
Drink Poison and Smile: How I Arrived at My Position of Pro-Democracy - improvehk
https://improve.hk/post/drink-poison-and-smile/
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hos234
Good luck to protestors. Hard to see the reasons for China to compromise
though.

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Mathnerd314
The author seems to have left off his name, but I assume the Chinese or HK
government could easily obtain his name/address from the domain registrar. So
if the extradition bill was passed he might join the many people he lists in
prison.

But the bill was declared "dead", so I guess he's probably OK besides the
possibility of masked thugs.

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Leary
You should write this in Chinese so the Mainlanders could actually read it.

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chrischen
If he writes this in Chinese the mainlanders will not be able to read it
anymore (it would get blocked).

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Animats
Legislative bodies is in trouble. Britain seems to have just had a coup. Look
at how Boris Johnson became Prime Minister, not by popular election but by
vote of Conservative Party members only. And now he's suspending Parliament.

The problems of the US Congress are well known. It used to run the country.
Now it barely does anything.

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avocado4
It's intellectually dishonest to say that Congress barely does anything.

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simonh
I think the argument is clear. A few people in the West have found ways to
abuse the political system in a few marginal ways and get away with it for
limited periods until independent journalism, public opinion and the courts
stop them.

However they get away with it for a while. Therefore it's ok to have an entire
political system in China, constructed entirely out of the abuse or
elimination of the rights of it's people, with no way to challenge their
leaders or hold them accountable.

I make no claims for the validity of the argument.

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nudpiedo
> Fine you say, you may not care for some religious leaders, as they are such
> a tiny percentage of the population.

This is a huge difference between western and eastern thinking. Group rights
vs individual rights. Here in western culture we typically tried to develop a
culture on which each single individual rights should be respected above the
group if the case was necessary whereas Asian societies traditionally have put
groups (or families) above individual rights and wishes.

And for those reasons we had several wars against fascism, communism and other
totalitarian ideologies. Currently in the west we also have lobbies which try
to segregate population in smaller groups and lobby against others, or
communities as they say in the USA. I guess this herd behaviour is just part
of human being's nature and this sort of events will be repeated forever.

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koonsolo
Then it's ironic that everyone wants to join the individualistic
countries/unions, and the group countries/unions have to force keeping things
together because parts want to leave.

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fouc
I was super confused by the initial "A letter to our brothers and sisters just
north of the border." until I figured out it was a Hong Kong writer speaking
to mainland China residents.

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askmike
I agree that the things described are very bad. But I do want to point that
many western democratic governments do things that might be just as bad (are
the Uyghur Muslims treated worse than immigrants in many western places like
US / EU / AUS?).

Though I have to admit I'm not well informed on exactly what type of
"democracy" they are after. If you get the majority of people to not care
about what happens to a minority, it doesn't really matter how a government is
structured (when it comes to democracy we see see things like "Tyranny of the
masses").

EDIT: everyone disliked this comment but I think because I used the wrong
examples. So I quickly want to clarify what I mean:

He wants a different political system (democratic) and his arguments are that
the current one did many bad things. My point is that changing the political
system doesn't change the bad things he's talking about. As we can clearly see
in many democratic systems in the world.

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simonh
There has been abusive treatment of some illegal immigrants into some of these
countries, particularly recently, but there had also been massive outcries
about it.

In almost every case the law and public opinion has stopped or prevented the
worst mistreatment. The Australian detention centres are winding down, the
separation of children from their families ordered by Trump was successfully
challenged in court. Massive public protests and press coverage worked.

Therefore it seems perfectly reasonable to hold China to the same standards of
public accountability and legal due process that other countries are held to.

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chillwaves
My understanding of US detention centers is that their capacity is only
expanding.

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simonh
That is true, people who illegally enter the US in violation of it's laws get
detained, however they have access to legal due process and their rights are
guaranteed in law. There certainly have been abuses and violations, but these
have frequently been reported in the medial and successfully challenged in
courts of law.

Don't get me wrong, the recent treatment of refugees entering the US has been
appalling. In my books, no supporter of the current US administration gets to
claim they are pro-family or support traditional values, after the deliberate
rending of children from their parents, as a terror tactic to scare other
migrants away. "Don't come here, look what we will do to your children".
Despicable. China can rightly use that as a counterpoint to their actions. The
point is, it doesn't get them off the hook though.

These cases in the West are subject to public scrutiny. Journalists and
opposition politicians have access to the facilities and to detainees and
access to the courts to ensure judicial review. It is absolutely reasonable
and fair to expect China to meet the same standards.

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askmike
I just did a quick google search on the matter, and according to the top
link[1] this is not possible in practise for people in "detention facilities"
to leave them.

[1]: [https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/immigrants-free-leave-
dete...](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/immigrants-free-leave-detention/)
this is not

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simonh
That's what detention means, right? I'm not sure what point of mine you are
referring to.

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askmike
> however they have access to legal due process and their rights are
> guaranteed in law. There certainly have been abuses and violations, but
> these have frequently been reported in the medial and successfully
> challenged in courts of law.

This point! According the the link in practise they do not have the ability to
leave. So I guess that's the standard "we" should hold "them" to?

> The point is, it doesn't get them off the hook though.

I very much agree, but at the end of the day these choices were made by people
- they should be held accountable. Don't hold a politicial system accountable.

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simonh
>According the the link in practise they do not have the ability to leave...

That's a rally weird and kind of irrelevant technical point. In that specific
case 'leave' means pay for their own flight back to their own country, instead
of being deported there by the US government. It does not mean simply walk out
of the detention centre. They are in violation of US law and in US custody.
The argument is about their humane and fair treatment.

I'm in no way saying the western system is perfect, it's been terribly abused,
and still is. My point is that independent journalism, an informed public and
independent judicial review are powerful things and do make a difference. It
is entirely morally consistent to both argue for fair treatment of people in
the west, and advocate it for people in China.

As for political systems, they are created by people. When I say 'China' or
'The Chinese Government' I mean the individuals in power in the Chinese
government. They are accountable.

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askmike
Apologies, I got many replies at the same time (a minute after I posted my
initial message). My point was against:

> Also given that China has to actively prevent the Uyghur from leaving, while
> the West has to prevent immigrants from entering, should tell you who's
> treated worse.

Which you didn't type but deogeo.

> It is entirely morally consistent to both argue for fair treatment of people
> in the west, and advocate it for people in China.

Agreed with this and everything else you say. My initial point was shifting
the conversation away from "pro democratic or anti democratic" into holding
people accounting for human right violations. If a political system makes it
hard to hold people accountable than that's what we should talk about.

Which one is worse is a bikeshedding discussion which I didn't intend to start
with my initial comment.

