Is America really much better than China?

Discussion in 'Free Speech Alley' started by USMTiger, Apr 9, 2008.

  1. USMTiger

    USMTiger Founding Member

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    What I don't understand is the chic love for Tibet, when at the same time one of our NATO military close buddy allies did the exact same thing, more recently.

    Of course, nobody wants to boycott Turkey over invading Cyprus in the 70s.

    I guess it is because the Cypriots don't have a rock star leader?

    Both are wrong, but to be up in arms about one, and allies with another is silly.
     
  2. USMTiger

    USMTiger Founding Member

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    And you totally missed the point I was making. It was definately NOT that China was ok, too.

    But you are correct on all of your other points. I'm just not sure that the majority of the Chinese people really want it any other way.
     
  3. Bandit88

    Bandit88 Old Enough to Know Better

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    Well....what was your point, then?

    Because when I reread what you initially wrote, it smacks of relativism to me.
     
  4. USMTiger

    USMTiger Founding Member

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    I was more or less looking for opinions on why we shouldn't be morally relative to China, because I wasn't seeing alot of differences in many major areas of how our respective governments impose their rule. I think the way China handles its business is more inline with the Asian cultural mentality. Liberty and individuality is not a trait shared by alot of cultures. Look at the "liberated" peoples of Iraq for a prime example.

    Would I want to live there? Hell no. Im happy in the good ole USA. No better country. I'm just reaching a point after this Iraq fiasco where I'm balking at the concept of "National Enemy".
     
  5. Bandit88

    Bandit88 Old Enough to Know Better

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    China is not - and does not have to ever be - a national enemy.

    Also, I agree that imposing our will via soft or hard power should be a measured act aimed directly at achieving something of national interest if not national security.

    Don't, however, misunderstand China as some sort of backward country with quaint customs that we should accept just because they don't look like us.

    The Chinese will impact the global economy and the fight for strategic resources for DECADES to come. Engagement with the Chinese is crucial. Transparency in a globalized economy is crucial. These things cannot fully materialize while the Chinese hold on futilely to an outdated, autocratic form of government. If they don't evolve, then a more adversarial relationship is almost inevitable.

    I'd rather see us wield soft power in the form of threats of boycott than simply accept institutionalized Chinese indifference to human dignity and run the risk of that indifference empowering thug regimes all over the world.

    Africa is a good place to focus your attention on the problems with Chinese influence as it currently stands.
     
  6. uscvball

    uscvball Founding Member

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    Going back to your original question, comparing the due process in America PRIOR to the death penalty is vastly different than imposing the death penalty for say, forgery, and with just 2 days to mount a defense as they do in China. It wasn't a point about pro or con for the death penalty but yes, America does it way better.

    As for the one child policy. Members of the Chinese government and ranking members of the Communist party have no limits on the amount of children they have. Rank apparently has quite the privilege. And did you not notice that it is female children that are often aborted, often victims of infanticide, and are almost always the gender adopted out to other countries? Forced abortions and sterilizations are not happening in America. And if China was interested in slowing down the birth rate, why not sterilize the men?

    Did you not realize that Chinese doctors perform experimental surgery including amputations on the citizenry? Haven't seen that in America lately.

    Does the US government burn down churches that it deems non-sanctioned? The Chinese government does.

    There is no way for the average Chinese citizen to weigh in on these topics because they don't have the choice nor the opportunity. They also don't have access to information that would allow them different decisions.

    I have no idea what you mean by "Asian cultures" but Asian people live all over the world and their internal culture survives due to the people and families within it. Japan is an Asian country and even with all their social ills they are not a society inline with a communist mindset.
     
  7. xlnsports

    xlnsports Cajun In Exile

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    i have Been to China and it is only fun an hip where the tourist are and the goverenment repression is a epic proportion more than the U.S. The Government controls the Media and has even hired Cisco to develop a filter to keep google and other popular web searches engine inline with their beliefs. The prison population is lower per capita is way lower than the United States but the amount of deaths and disapperances of people taken into custody is of the charts. My Roomate before i got married spoke Mandarin and spent 6 years as a missionary to China many times his cameras and even his lap top were taken and never retuned.

    feel free to ask whatever you like... i prefer to keep to sports and stay away from chest beating religious arguements. I feel trying to cram facts/ beliefs on some one is useless and pointless unless they are seeking change in their life. :grin:
     
    APPTiger, Jmg and LSUTiga like this.
  8. JohnLSU

    JohnLSU Tigers

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    I've never heard that one before, about a San Francisco bay area company like Cisco helping the Chinese government oppress their citizens. If that's true, that would be a sad example of how the management of a company decided that greed for profit was more important than doing the "right" thing (which here, IMO, would be not helping China develop a method to block their citizens from information and ideas they don't want them to see -- which is the same as book burning).
     
  9. LSUTiga

    LSUTiga TF Pubic Relations

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    Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees...LOOK AT DEEZ!



    Hillary likes China.

    http://www.nypost.com/seven/10202007/news/nationalnews/hills_cash_eyed_as_chinese_lau.htm
     
  10. JohnLSU

    JohnLSU Tigers

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    That's nothing. I heard that Hilary tells her Chinese-American audiences that her parents were Chinese rice farmers. :)
     

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