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| ▲ | spaceman_2020 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | I don't understand why Americans continue believing that democracy is the only way for every population in the world Why would Russians want democracy? Or the Chinese, for that matter? There have been zero democratic impulses in their societies across hundreds, even thousands of years. The west needs to rest its democratizing mission and accept that every society is fundamentally different My country (India) got a "thriving" democracy, but because there is no real democratic impulse in the society, everything on the ground has devolved into what the society was always like - quasi-feudal bureaucracy | | |
| ▲ | akmiller 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > I don't understand why Americans continue believing that democracy is the only way for every population in the world They don't! The majority voted for the guy who wants to, admittedly (multiple times), be a dictator and is huge fan of other dictators. If he finds a way to stay for a 3rd term his most loyal followers along with all the republicans in Congress will be just fine with it. | |
| ▲ | hootz 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | >I don't understand why Americans continue believing that democracy is the only way for every population in the world Well, ideology. I believe my way is the only way for every population in the world too, and I fight for it to happen. Of course, each place adapts to their own condition, but I believe my core ideology is the way for humanity as a whole, and I believe it is the same for people who defend western american-style democracy. | | |
| ▲ | spaceman_2020 2 days ago | parent [-] | | What part of "defending western american-style democracy" involves imposing it on other countries and being mad when they don't adopt it? |
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| ▲ | 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | MiiMe19 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Because a government has no power to tell the people what to do if the people did not vote for it to be there. There is no alternative. | |
| ▲ | 8note a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | people might not be excited about democracy, but they are about individual rights and freedoms people can tell when their rights are being unjustly infringed upon, even without the verbiage. democracy is just a handy way of working with individual rights | |
| ▲ | nailer 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Or the Chinese, for that matter? The marched for it en masse in 1989? Russians and Chinese are also people. They deserve to rule themselves. | | |
| ▲ | jyscao 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | An ideologically driven subset of urban educated youths that was proportionally a tiny subset of the entire Chinese population marched for it in 1989. FTFY. They are ruling themselves in the sense that their governing systems are emergent consequences of their own cultures. All peoples ultimately deserve the governments they have. | | |
| ▲ | breezybottom 2 days ago | parent [-] | | You could say the exact same thing about the cultural revolution. | | |
| ▲ | jyscao 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Yes, so what's your point? | | |
| ▲ | nailer 2 days ago | parent [-] | | That your point about support for Chinese democracy, could also be applied to Chinese communism - was that not obvious? Also in the Chase of Chinese communism the cult was facing a KMT that had suffered from just defeating the Japanese. More of the point though they support for Chinese democracy was broad enough to the Beijing army could not be used to suppress the protests. The tanks and the people that killed the students had to come in from outside the city. | | |
| ▲ | jyscao 19 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Ironic then that most of the students throughout China who supported and even participated in the Tiananmen protests would later admit that Deng acted correctly in squashing it, and that China is better off today for that. This is a sentiment most Chinese living in China today share. Could things eventually go south with the CCP in charge? Of course, and given long enough time, that's almost a certainty. But even when that day comes, it still does not directly imply a liberal democracy was the better governing system for the Chinese people, as your original comment strongly implied. | | |
| ▲ | nailer 13 hours ago | parent [-] | | “ most of the students throughout China who supported and even participated in the Tiananmen protests would later admit that Deng acted correctly in squashing it” That’s a very big claim to make without a reference. | | |
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| ▲ | jyscao 18 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | >That your point about support for Chinese democracy, could also be applied to Chinese communism Incorrect - my point about Chinese democracy does not apply to the current governing body of China (whether you choose to view and harp on them as communist or not is irrelevant). The Cultural Revolution, which the previous commenter presented as a gotcha, is widely regarded as a dark period and unequivocally a mistake by the majority of Chinese today. But Chinese communism today is both much more and much different than Chinese communism under Mao. OTOH Tiananmen is much more emblematic of "Chinese democracy" than the Cultural Revolution was of Chinese communism. And as already stated, the way Tiananmen was handled is deemed to be correct by the majority of the Chinese populace today. And so once again, this goes back to my original point: peoples of different nations choose their own government, including the form of that government, and not just in the narrow sense of who their next public-facing leader should be during the next several years. The Chinese already does exactly that. | | |
| ▲ | nailer 13 hours ago | parent [-] | | No, correct. You said
“ideologically driven subset …proportionally a tiny subset of the entire Chinese” which is absolutely true of Mao’s cult. | | |
