Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
It’s hard to fully justify every of the U.S.’ actions and influence if you look at every minute detail with a magnifying glass, but I will say this: I will take the U.S. that we currently have over a world that never had any U.S. interference/influence or a world that had the Soviet Union winning the Cold War. Human history has existed for thousands of years and the period of the greatest and exponential population increase and technological/economic development over the past 70 years since the United States became a global superpower. For any bad actors in the U.S. I prefer to hold them accountable rather than the whole country.
The problem is that U.S. fails to hold its bad actors accountable. George W Bush and the war mongering folks in his administration were simply able to retire into the sunset living out their glory days all while continuing to make millions off book deals and public speeches. Where is the accountability for starting wars that sent hundreds of thousands to their graves? Was Regan, Nixon, Clinton hailed accountable for polices that promoted the destabilization of countries around the world, not to mention the cities in their own country. Yet people expect Putin to be brought up on war charges. Yet the same people call Xi a threat to world security. "The pot calling the kettle black." The fact remains that most of the world's major issues are a direct result of flawed U.S. policies since WWII. These policies didn’t promote peace. They assured that the U.S. remains atop the global order. Where is the accountability?
The problem is that U.S. fails to hold its bad actors accountable. George W Bush and the war mongering folks in his administration were simply able to retire into the sunset living out their glory days all while continuing to make millions off book deals and public speeches. Where is the accountability for starting wars that sent hundreds of thousands to their graves? Was Regan, Nixon, Clinton hailed accountable for polices that promoted the destabilization of countries around the world, not to mention the cities in their own country. Yet people expect Putin to be brought up on war charges. Yet the same people call Xi a threat to world security. "The pot calling the kettle black." The fact remains that most of the world's major issues are a direct result of flawed U.S. policies since WWII. These policies didn’t promote peace. They assured that the U.S. remains atop the global order. Where is the accountability?
I disagree. The U.S.' influence after WWII was a much needed force of balance. As I said, we do not live in a utopia and things and sufferings would have been much worse with all the bad actors out there had the U.S. never participated in global affairs the was it did. I could not envision how things would have been if the world was under the orbit of the Soviet Union. If you disagree that's fine but that is the overall picture I view as to geopolitical politics.
Interesting that at first China was being praised for its COVID strategy, now it has become the latest tool in predicting the fall of China. These predictions, though they keep failing folks keep coming up with new ones. Maybe it's like shooting baskets, eventually one will go in, I guess.
All the stuff you said points to extremely strong emphasis on collective good, which of course sounds very nice. That is exactly what people who take their thoughts to a deeper level will find this very troublesome.
That is because minority rights can easily be sacrificed if your rights seem or are perceived to contravene those of the collective society. Remember that there is heavy censorship on dissents... so it doesn't take much effort just to propagate a message on the public and demonize a particular sector or group.
Look at the crackdown in the tech industry, the crackdown on private tutoring, the crackdown on gaming industry, the crackdown on gambling industry...
Remember there is serious lack of real labour union to stand up for minority's rights because they are also mostly prohibited for again "contravening the greater good"
The thing is if you spent decades trying to build up your career or business, it can easily be crushed if one day, your rights/interests are again perceived as undermining the greater good.
The general public will of course cheer for your demise because the "greater good" wins against the "evil minority".
So you never know when it hits you, when you become the minority. When it hits, I am not sure whether the "awesome high speed trains" really matter...
You can continue with you cheerleading but these are just my 2 cents!
how is this unique to one place? when you become the minority you're pretty much screwed universally. it's call natural selection and the survival of the fittest.
heck, in some countries you're born a minority and there's nothing you can do to about it.
how does any so call "democratic" country help for being a minority? their "vote" will never matter
All the stuff you said points to extremely strong emphasis on collective good, which of course sounds very nice. That is exactly what people who take their thoughts to a deeper level will find this very troublesome.
That is because minority rights can easily be sacrificed if your rights seem or are perceived to contravene those of the collective society. Remember that there is heavy censorship on dissents... so it doesn't take much effort just to propagate a message on the public and demonize a particular sector or group.
Look at the crackdown in the tech industry, the crackdown on private tutoring, the crackdown on gaming industry, the crackdown on gambling industry...
Remember there is serious lack of real labour union to stand up for minority's rights because they are also mostly prohibited for again "contravening the greater good"
The thing is if you spent decades trying to build up your career or business, it can easily be crushed if one day, your rights/interests are again perceived as undermining the greater good.
The general public will of course cheer for your demise because the "greater good" wins against the "evil minority".
So you never know when it hits you, when you become the minority. When it hits, I am not sure whether the "awesome high speed trains" really matter...
You can continue with you cheerleading but these are just my 2 cents!
Great points. A perfect system of proportional representation is difficult to effectively achieve in a democracy but it’s much better for minority groups than trusting a dictatorship to act in your best interest. Here in Canada is a perfect example of what has been accomplished as a result of albeit flawed version of it. Quebec is home to Canada’s second largest ethnolinguistic group (French Canadians), however they hold enough seats in the House of Commons to be a major deciding factor in our elections. If you look at the history of our elections. People in Western Canada and Ontario hate how much influence Quebec has but ultimately the ruling party has to reach somewhat of a consensus between Quebec and the rest of Canada to ensure they are happy.
