Asian politics

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Nauru Dolan
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Re: Asian politics

Post by Dolan »

princeofcarthage wrote: ↑
27 May 2022, 09:12
Dolan wrote: ↑
27 May 2022, 08:45
princeofcarthage wrote: ↑
27 May 2022, 07:52
What is the purpose of posting all these articles when in principle you side with countries and leaders who are responsible for this?
Are you suggesting Trump was responsible for Iraq?
US? Europe?
Answer the question: is a country to blame for past decisions taken by an administration or does the blame rest with a specific administration? By fault I mean moral fault, not legal responsibility.
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Kiribati princeofcarthage
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Re: Asian politics

Post by princeofcarthage »

Dolan wrote: ↑
27 May 2022, 09:25
princeofcarthage wrote: ↑
27 May 2022, 09:12
Show hidden quotes
US? Europe?
Answer the question: is a country to blame for past decisions taken by an administration or does the blame rest with a specific administration? By fault I mean moral fault, not legal responsibility.
In strictest sense of "moral" the fault lies with the individuals taking the decisions, not necessarily even the entire administration. But this has been a pattern, not a one off event. Which implies presence of a system.
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Nauru Dolan
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Re: Asian politics

Post by Dolan »

@princeofcarthage
Because me siding with the West in this Ukraine vs Russia war doesn't imply I support everything that the West did in the past or that it does now. On the contrary, I've been slamming the West on many occasions on many topics.
We can converge on some issues and diverge on others.
Also when US/Western allies started the war in Iraq, there were lots of popular protests in the West against it. It wasn't a popular decision, and later politicians who made the call got trashed by the media and the public opinion in their countries.
So you'd be hard-pressed to find many people today who say Iraq was a good idea, maybe some shills who were part of the Bush team.
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Kiribati princeofcarthage
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Re: Asian politics

Post by princeofcarthage »

@Dolan and my point is precisely that siding with west over this war is ridiculous. Lets for a moment assume west as Ukraine ally and China as Russia ally which are parties with say direct vested interests. Most of the rest of the world which little to no interest in the war and are arguably neutral parties have refused to enact sanctions or support US effort to isolate Russia. Even traditional US allies have faltered in responses. Taiwan which can draw parallels to this have have also said little to nothing. Japan has been silent more or less. And that is more than majority of the world. The world has unequivocally rejected unilateral US decisions bypassing international institutions. Your position comes from a point of bias and not neutrality or objectivity. Any neutral party can in good faith not believe that US is directly responsible for this crisis, even more so than Russia.
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Re: Asian politics

Post by lejend »

Dolan wrote: ↑
27 May 2022, 06:52
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That guy is a former Saddam lackey who couldn't hack it in a free Iraq. He doesn't speak for most Iraqis.
Sharif's association did not end there as [Saddam's son] Uday had Sharif build him a world-class gym. Sharif also developed a weightlifting program for Uday.
The legality of Sharif's motorcycle business and collection has always been murky and he has admitted that some of his bikes were stolen in neighboring countries and smuggled into Iraq[2] along with dealing with the bikes looted from Kuwait when Saddam Hussein invaded the country. His business finally caught up with him when in 2005 he was arrested in connection with dealing stolen bikes.[4]
In a 2016 interview Kadhem said that he expressed his regret over his role in the Firdos Square statue destruction in which he attacked the statue with a sledgehammer. He said "When I go past that statue, I feel pain and shame. I ask myself, why did I topple this statue. I'd like to put it back up, to rebuild it. I'd put it back up but I'm afraid I would be killed."[1] He looked back to Saddam's time with nostalgia as "Saddam never executed people without a reason. He was as solid as a wall. There was no corruption or looting, it was safe. You could be safe."[1]
This is like coming across a German neo-Nazi and thinking it's proof that most Germans want the Third Reich back.

The % of Iraqis who miss Saddam is probably lower than the % of Romanians who miss Ceausescu, but I doubt you'd agree that that means toppling Ceausescu was a mistake.

