Protest in Hong Kong

[Kane Starkiller]

LOL. You actually have to put in work and time to take care of a beggar. All you have to do with wrongfully accused people is to leave them alone.

[Purple]

LOL. You actually have to put in work and time to take care of a beggar. All you have to do with wrongfully accused people is to leave them alone.

The morality is the same though. We accept certain injustices inherent in the systems we live in because we feel that the benefits of those systems outweigh the costs. And different societies, cultures and ultimately nations will make different choices in that regard. The fact that a certain group of people has decided to make a decision you would not does not make their choice wrong.

It's not like the Chinese are an oppressed nation ruled over by a North Korea style dictatorship that ships everyone who disagrees off to a gulag where they'll be shot by AA missiles for their disobedience.

[Kane Starkiller]

No the morality is not the same. Someone has to put in time and energy into helping poor people. Someones money needs to be taken to help the poor people. No time, energy and money needs to be reallocated in order not to persecute innocent people.

[Pelranius]

No the morality is not the same. Someone has to put in time and energy into helping poor people. Someones money needs to be taken to help the poor people. No time, energy and money needs to be reallocated in order not to persecute innocent people.

Some innocent people are eventually going to be caught up in the system by mistake/abuse, and require at least some time, energy and money to exonerate them, unless you completely remove any sort of enforcement mechanism from your system.

[Kane Starkiller]

Like I said: not prosecuting innocent people requires zero time and energy. If you made a mistake then not only have you made an innocent suffer you wasted time and energy.

[Purple]

Like I said: not prosecuting innocent people requires zero time and energy. If you made a mistake then not only have you made an innocent suffer you wasted time and energy.

Would you mind not mindlessly latching onto my example and refusing to read the point, even when it is presented to you in no uncertain terms? It's fucking annoying.

[Kane Starkiller]

Would you mind not mindlessly latching onto my example and refusing to read the point, even when it is presented to you in no uncertain terms? It's fucking annoying.

Then put some thought into your arguments rather than trying to play edgy devils advocate. We are not dealing with some kind of borderline situation here: the guys was kept in lockup for 9 months without charges. Not doing this to people is in no way shape or form equivalent to organizing help for the poor people.

[K. A. Pital]

I mean, the Nazis were probably polling rather high in approval as well if you only polled Germans.

Very much so. The Nazis were largely supported by your nation, that is why other nations had to kill a lot of your compatriots to crush the Third Reich. You see where this Godwin tangent is going, right?

[Purple]

Would you mind not mindlessly latching onto my example and refusing to read the point, even when it is presented to you in no uncertain terms? It's fucking annoying.

Then put some thought into your arguments rather than trying to play edgy devils advocate. We are not dealing with some kind of borderline situation here: the guys was kept in lockup for 9 months without charges. Not doing this to people is in no way shape or form equivalent to organizing help for the poor people.

I did put thought in it. You did not put any into your replies. As evidenced by the fact you just can not let that example go and are completely unable to address my actual argument.

I will now repeat my argument once more. Read it, think and than either argue against that argument or fuck off.

My argument:
Every society is a tradeoff between the benefits we gain from a system and the injustices inherent in it. And different societies have made different tradeoffs. There is no "wrong" way to run your country.* Only different ways. And for as long as the people of a country wish to run their country a certain way we have no right to tell them they are wrong.


* By "run your country" I am referring to the people allowing a system to work. Systems that work without or even contrary to the will of its people such as violent dictatorships that rule by fear and mass murder or genocidal aggressive systems that are a threat to others around them like Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan do not fall into this and are indeed wrong.

[Pelranius]

Like I said: not prosecuting innocent people requires zero time and energy. If you made a mistake then not only have you made an innocent suffer you wasted time and energy.

Getting those safeguards to insure/reduce innocent people being prosecuted requires time and energy.

[Kane Starkiller]

Every society is a tradeoff between the benefits we gain from a system and the injustices inherent in it. And different societies have made different tradeoffs. There is no "wrong" way to run your country.* Only different ways. And for as long as the people of a country wish to run their country a certain way we have no right to tell them they are wrong.

What is the tradeoff? They traded 9 months of freedom of a man that didn't even have charges raised against him for what?

Getting those safeguards to insure/reduce innocent people being prosecuted requires time and energy.

Getting the safeguards not to keep a guy in prison for almost a year without charges? How about: if you can't say what the guy is suspected of doing wrong after 2 days you release the guy? How many billions in IMF loans would that take?

[White Haven]

'There is no wrong way to run a country except those ways I agree are wrong.'

Do you even fucking listen to yourself, Purple?