I disagree. The U.S.' influence after WWII was a much needed force of balance. As I said, we do not live in a utopia and things and sufferings would have been much worse with all the bad actors out there had the U.S. never participated in global affairs the was it did. I could not envision how things would have been if the world was under the orbit of the Soviet Union. If you disagree that's fine but that is the overall picture I view as to geopolitical politics.
Yes we can disagree, which is fine. I do find your point of being a force of balance interesting. I'm assuming you are alluding to the U.S. presenting a counter to the Soviet Union after WWII. I agree with you in that regard. Balance is good for the world. Therefore, a rising China presents a much needed world balance which hasn't existed for 30 years.
All the stuff you said points to extremely strong emphasis on collective good, which of course sounds very nice. That is exactly what people who take their thoughts to a deeper level will find this very troublesome.
That is because minority rights can easily be sacrificed if your rights seem or are perceived to contravene those of the collective society. Remember that there is heavy censorship on dissents... so it doesn't take much effort just to propagate a message on the public and demonize a particular sector or group.
Look at the crackdown in the tech industry, the crackdown on private tutoring, the crackdown on gaming industry, the crackdown on gambling industry...
Remember there is serious lack of real labour union to stand up for minority's rights because they are also mostly prohibited for again "contravening the greater good"
The thing is if you spent decades trying to build up your career or business, it can easily be crushed if one day, your rights/interests are again perceived as undermining the greater good.
The general public will of course cheer for your demise because the "greater good" wins against the "evil minority".
So you never know when it hits you, when you become the minority. When it hits, I am not sure whether the "awesome high speed trains" really matter...
You can continue with you cheerleading but these are just my 2 cents!
I don't disagree with your viewpoints regarding the potential pitfalls of collectivism. Every ideology has pros and cons. Trick is to emphasis pros while minimizing cons. I can acknowledge some of the flaws which you pointed out; however, that doesn't diminish the good. I have pointed out numerous times that in recent years (post 1970s) nations with a collectivist mindset have been more successful at developing their economies than the ones that adopted the Western individual over all mantra. Even the countries Western societies love to mention such as S. Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan all developed under collectivist regimes. We must be careful. In the quest to protect the minority we cannot create minority rule. That's a recipe for revolution. At the end of the day balance is needed. Nothing wrong with letting individuals express themselves and pursue their desires so long as it works for the good of the whole. I could care less if a person put in years of work on a business, a product, job, or art if it causes death and destruction to the people. I'm not into the current system of privatizing gains while socializing losses either. Labor unions and the military are prime examples of positive collectivism at play. Unfortunately labor unions presence have been diminished (largely due to the promotion of individualist tendencies) while the military has been left untouched. Can't be an individual in the military.
Read my point again, I stated in parenthesis if the leadership is good. Bad leadership dooms any country regardless of their political system. FYI there are plenty of poor democracies.
Assuming that the leadership is good is stupid. All countries get bad leaders, but there are differences in how long they get to stay in office and how much damage they can do before they leave.
Fact is that the vast majority of rich countries are democracies, so they must be doing something right.
Quote:
How many countries have been able to launch a person into space? How many countries have successfully launched Lunar and Mars rovers? How many countries have their own space station? These are just a few of their space achievements.
You said space tourism, not space achievements. It is a country of 1.4 billion people, of course it can create some rockets and send it to space.
But going from that to a profitable space tourism industry is something totally different, and doesn't look promising considering that China can't even sustain its domestic tourism industry.
Quote:
I don't doubt their success, but I wouldn't consider them more successful than China. You only see them as more successful because they do what the U.S. says.
Don't put words in my mouth. I consider them more successful because they are significantly richer.
You think China is richer than South Korea, Japan and Taiwan?
Quote:
We can agree to disagree on this one. I don't have to go to China to clearly see evidence that the people are hard working. You don't go from poor to the second largest GDP (soon to be 1st) by being lazy.
Do I need to remind you that China has 1.4 billion people. While going from dirt poor to middle income was a good achievement, it is not something to boast about. Chinese wages are still far behind the developed world even if you adjust for cost of living.
And I live in China, I can see with my own eyes that you are wrong. All I need to do is to go into a government office and I will see workers slacking off.
Quote:
Interesting that at first China was being praised for its COVID strategy, now it has become the latest tool in predicting the fall of China. These predictions, though they keep failing folks keep coming up with new ones. Maybe it's like shooting baskets, eventually one will go in, I guess.
The critics of China wasn't praising China's initial covid strategy. Most were blaming China for covering up the Wuhan outbreak.
The people who has always supported China, kept supporting China during the initial covid outbreak. Losing your remaining supporters is not something to be proud of.
The CCP basically doesn't admit any fault, any mistakes, or any failures in anything. You are stating, basically, that you won't give "any western media any credence" when it comes to Russia or China. I'm assuming that you would consider, for example, Indian, Japanese, or Korean media outlets which are publish critical China content as being "Western affiliated." So basically, any negative news about China, unless it's from China itself, you won't believe.
This makes having a conversation with you on this pointless. You remind me of a poster in P&OC, back in the Obama years, who posted "hey liberals, tell me how we got sucked into the Iraq war, WITHOUT blaming Bush!!" and thought they were being clever. "Prove to me China's doing anything bad, without using any critical coverage of China!"
Not wasting my effort. Sorry.
Brah, still waiting for you to provide just ONE example of a paid YouTuber. Just one brah.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