Overthrowing tyrants is good, generally speaking.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/can-eu ... n-romania/
According to a recent poll, many Romanians remain nostalgic for communism, over two decades after dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was overthrown. The INSCOP Research poll revealed that 44.4 percent of the respondents believed that living conditions were better under communism, 15.6 said that they had stayed the same, while only 33.6 claimed that life was worse back then. When asked about dictator Ceausescu, 47.5 of the respondents claimed that he had a relatively positive role in Romania’s recent history, while 46.9 said that his role was rather negative. The recent poll was conducted between November 7 and 14, 2014, on a sample of 1,055 participants, with a 3 percent margin of error at the 95 percent confidence level.

This is not the first survey suggesting Romanians’ communist nostalgia. A 2010 poll conducted by the Romanian Institute for Evaluation and Strategy provided similar results. Of the 1,460 respondents, 54 percent claimed that they had better living standards during communism, while 16 percent said that they were worse. Moreover, 49 percent claimed that Ceausescu was a good leader, 30 percent believed he was neither good nor bad, while 15 said he was bad. The survey has a 2.7 percent margin of error at the 95 percent confidence level.

These results might seem surprising, given the fact that Romania underwent one of the most brutal communist regimes in the region under Ceausescu’s leadership. According to some Romanian historians, these results indicate the public’s discontent with the current political elites’ inability to ensure Romania’s internal and international development and improve their living standards, in contrast to some of Ceausescu’s internal and international achievements.
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Nauru Dolan
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Re: Asian politics

Post by Dolan »

@lejend
The situation might look similar on the surface of it, but in every measurable way Romania is better today than how it was under Ceausescu.
Infrastructure is better today than it was back then. The economy is better, it produces more and of better quality. Ceausescu couldn't have dreamt of producing a car here that would sell a lot in Europe, like Dacia. We had zero products that were selling well abroad. No access to better paid jobs in Europe. No freedom to travel. Complete information censorship.
The people who regret Ceausescu are mostly boomers, it's mostly old people who did have it better back then, because now they are pensioners and they don't get much from the public pension system. They barely get by. So of course they regret those times. They have no potential to gain more today, because they have no qualifications that could make them competitive anymore. So they're reduced to being spectators in a society that is much more fast-changing and overwhelming for them. They are burdened by freedom, they can't handle it. They want tranquility, they want a strong-hand regime that controls everything, so that they would see fewer young people being loud and having fun, as they equate this with society decaying and losing its values. For them freedom is too much noise, need a dictator to make things quieter. So what if this came at the cost of putting some people in jail for political opinions or for a joke about the dictator, those were some intellectuals, some oddballs, who cared about those.

Also there's a specific difference in mentality. Romanians have a neolithic mentality, they tend to be politically passive and not to take risks. Many of them prefer a safe low-paying job rather than a risky high-paying one. That's definitely the case for those boomers who would rather work in a public institution and get a low wage, while being 100% sure they will never get fired, so they can just push some papers and leave the office at 4PM, not one minute later.

Objectively, there's a major difference between the situation in Iraq and Romania. After removing the dictator, Romania embarked on a long journey of slowly and painfully improving its economy, rule of law, infrastructure, joining NATO and the EU, thanks to which today the country is in the best strategic situation it has ever been in its history. While Iraq after toppling Saddam descended into chaos, tribal conflicts along religious lines, bombings and terror attacks. It's not all bad, as rising oil prices have boosted their economy, but I can see why many Iraqis might have preferred not to see the country go through the last two decades, in which so many have died and the country has been torn apart by terrorism and conflicts between tribal factions.
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Re: Asian politics

Post by lejend »

@Dolan I'd argue Iraq is objectively better off today than under Saddam. Yeah, there was a violent insurgency for a couple of years and then the war with ISIS, but right now the country is pretty peaceful and it's undeniably richer and freer than when Saddam was in charge.

Ultimately, if the people actually living in Iraq are happy that Saddam is gone, then it doesn't really matter what other people think.