| ▲ | jyscao 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | Mao's cult as you call it, shares little similarities to the modern day Chinese government, which is arguably the most pragmatic government that exists in the world today, certainly amongst developed countries. So once again, wrong. |
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| ▲ | spaceman_2020 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | The Americans marched en masse to get rid of ICE, right? Guess the Tiananmen square tank man is a victim, but Alex Pretti and Renee Good are just statistics (The tank man wasn't even run down by the tank - Good was shot for merely turning the wheels in the wrong direction) Americans really need to shut up about any democratic values or humans rights and clean up their own mess before preaching to the world | | |
| ▲ | nailer 2 days ago | parent [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | layla5alive 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Try watching the videos instead of Fox News or OANN. Pretti tried to help a woman who was pushed down by masked agents, they then attacked and executed him. Good tried to turn AWAY from the man with the gun and get out of the situation and he stepped in front of her and executed her, shooting even after she'd driven past him without hitting him despite him putting himself into harms way. | | |
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| ▲ | wiseowise 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Why would Russians want democracy? Could be something to do with almost 400 years under czar heel and then 70 years under commie repressions and mismanagement that yielded one of the worst crises in the history of the country that is still being mentioned with fear (90s, brrrr). > There have been zero democratic impulses in their societies across hundreds, even thousands of years. > Russia What the am I even reading. Educate yourself before making such claims. Decembrist movement, 1905 revolution, 1917 provisional government, constant unrest after the death of mustached cunt, perestroika. Navalny recently died in prison for fighting for democracy, ffs. The only reason why we're having current Russia is because the West royally fucked up by not economically supporting them in 90s and allowing oligarchs to usurp vast soviet empire resources. | | | |
| ▲ | sofixa 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > I don't understand why Americans continue believing that democracy is the only way for every population in the world It's not Americans, it's educated people who believe in personal liberties. > Why would Russians want democracy Because they would have a choice if they want to be robbed blind by a bunch of oligarchs, and if they want to be sanctioned off from the world because the supreme leader decided he wants to kill and maim a million Russians to achieve nothing more than killing Ukrainian civillians. > There have been zero democratic impulses in their societies across hundreds, even thousands of years Absurdly bad historic revisionism. Russia had democratic impulses in 1917 and 1990, both hijacked and went nowhere. China's 1911 revolution was also overtly democratic in nature, but was also hijacked. | | |
| ▲ | spaceman_2020 2 days ago | parent [-] | | > It's not Americans, it's educated people who believe in personal liberties. I find this attitude deeply parochial and colonial. Who are these so-called "educated people" (most of whom would be in western developed nations) to decide what sort of governance system a country should have? The democratic revolution in America and France came from its own people. If the Russians or the Chinese want democracy, they'll get it on their own Western hand-wringing about the "lack of democracy" in foreign (usually poorer) countries is just concern-colonialism. I think most of these educated people should focus on their own countries and let the rest of the world be | | |
| ▲ | wiseowise 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > If the Russians or the Chinese want democracy, they'll get it on their own There's literally a saying about USSR (which by proxy now applies to Russia) which roughly translates to: half the population in prison and another half as guards. You can't get it when army, police and whole government apparatus is aimed against it. Times have changed, people are not willing to die en masse for a change when one single cop can kill a crowd. They literally killed 132 hostages during a saving operation [1], how many do you think will die when they start shooting the crowds? 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis | |
| ▲ | sofixa 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > I find this attitude deeply parochial and colonial. Who are these so-called "educated people" (most of whom would be in western developed nations) to decide what sort of governance system a country should have? Do you think only people in western countries want a democratic system of governenance for their country? > If the Russians or the Chinese want democracy, they'll get it on their own Both of them tried it, but were denied. |
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| ▲ | 8note a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | both putin an xi maintain a convincing illusion of choice too. There's plenty of leadership selection process for both, that could remove them orban even lost with a similar illusion of choice. | |
| ▲ | cycomanic 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | 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. | | |
| ▲ | TheOtherHobbes 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | 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. | | |
| ▲ | NoGravitas 2 days ago | parent [-] | | 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. |
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| ▲ | spaceman_2020 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | 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 | | |
| ▲ | SmirkingRevenge 2 days ago | parent [-] | | 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 |
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