[Thanas]

I mean, the Nazis were probably polling rather high in approval as well if you only polled Germans.

Very much so. The Nazis were largely supported by your nation, that is why other nations had to kill a lot of your compatriots to crush the Third Reich. You see where this Godwin tangent is going, right?

Not really, except to prove that you are as usual missing the point, which was that high polling support is not a moral excuse for acting like dicks, nor can it be some kind of magic wand to wave away all outside criticism of your regime, like Purple tries to argue.

[Metahive]

I mean, the Nazis were probably polling rather high in approval as well if you only polled Germans.

Very much so. The Nazis were largely supported by your nation, that is why other nations had to kill a lot of your compatriots to crush the Third Reich. You see where this Godwin tangent is going, right?

If by "largely supported" you mean "never managed to get more than 40% if the vote even while banning most other parties and bullying people at the voting booths and had to come to power through the intrigues of a small clique of national conservatives making use of a senile head of state anyway"...
Don't beat around the bush, what's your point? That the chinese communists are supported well by the population and therefore change is only coming by murdering a lot of them?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

If by "largely supported" you mean "never managed to get more than 40% if the vote even while banning most other parties and bullying people at the voting booths and had to come to power through the intrigues of a small clique of national conservatives making use of a senile head of state anyway"...
Don't beat around the bush, what's your point? That the chinese communists are supported well by the population and therefore change is only coming by murdering a lot of them?

That is pretty much Chinese History for the last 5000 years.

[K. A. Pital]

I mean, the Nazis were probably polling rather high in approval as well if you only polled Germans.

Very much so. The Nazis were largely supported by your nation, that is why other nations had to kill a lot of your compatriots to crush the Third Reich. You see where this Godwin tangent is going, right?

If by "largely supported" you mean "never managed to get more than 40% if the vote even while banning most other parties and bullying people at the voting booths and had to come to power through the intrigues of a small clique of national conservatives making use of a senile head of state anyway"...

By largely supported I mean the country did not oust the Nazi government or fall into civil war - even when it was clear the Nazis were invading other countries. Even at the stage when it was clear that Nazi Germany itself will be invaded and bombed to bits. No: the diligent Germans kept providing for the Nazi war effort, fighting bitterly until last. The total mobilization gathered almost all able-bodied males in the nation. Desertions were low until the very final months of the war.

That is what I mean by largely supported. The Reich was crushed only by full and total external occupation, and it required a concerted effort to remove the old Nazi functionaries.

Meanwhile, modern China is not massacring millions of untermenschen in a world-spanning genocidal war.

But if Thanas thinks they are somehow comparable, I would like him to entertain the idea of invading China (quite likely a massacre giving the perception of the West in China) to force a regime change with puppet states (tried by the Japanese and worked not much better than Bush's invasion of Iraq).

Therefore, people who try to Godwin China, like Thanas, have to be wary of their own fucking ideas. One idiot screaming about an "axis of evil" already caused a war which is among the new century's deadliest.

[Thanas]

By largely supported I mean the country did not oust the Nazi government or fall into civil war - even when it was clear the Nazis were invading other countries. Even at the stage when it was clear that Nazi Germany itself will be invaded and bombed to bits. No: the diligent Germans kept providing for the Nazi war effort, fighting bitterly until last. The total mobilization gathered almost all able-bodied males in the nation. Desertions were low until the very final months of the war.

That is what I mean by largely supported. The Reich was crushed only by full and total external occupation, and it required a concerted effort to remove the old Nazi functionaries.

Meanwhile, modern China is not massacring millions of untermenschen in a world-spanning genocidal war.

But if Thanas thinks they are somehow comparable, I would like him to entertain the idea of invading China (quite likely a massacre giving the perception of the West in China) to force a regime change with puppet states (tried by the Japanese and worked not much better than Bush's invasion of Iraq).

Therefore, people who try to Godwin China, like Thanas, have to be wary of their own fucking ideas. One idiot screaming about an "axis of evil" already caused a war which is among the new century's deadliest.

Bullshit. My argument was that high polling does not make a policy moral.

But then again this has served nicely to obfusacate and draw attention away from the real crime of China locking away people for 9 months without trial for daring to cover democratic protests, which I think was the real objective here for some people.

[K. A. Pital]

I think that in the discussed case detention without trial is an immoral extralegal punishment, and if China aspires to become a world superpower, it has to end this practice. And not just for foreigners, but for everyone.

However, you seem to be of the opinion the Chinese cannot support their government's actions even when clearly wrong. That is a mistake. How many supported internet censorship？Hell, you periodically get people who support internet censorship in the West, not to speak of China. So popular support for wrong policies exists.