I think over time it'll only become more and more clear that overthrowing Saddam was the right thing to do, just like overthrowing Ceausescu and every other brutal dictator.
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Re: Asian politics

Post by fightinfrenchman »

lejend wrote: ↑
29 May 2022, 18:42
Ultimately, if the people actually living in Iraq are happy that Saddam is gone, then it doesn't really matter what other people think.

I think
over time it'll only become more and more clear that overthrowing Saddam was the right thing to do, just like overthrowing Ceausescu and every other brutal dictator.
:hmm:
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Re: Asian politics

Post by princeofcarthage »

fightinfrenchman wrote: ↑
29 May 2022, 18:49
lejend wrote: ↑
29 May 2022, 18:42
Ultimately, if the people actually living in Iraq are happy that Saddam is gone, then it doesn't really matter what other people think.

I think
over time it'll only become more and more clear that overthrowing Saddam was the right thing to do, just like overthrowing Ceausescu and every other brutal dictator.
:hmm:
This is Asian politics. Get out
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Re: Asian politics

Post by harcha »

POC wrote:Also I most likely know a whole lot more than you.
POC wrote:Also as an objective third party, and near 100% accuracy of giving correct information, I would say my opinions are more reliable than yours.
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Re: Asian politics

Post by lejend »

Homework in India

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Nauru Dolan
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Re: Asian politics

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Re: Asian politics

Post by fei123456 »

Some Chinese regional governments are marking those who complains of them as "covid positive". Those "covid positive" can't enter any shop, hotel, bus, and may be send to hospitals by force at any time.
It's just like how the empire hunts the Jedi, and it's even more ridiculous.
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Re: Asian politics

Post by duckzilla »

fei123456 wrote: ↑
15 Jun 2022, 02:47
Some Chinese regional governments are marking those who complains of them as "covid positive". Those "covid positive" can't enter any shop, hotel, bus, and may be send to hospitals by force at any time.
It's just like how the empire hunts the Jedi, and it's even more ridiculous.
Doesn't sound good. I guess this is how systems without real accountability happen to work.
Whatever is written above: this is no financial advice.

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Re: Asian politics

Post by princeofcarthage »

Dude... you are no jedi. You are just ungrateful people who complain at slight inconvenience despite everything the government does for you. Remember it took over 400 years of colonialism and massive drain of resources from other parts of world for Europe to be where China is today. It took about 175 years and 2 world wars + some colonialism for US to be where China is now. China did all of that, in just under 75 years, without any wars, without any colonialism.

Doesn't justify some of the actions government takes, but ultimately positive outweighs negative. And every country has some decisions which some people complain about.
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Re: Asian politics

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As long as the state is prosperous, you have no right to ask for a fair and free society. Such speech will be considered highly ungrateful and punishable by taking away all of your freedoms.
POC wrote:Also I most likely know a whole lot more than you.
POC wrote:Also as an objective third party, and near 100% accuracy of giving correct information, I would say my opinions are more reliable than yours.
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Re: Asian politics

Post by princeofcarthage »

Your society is fair? Your society is free?
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Re: Asian politics

Post by princeofcarthage »

It is not fair society you are seeking, you are disagreeing on the perception of one. It is not free society that you seek, just disagreeing on the restrictions imposed.
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Re: Asian politics

Post by harcha »

princeofcarthage wrote: ↑
15 Jun 2022, 10:35
Your society is fair? Your society is free?
I wish it was. But at least we don't get fucked if we ask for this.
POC wrote:Also I most likely know a whole lot more than you.
POC wrote:Also as an objective third party, and near 100% accuracy of giving correct information, I would say my opinions are more reliable than yours.
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Re: Asian politics

