Orange Devil posted:

The problem with the consent of the people currently living there argument is that it ends up justifying past atrocities. It’s like saying the Israeli settlements ought to belong to Israel because we took a referendum and the colonialist settlers democratically decided this way.

So aggressive conquest and genocide are wrong, but if you do these things anyway then they will result in a reality in which this line of argument will end up supporting you in maintaining this new reality you have created. If we accept such arguments then I fear we are basically inviting states to use this loophole and thus encouraging awful poo poo. Doesn’t seem great.

Orange Devil posted:

The problem with the consent of the people currently living there argument is that it ends up justifying past atrocities. It’s like saying the Israeli settlements ought to belong to Israel because we took a referendum and the colonialist settlers democratically decided this way.

So aggressive conquest and genocide are wrong, but if you do these things anyway then they will result in a reality in which this line of argument will end up supporting you in maintaining this new reality you have created. If we accept such arguments then I fear we are basically inviting states to use this loophole and thus encouraging awful poo poo. Doesn’t seem great.

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

according to dnd logic the Donetsk republics have a right to exist in defense against cultural genocide, since the Ukrainian government tried doing away with non-Ukrainian language in schools

Red and Black posted:

This is exactly the liberal mindset. Except for some reason I doubt that in the future, when public opinion inevitably swings towards Beijing in HK, liberals will be so eager to accept public opinion as the end all be all of territorial legitimacy.

Red and Black posted:

Man I love getting probed in D&D for doing literally nothing wrong. I’m a pro at it by now

Red and Black posted:

Man I love getting probed in D&D for doing literally nothing wrong. I’m a pro at it by now

thatfatkid posted:

nah mate you did the worst thing anyone can do in D&D, you had a correct/leftwing opinion

Al-Saqr posted:

I’m honestly still shook that there are people who still unironically believe that China doesn’t have a right to take back lands that were actively taken from them by gunpoint like Hong Kong even when all they’re doing is following an Unfair contract’s stipulations, it’s amazing.

Agrajag posted:

it would seem many people at least in the west have memory holed the history of europe, britain, russia, america and japan carving up china into little colonial fiefdoms akin to what happened to africa

Agrajag posted:

it would seem many people at least in the west have memory holed the history of europe, britain, russia, america and japan carving up china into little colonial fiefdoms akin to what happened to africa

Judakel posted:

My friend, if you believe in the concept of words having any kind of meaning then no, the US is not less democratic than China. By definition of the word democracy. No matter what Chinese people believe to be true or not.

If I was in your position I would step back for a day or two from whatever information bubble you are stuck in and reexamine what the gently caress it is doing to your brain and connection to objective reality and if it's really healthy fore you and where all of this is going mid to long term

Truga posted:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/jour...4D4893B382B992B posted:

All in all, we believe that the public is likely to be a more certain guardian of its own interests than any feasible alternative.

Leaving aside the difficult issue of divergent interests and motives, we would urge that the superior wisdom of economic elites or organized interest groups should not simply be assumed. It should be put to empirical test. New empirical research will be needed to pin down precisely who knows how much, and what, about which public policies.

Our findings also point toward the need to learn more about exactly which economic elites (the “merely affluent”? the top 1 percent? the top one-tenth of 1 percent?) have how much impact upon public policy, and to what ends they wield their influence. Similar questions arise about the precise extent of influence of particular sets of organized interest groups. And we need to know more about the policy preferences and the political influence of various actors not considered here, including political party activists, government officials, and other non-economic elites. We hope that our work will encourage further exploration of these issues.

Despite the seemingly strong empirical support in previous studies for theories of majoritarian democracy, our analyses suggest that majorities of the American public actually have little influence over the policies our government adopts. Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance, such as regular elections, freedom of speech and association, and a widespread (if still contested) franchise. But we believe that if policymaking is dominated by powerful business organizations and a small number of affluent Americans, then America’s claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened.

fart simpson posted:

i haven’t heard anyone say the handover in 1997 was chinese imperialism until yesterday in that thread, or that it doesn’t count because the qing dynasty no longer exists. i think the people in that thread are driving themselves insane

skipmyseashells posted:

the qing dynasty logic made my jaw drop, if you used that for 10 seconds on Europe/the americas you’d get hilarious results but it only applies to China somehow

quote:

No one sat down after World War 2 and asked the "Chinese people" in various places how they would like to be governed and by whom.

Ghost Leviathan posted:

The liberal mindset is 'the deals that WE make YOU sign at gunpoint are obviously good and valid forever, but not the other way around, no you're not allowed to do that stop doing it'

Crowsbeak posted:

Sweeety. Sanctions are not force.

mila kunis posted:

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1480208158912040963

Some Guy TT posted:

https://mobile.twitter.com/ClintEhrlich/status/1479927694674612230

Nonsense posted:

Hunter Biden continuing his streak as the greatest living American