- 24 Oct 2014 03:09
#14479919
Gosh, Thirdterm, I see you never even bothered to discuss my post, but went for automatic China bashing again, even linking some unrelated article on reuters. Is there an app you are using that does that for you?
Liberal capitalism conquered most of the world, by the sword. The second world war and cold war is won by guns and bombs, economic warfare and spy games, not ideas. Ever since, a majority of countries that has adopted the democratic system has gone for the worse.
The west is prosperous from the spoils of colonialism and international finance, and of cause, good old spoils of wars. But I never saw the connection with democracy. Outside the western bloc, new democratic countries have their elections rigged by external forces, corruption run rampant, and instability grows. Democracy might not be the reason of that, but it never seem to have solved any problem either.
Assuming that you are a US citizen, that iron boot on my face is on yours as much as mine. See police brutality in Occupy Wall St. See 1% prison population. You never felt the oppression until you get into trouble. Never did I.
But indeed, yes, I would also like that iron boot slightly lifted (Which China actually did to a great extent), but I don't believe democracy is the solution. Also, even in China, concepts like human rights and police conduct is only beginning to form. These things were horrible before because China was a very backward country. But now, when people face crime, they look for the police as a first response. If they are wronged by the police, they go to a court of law. Things are far from perfect, but there is some progress. People are starting to build up some faith in the rule of law.
That is beside the point though, since democracy does not equal justice. It's a matter of a working legal system, which can very well exist in China with or without elections.
I agree.
Maintaining the stability is what keeps the Chinese government working hard. Once China is stable and the population well content, they might start being corrupt again. That's why they are building up a workable legal system for later generations to rely on.
I know I know, we can't trust the government to regulate themselves, but do you have a solution besides democracy? Because I never saw that "observatory mechanism" working in US. Government officials retire into CEO positions in big corporations in return to their favors. Lobby groups bribe openly by law. Friends and buddies in regulatory bodies. Your democracy never seemed to have solved that. It simply creates loopholes for powerful people to corrupt openly.
In fact, it is again a matter of "the rule of law", which doesn't really have much to do with whether there is democracy. The populace don't know much about legislation, aside from the spotlight ones like guns or gay marriage or taxes. The ones that matter, however, are in the hands on people who aren't elected anyway.
Then you will probably move on to the next point, independent media observatory. That's our next matter of "freedom of speech", again not necessarily bound to democracy.
Currently in China, you can criticize the government pretty openly. You don't like this policy or that, you want it changed to this, US has this, China is shit on that respect. Or maybe you found out that a government official is corrupt, and expose him on the internet. These are OK with the authorities. People bitch all the time, on newspapers and on the internet. You are even encouraged to provide suggestions. The government actually catches on at times.
What gets banned is when you made disrespectful statements, or purposefully inciting riots. The earlier gets censored, the later gets you into trouble. I don't completely disagree with that, because there are just way too many undesirable elements that are trying to destabilize, some within, and a lot without (ala CIA/NED/Global Media - China is surrounded by enemies, on that I think you can agree?)
So citizens monitoring government is also present in China, although via very informal channels that leaves much to desire. That's why China is working on fine tuning the anti-corruption bureau. These things, unfortunately, doesn't really happen overnight.
Now let's look at the media in US, is it doing its supposed job? Sort of. They report incidents of police brutality, domestic incidents, but they seldom do much on their systemic corruption or discuss the major failures of their system. They even push government lies faithfully, sell their next war, bash China, Russia and Iran to justify the US system, without ever discussing their merits. They never did their supposed duty.
And why should they? Commercial media has one objective tied to their survival only. Profit. Their job is to sell papers, so they simply write the most eye catching, emotionally rousing stories that aren't necessary objective nor even true. The media conglomerates are owned by the same ruling plutocrats anyway, so why would they catch on to "failures of the system" that is also benefiting themselves? There is no motivation at all. If an "independent media" is a pillar of democracy, I saw that pillar crumbling already.
I am not saying what China is doing is better than US, in government monitoring. There is still way too much to be desired, and currently the quality of this monitoring is probably still way behind the west. My question is, however, is "democracy" an improvement or an end goal? Do you believe that if China drives for "democracy" as a political end game, is it going to benefit the country?
I don't think so. I wish we can tell you that we have an answer to all these questions above, but we haven't got it. China is working hard to find these answers, but at the moment, we reject taking the "model answer" entirely. Society evolves, politics evolve, no political system is eternal truth. Humanity shouldn't stop seeking because one system is dominant.
Lexington wrote:I don't know if you noticed, but democracy conquered (most of) the world.
Liberal capitalism conquered most of the world, by the sword. The second world war and cold war is won by guns and bombs, economic warfare and spy games, not ideas. Ever since, a majority of countries that has adopted the democratic system has gone for the worse.