Post by princeofcarthage »

harcha wrote: ↑
15 Jun 2022, 12:06
princeofcarthage wrote: ↑
15 Jun 2022, 10:35
Your society is fair? Your society is free?
I wish it was. But at least we don't get fucked if we ask for this.
Well you do actually get. Your society is designed in a way that 95% of the time even if you ask for it you don't get it and you end up in a loop of struggle where ultimately most give up realizing it is an endless and useless endeavor. So you have wasted money, resources and time for a struggle which bears no fruit in the end instead which could have been used for your betterment and of the society. China is simply saying don't even waste your energy, resources and time cuz it won't change a thing and if you do want waste then at least waste it in a way which benefits larger society, either forcefully or willingly. In the larger picture Chinese method has a net positive for society cuz it stops the useless drain of resources.
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Nauru Dolan
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Re: Asian politics

Post by Dolan »

princeofcarthage wrote: ↑
15 Jun 2022, 12:33
harcha wrote: ↑
15 Jun 2022, 12:06
princeofcarthage wrote: ↑
15 Jun 2022, 10:35
Your society is fair? Your society is free?
I wish it was. But at least we don't get fucked if we ask for this.
Well you do actually get. Your society is designed in a way that 95% of the time even if you ask for it you don't get it and you end up in a loop of struggle where ultimately most give up realizing it is an endless and useless endeavor. So you have wasted money, resources and time for a struggle which bears no fruit in the end instead which could have been used for your betterment and of the society. China is simply saying don't even waste your energy, resources and time cuz it won't change a thing and if you do want waste then at least waste it in a way which benefits larger society, either forcefully or willingly. In the larger picture Chinese method has a net positive for society cuz it stops the useless drain of resources.
So you're saying communism is good basically
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Re: Asian politics

Post by harcha »

he will say no
POC wrote:Also I most likely know a whole lot more than you.
POC wrote:Also as an objective third party, and near 100% accuracy of giving correct information, I would say my opinions are more reliable than yours.
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Nauru Dolan
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Re: Asian politics

Post by Dolan »

Well he likes the government getting heavily involved in running society, so I suppose that means the economy too.
And that would Include the government running his restaurant, because they know better than him.
After all, "society is designed in a way that 95% of the time even if you ask for it you don't get it and you end up in a loop of struggle where ultimately most give up realizing it is an endless and useless endeavor".
So better let the government decide and steer things in the right direction.
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Re: Asian politics

Post by princeofcarthage »

Dolan wrote: ↑
15 Jun 2022, 14:54
princeofcarthage wrote: ↑
15 Jun 2022, 12:33
Show hidden quotes
Well you do actually get. Your society is designed in a way that 95% of the time even if you ask for it you don't get it and you end up in a loop of struggle where ultimately most give up realizing it is an endless and useless endeavor. So you have wasted money, resources and time for a struggle which bears no fruit in the end instead which could have been used for your betterment and of the society. China is simply saying don't even waste your energy, resources and time cuz it won't change a thing and if you do want waste then at least waste it in a way which benefits larger society, either forcefully or willingly. In the larger picture Chinese method has a net positive for society cuz it stops the useless drain of resources.
So you're saying communism is good basically
That is a strawman inference.
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Re: Asian politics

Post by princeofcarthage »

Dolan wrote: ↑
15 Jun 2022, 15:23
Well he likes the government getting heavily involved in running society, so I suppose that means the economy too.
Government is involved in running the society and economy, whether it is US, China or EU.
And that would Include the government running his restaurant, because they know better than him.
Strawman inference/argument. Also no, government doesn't necessarily know better, be it anything.
After all, "society is designed in a way that 95% of the time even if you ask for it you don't get it and you end up in a loop of struggle where ultimately most give up realizing it is an endless and useless endeavor".
So better let the government decide and steer things in the right direction.
Well it is a bit of tricky situation. Society is designed in that way to protect most people. If you simply let popular reforms pass all the time, it won't be long before the society reaches its lowest common denominator. You need to design the society in a way that useless popularity is filtered out while substance has little to no trouble. Remember your earlier post of how american culture was degrading. That is the issue with excessive freedom. China is simply trying to control/stop that decline. Of course doing so also restricts other thing which is a side product.
Fine line to something great is a strange change.

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