It does not make the policy moral, but it can lead to the policy sticking around. Singapore has a penal code article against gays. How the hell would this remain in place so long without popular support and cultural inertia?

[Pelranius]

Getting those safeguards to insure/reduce innocent people being prosecuted requires time and energy.

Getting the safeguards not to keep a guy in prison for almost a year without charges? How about: if you can't say what the guy is suspected of doing wrong after 2 days you release the guy? How many billions in IMF loans would that take?

What about wrongful convictions? It takes time to clear innocent people in those situations.

[Metahive]

By largely supported I mean the country did not oust the Nazi government or fall into civil war - even when it was clear the Nazis were invading other countries. Even at the stage when it was clear that Nazi Germany itself will be invaded and bombed to bits. No: the diligent Germans kept providing for the Nazi war effort, fighting bitterly until last. The total mobilization gathered almost all able-bodied males in the nation. Desertions were low until the very final months of the war.

That is what I mean by largely supported. The Reich was crushed only by full and total external occupation, and it required a concerted effort to remove the old Nazi functionaries.

*cough* JULY 20TH PLOT *cough* CLAUS VON STAUFFENBERG *cough*

Hey, it's not the german people's fault that fate or whatever decided Hitler should survive the more than two dozen assassination attempts that began even before the war...

Did you know that Franz Halder planned a military coup shortly before Hitler could declare war on Czechoslovakia and the only reason it didn't happen is that Chamberlain and co. handed Hitler another victory on the silver platter which made him untouchable?

Meanwhile, modern China is not massacring millions of untermenschen in a world-spanning genocidal war.

But if Thanas thinks they are somehow comparable, I would like him to entertain the idea of invading China (quite likely a massacre giving the perception of the West in China) to force a regime change with puppet states (tried by the Japanese and worked not much better than Bush's invasion of Iraq).

Therefore, people who try to Godwin China, like Thanas, have to be wary of their own fucking ideas. One idiot screaming about an "axis of evil" already caused a war which is among the new century's deadliest.

OK, how's that actually relevant to Thanas point? He's saying that atrocious behaviour doesn't become acceptable just because the regime in question has high approval ratings. The only one performing a complete Godwin derail here is you.

[Thanas]

However, you seem to be of the opinion the Chinese cannot support their government's actions even when clearly wrong.

No, all I am saying is that there is no way to truly know because there are no independent opinion polls or no independent stats office.

It does not make the policy moral, but it can lead to the policy sticking around. Singapore has a penal code article against gays. How the hell would this remain in place so long without popular support and cultural inertia?

I am not interested in discussing the longevity. I am however firmly against using "well the people support it" as an argument for why one should stop talking about clear wrongs, like Purple wants to.

[montypython]

I'd say that it's important not to conflate morality with any sort of objectivist creed, indeed it resembles more the punctuated equilibrium of preexisting socioeconomic tendencies and conditions rather an absolutist state like the abrahamic religions for example espouse. This also means that, especially for developing states, embracing democratic methods outside of a economically mature system for reasons of liberal democratic ideology can be actually counterproductive, as democratic systems tend to preserve and consolidate pre-existing tendencies rather than expedite changes which are necessary in developing states to achieve a sustainable high productivity and egalitarian socioeconomic environment.

[madd0ct0r]

that's an interesting claim. any good source for that? (or further reading?)

[Purple]

What is the tradeoff?

Accepting that a certain number of people will be detained for months on end without what some other societies would consider sufficient justification.

'There is no wrong way to run a country except those ways I agree are wrong.'

Do you even fucking listen to yourself, Purple?

You apparently have a problem reading. For that is not what I wrote. What I wrote was: "There is no way for a people to voluntarily allow their country to be run." There is a bit of a difference. In essence my stance is that for as long as a nation state is not aggressive or outright genocidal and the people support it than that is just fine. Because when it comes down to it I find it to be the height of hubris for a man to stand and proclaim "I know better than you all how you should run your country and lives!" That is basically you standing up and claiming to be smarter and better than all the people in that country combined!

The exceptions I mention are:
1. Those people aren't actually choosing to run things that way but are forced into it. In which case we have the right to help them form what ever it is they do want but NOT impose our own ideas. So if they want to depose a liberal democracy and elect a rape-baby-king that rapes and kills every firstborn baby to sacrifice to a sun god that's what we have the right to help them do because that is what they want. And we can either help them do what they want or tell them we dislike their ideas and do nothing. Those two are the only morally acceptable choices.

2. When they are a threat to other states around them in which case we have the right to stop them from doing so but not interfere with how they do things internally.