This is the great persecution of our day, happening as we go about our lives. I wish I knew what to do about it other than say "this is terrible" and try not to buy from China. (That's a big problem ordering online. You can't tell.) This is not something that happened 400 years ago, or 200, or even in the 1960s. There was plenty to condemn China about in those eras, too, BTW, but that's not what matters at the moment.
I am very pleased that the US is trying to sanction China economically over this, and I hope it creates the necessary pressure. Is that Trump doing that? I think it's Trump doing that, but I haven't followed the ins and outs of it. Maybe there is another person or group that has pushed for this and he's just going along. Still, that's got some value. What else should we do? I'm pretty sure invading them isn't going to be a net saver of innocent lives.
Other evils there are that may come; for Sauron is himself but a servant or emissary. Yet it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.
"Never Again" got quickly twisted into "Never again will we support anyone on the right, because they are way too close to being fascists," first in Europe, then America. It's a convenient, safe way to revert to your political priors, ignore actual injustice, and feel righteous to boot.
BTW, what's up with Hunter Biden these days? I haven't heard.
"Never Again" got quickly twisted into "Never again will we support anyone on the right, because they are way too close to being fascists," first in Europe, then America. It's a convenient, safe way to revert to your political priors, ignore actual injustice, and feel righteous to boot." Communism, socialism, those are OK. (They haven't learned...)
ReplyDeleteYeah Kinky Friedman is a special case.
ReplyDeleteEveryone with a Muslim population faces problems from their need to enforce and spread monotheism. The Chinese have never been monotheists and are careful with their many various peoples. The Uighurs that preach anything against the Chinese state are reeducated. Beats many things that states have done to those who have spoken against them.
For the fading super power its a great source of propaganda.
The Chinese government agents are literally raping women to try and breed them out. I’m trying to think of much that’s worse.
Delete@ Granite Dad - You can see many of PenGun's prejudices packed into a small space here. The Uighurs are sort of at fault because they believe monotheism, so that of course is related to what all other Muslims are doing, and all other monotheists are implicated as well. He hates them, they're all alike, apparently. The Chinese are only "reeducating" people, you see. Not so very bad, because they call it something nice. And though I specifically tied my post to the present and our responsibility, he is ready to go quickly to the past, to anything that other countries have done to excuse what is happening today. Then a dig at America, which is standard.
ReplyDeleteAlso, he starts off by confusing Tom Friedman with someone else entirely.
I've called Tom that for many years.
ReplyDeleteThere is an entire industry making videos decrying the poor Uighur's treatment at the hand of the Chinese.
America just crushing Mosul and Raqqa by simply bombing them flat, has been pretty well hidden, while Russia negotiating the end the Aleppo conflict, was really Russia carpet bombing them, and was widely characterized that way. .
Its propaganda. You apparently believe the bits that support your world, while decrying those that don't. Absolutely normal.
I dig and have a wide variety of sources I dig in. As I have said, I just assume everyone is lying and sort it out from there. Its not surprising I come up with a different take on the world than you do.
You see no distinction between how one treats an enemy versus how one treats a captive people.
ReplyDeleteThe Uighurs are citizens actually. There are laws pertaining to both war, and the captured, that civilized people used to follow. You won't even recognize the court now.
ReplyDeleteThe bombing of Mosul was certainly a war crime. You are guilty of so many. Its also one of your favourite ways to smear enemies, accusing them.
You define things conveniently and apply them conveniently. It makes discussion difficult. My 0% - 100% rule applies again.
ReplyDeleteDo you have an answer to anything I have posed, or only accusations?
I'm sorry, I tend to break rules a lot.
ReplyDeleteYour solution to controlling population behaviour, is to put a larger percentage of your population in jail, than anyone else. Would you think better of the Chinese, if they did the same, and put far more people in jail, than they have?
So never an answer, only accusations. Got it.
ReplyDelete"This is the great persecution of our day, happening as we go about our lives."
ReplyDeleteThis, your premise, is what I am speaking to. Do you have any answers to my question?
I regret taking the bait again. You don't know what it is you don't know. You are unable to hear others or entertain any doubt. You have anosagnosia. I have suspicions why, but I don't really know. There is nothing I can answer that you will hear. I will have to be content with things as they stand, even though you believe the flaws in reasoning are entirely on my side.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your patience, AVI. This site is one of the very few where adults converse reasonably about things that matter.
DeleteWhat to do about hijackers and individuals with ‘issues’? I don’t know. Wait, hope, Grace maybe.
An occasional exception proves the rule.
LOL. You are both a pseudo intellectual and intellectually dishonest. Calling me names just amuses me.
ReplyDeleteNo answer to the simple question I posed: "Your solution to controlling population behaviour, is to put a larger percentage of your population in jail, than anyone else. Would you think better of the Chinese, if they did the same, and put far more people in jail, than they have?"
This speaks directly to your premise, but you will not answer.
How about you Kevin. Can you answer that question?
ReplyDeleteI suspect that too much attention to Hunter Biden would draw attention to other figures as well. I haven't double-checked the matter, but I got the impression that there was a bi-partisan attraction to Ukranian activities. And, of course, we all know you mustn't even distantly suggest that Joe is less than pure, for fear that orangeness might prevail again.
ReplyDeleteWell, there are certainly laws of war and there is international law, but quite a few authorities and players in my lifetime have been trying to steal one march after another on what the contents of those are, by what authority they exist, by what authority they change, and to what degree they are independent of sovereign states individually signing on to them or not.
ReplyDeleteIf nothing else, the ICC is too much an innovation to object that the US now won't even recognize it. They never recognized it. More specifically, they never agreed to join that particular multinational institution.
There's plenty of stuff the US has done the past generation that I do agree violated some element of international law, and plenty I think they have the better case. And a few things where I think the former and don't care. But I don't see why they should be bound by ICC jurisdiction as though it had supranational standing or authority over them as a non-member.
In 1991 I anticipated happily a post-Cold War world in which a core group of liberal democratic allies would broadly cooperate in the existing international system, shorn for some significant time of superpower competition. Now that in the past couple of years our Canadian government has suddenly started repeating the phrase "Rules Based International Order" as a mantra, and meaning by it something rather much tighter and more formal, it starts to sound less like a generic description of a good and agreeable framework, and more like something I hope the US keeps kicking against at least at the margins.