• FMT99@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    I’m not defending the bad things our government does. But do we see mass arrests of people wearing Luigi shirts? Will you be denied a passport as a result of posting some critical message on social media? I had friends, very average unimportant people, who were detained for days at a Chinese airport for having a social media history showing support for Taiwan. It’s not the same thing.

      • FMT99@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Yeah oppression is universal to some extent. But there’s a big difference between a government that says “everyone is equal before the law” but which sometimes breaks those rules and a country that says “the law is what we say it is”

        Which one functions better as a whole, given our current social problems, I don’t know. But from a personal point of view I’m very happy to live and have grown up somewhere relatively free.

          • FMT99@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            If you oversimplify to the degree that “all governments use oppressive tactics some times” then yeah you’re right. Obviously. But how many communists is the US holding in reeducation camps at the moment? How many cartoon characters are banned because they look like the president?

            And again I understand our current trajectory doesn’t look great, I understand our governments can also use oppressive tactics at times. But to say CCP and the US government are identical is just blatantly disingenuous.

              • FMT99@lemmy.world
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                9 months ago

                Jesus Christ “Chinaman”? I think you need to lay off the coffee a bit friend.

                But yeah oppressive, proudly dictatorial governments are worse than ours, at least if you value free citizenship, democracy and rule of law, flawed as it may be.

    • Alwaysnownevernotme@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      We have several prisoners at Guantanamo with absolutely no tangible connection to terrorist organizations. They have been there for 20 years in some cases and have no release or court date scheduled.

      • FMT99@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Again I’m not trying to defend that bad things our governments do. And Guantanamo is an especially egregious example, I agree. But Guantanamo is something exceptional, not the norm. How many inmates does Guantanamo have? You can look it up, it’s public information. You can protest it, you can vote for politicians that agree it should be closed. And yes it’s not as easy as that but it can be done.

        But now try to stage a public protest against the treatments of Uygurs in Beijing. Try to get details about the people imprisoned there or the conditions they live under. Hell try to find out what happened to your disappeared relatives.

        The difference is one is at least paying lip service to ideas like rule of law and democracy, even though at times it breaks its own rules. The other says rule of law is irrelevant.

          • FMT99@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            It’s very hard to stay interested in discussion here. It’s just one hyperbole after the other, not to mention folks constantly shoving talking points in your face as if you said them and then arguing against them so they can feel that they won the argument. And all that peppered with this condescending tone. Well fine, you won buddy, congratulations.