The west is prosperous from the spoils of colonialism and international finance, and of cause, good old spoils of wars. But I never saw the connection with democracy. Outside the western bloc, new democratic countries have their elections rigged by external forces, corruption run rampant, and instability grows. Democracy might not be the reason of that, but it never seem to have solved any problem either.
Lexington wrote:If you truly want an iron boot crushing your face because "populism" and "plutocrats" you can have it there. I don't think it will last - even the history of China in recent decades includes bullshit like the Cultural Revolution that literally led to thousands of dead people.
Assuming that you are a US citizen, that iron boot on my face is on yours as much as mine. See police brutality in Occupy Wall St. See 1% prison population. You never felt the oppression until you get into trouble. Never did I.
But indeed, yes, I would also like that iron boot slightly lifted (Which China actually did to a great extent), but I don't believe democracy is the solution. Also, even in China, concepts like human rights and police conduct is only beginning to form. These things were horrible before because China was a very backward country. But now, when people face crime, they look for the police as a first response. If they are wronged by the police, they go to a court of law. Things are far from perfect, but there is some progress. People are starting to build up some faith in the rule of law.
That is beside the point though, since democracy does not equal justice. It's a matter of a working legal system, which can very well exist in China with or without elections.
You may say that "things are different now" and they are, but the only thing stopping this from happening again is the violence of an informed people in China. You can either accept this violence as a matter of fact or you can give them the vote and stop pretending about this notion of "The Communist Party elites know best."
That is it.
I agree.
Maintaining the stability is what keeps the Chinese government working hard. Once China is stable and the population well content, they might start being corrupt again. That's why they are building up a workable legal system for later generations to rely on.
I know I know, we can't trust the government to regulate themselves, but do you have a solution besides democracy? Because I never saw that "observatory mechanism" working in US. Government officials retire into CEO positions in big corporations in return to their favors. Lobby groups bribe openly by law. Friends and buddies in regulatory bodies. Your democracy never seemed to have solved that. It simply creates loopholes for powerful people to corrupt openly.
In fact, it is again a matter of "the rule of law", which doesn't really have much to do with whether there is democracy. The populace don't know much about legislation, aside from the spotlight ones like guns or gay marriage or taxes. The ones that matter, however, are in the hands on people who aren't elected anyway.
Then you will probably move on to the next point, independent media observatory. That's our next matter of "freedom of speech", again not necessarily bound to democracy.
Currently in China, you can criticize the government pretty openly. You don't like this policy or that, you want it changed to this, US has this, China is shit on that respect. Or maybe you found out that a government official is corrupt, and expose him on the internet. These are OK with the authorities. People bitch all the time, on newspapers and on the internet. You are even encouraged to provide suggestions. The government actually catches on at times.
What gets banned is when you made disrespectful statements, or purposefully inciting riots. The earlier gets censored, the later gets you into trouble. I don't completely disagree with that, because there are just way too many undesirable elements that are trying to destabilize, some within, and a lot without (ala CIA/NED/Global Media - China is surrounded by enemies, on that I think you can agree?)
So citizens monitoring government is also present in China, although via very informal channels that leaves much to desire. That's why China is working on fine tuning the anti-corruption bureau. These things, unfortunately, doesn't really happen overnight.
Now let's look at the media in US, is it doing its supposed job? Sort of. They report incidents of police brutality, domestic incidents, but they seldom do much on their systemic corruption or discuss the major failures of their system. They even push government lies faithfully, sell their next war, bash China, Russia and Iran to justify the US system, without ever discussing their merits. They never did their supposed duty.
And why should they? Commercial media has one objective tied to their survival only. Profit. Their job is to sell papers, so they simply write the most eye catching, emotionally rousing stories that aren't necessary objective nor even true. The media conglomerates are owned by the same ruling plutocrats anyway, so why would they catch on to "failures of the system" that is also benefiting themselves? There is no motivation at all. If an "independent media" is a pillar of democracy, I saw that pillar crumbling already.
I am not saying what China is doing is better than US, in government monitoring. There is still way too much to be desired, and currently the quality of this monitoring is probably still way behind the west. My question is, however, is "democracy" an improvement or an end goal? Do you believe that if China drives for "democracy" as a political end game, is it going to benefit the country?
I don't think so. I wish we can tell you that we have an answer to all these questions above, but we haven't got it. China is working hard to find these answers, but at the moment, we reject taking the "model answer" entirely. Society evolves, politics evolve, no political system is eternal truth. Humanity shouldn't stop seeking because one system is dominant.
Last edited by benpenguin on 24 Oct 2014 03:26, edited 1 time in total.
Society changes, politics changes, no ideology should remain stationary.