist platform which held up well until Reagan came along and gutted everything the US still had to be proud of while hollering about some imaginary welfare queen and trickle-down economics. It's gone downhill since.
On the post: Internal Documents Show Huawei Is Staying On The Cutting Edge Of Oppression Tech
Re: Re:
[typo Edit]
Should have been, in the fifth row;
On the post: Internal Documents Show Huawei Is Staying On The Cutting Edge Of Oppression Tech
Re:
"I think that while talking about uighurs in china, the fact that they are Muslims should be omitted."
For plenty of reasons. Primarily China didn't use to have an issue with Islam with plenty of famous generals and statesmen being muslims over the centuries.
This has begun to change, mainly because the Xinjiang suppression uses the official excuse that the Uighur liberation movement is an old affiliate of ISI and formerly of Daesch/ISIS (which is actually true), and therefore they are operating under the same rules of engagement as the US in their battle against "terrorists".
The actual reason is that the PRC couldn't care less about the religious affiliation of the Uighur. What they care about is that Uighur culture intensely references and seeks to protect the origin of the tribe as turkish rather than Chinese. For which they have plenty of historical precedent to show that every time the Uighurs start talking about being turks the result is an attempted secession.
No, the PRC will only suppress a religion which grows influential enough to bear a message undermining the state - but they'll react with disproportional aggression to any suggestion of a people within their borders claiming not to be chinese.
On the post: Chinese Govt. Arrests More Pro-Democracy Icons In Hong Kong, Including Music Stars
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"maybe other countries could try diplomacy?"
What makes you think they aren't?
Here's the baseline; For the PRC to completely and utterly subdue HK and make it march in obedient lockstep with Beijing is a matter of national face. If you want to tell China what they can and can not do on their own soil you will first need to go to war.
On the post: Chinese Govt. Arrests More Pro-Democracy Icons In Hong Kong, Including Music Stars
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"This was an inevitability. Raising our hackles about it now ain’t gonna do any good."
And inevitable even way back when the british opium lords extorted HK from the Qing. China has a very long history and it's shock full of examples of the chinese empire, in their zenith, taking back what they lost in their nadir.
The sino-british joint declaration looks very amicable but the reality is the UK was facing the choice of bowing out gracefully and pretend they believed in the assurances of the PRC...or try to project significant force forever to fight a war of attrition on a mainland China which would have made taking the place a point of national pride. Last time the UK was that dumb was the Falklands.
What they could have done would have been to remind the HK residents that, in no uncertain terms, that sooner or later the PRC would reverse on the policies of "One nation two systems" and their children would live under those conditions.
And the time to leave for a life in the UK, the US or Taiwan was, sort of right bloody now.
Yet they didn't and the parents of the current generation were, apparently, fine with dumping their children into the current mess.
"We have a lot on our plate currently with regards to keeping democracy alive in countries where it actually stands a chance."
If US democracy hadn't lost every credibility under GWB and Trump I wonder...China would still do China but I wonder in how many places the fear of western intervention would have made power-mad dictators stop and think?
On the post: Chinese Govt. Arrests More Pro-Democracy Icons In Hong Kong, Including Music Stars
Re: Fight Fight Fight
"This totally vague call to action by somebody just pecking a keyboard comfortably in the U.S. rings very hollow. A naive armchair general/statesman."
To some extent, yes. Fight the battles you can fight. This particular one, though, was lost when the parties signed the sino-british joint declaration more than twenty years ago.
What is left is to leave the dissidents left to the unkind hands of the PRC by their parents refusing to run while there was a chance, a way out and a visa.
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