The thing is that China isn't authoritarian. I discuss it here in the same thread. Take a look at that and the previous comments. If Chinese citizens don't think it's authoritarian, then who are you to say it is? Do you know better than them?
People in the US don't understand the ways that the US is authoritarian and genocidal. The average lib or conservative alike is well trained in being able to casually wave away events as disgusting as murdering the indigenous peoples to steal their land, slaveowners writing about the inalienable freedoms of man and building a country on slave power, Japanese internment, etc. We got all this here manufactured consent. I'm not going to sit here and say I don't trust the word of Chinese citizens. Just that capitalist systems are great at manufacturing consent and it seems insane to me to suggest that China isn't doing that as well. And it makes it really difficult to evaluate what is actually going on there when the American media is manufacturing sinophobic consent here and Chinese media is manufacturing their own consent there.
Because it's literally not the majority of people. The same polling shows most Americans don't consider it a democracy. 48% of Americans to 73% of Chinese. Read the damn links, people.
Yeah, installing oneself as President For Life is a paragon of democracy.
While I'm here, my other nitpick is the "China might have the 2nd most billionaires, but they aren't afraid to jail one of them and are therefore the spitting image of Kropotkin!" If that's the case, then hell, let's throw all our hats into Russia's ring where they routinely assassinate and jail billionaire oligarchs, and therefore Russia's model is what we should seek to emulate. This reductive reasoning is so damn basic and an affront to any deep thinking.
If being critical of my government will incur visits from state authorities or get me jailed, as well as have impacts on my financial, social, professional, and family's future, then you can bet those answers are under Stockholm Syndrome duress. If you think self-reporting is the airtight, end-all, be-all of cross-sectional studies, then you're on some Jonestown Kool-Aid.
But will it? Do you have any evidence at all to support the idea that responding negatively to a poll will get people jailed or that that is a fear of Chinese people? You've constructed a perfect rhetorical shield, where high support of the government is proof of low support of the government. But it doesn't match with the data. The second link explicitly discusses the change over time in government approval and how it correlates with material changes in what the government does and delivers.
If being critical of my government will incur visits from state authorities or get me jailed, as well as have impacts on my financial, social, professional, and family’s future, then you can bet those answers are under Stockholm Syndrome duress.
Uh yet you still feel free to criticize the US despite this being the literal, actual reality in the US as we speak
The thing is that China isn't authoritarian. I discuss it here in the same thread. Take a look at that and the previous comments. If Chinese citizens don't think it's authoritarian, then who are you to say it is? Do you know better than them?
People in the US don't understand the ways that the US is authoritarian and genocidal. The average lib or conservative alike is well trained in being able to casually wave away events as disgusting as murdering the indigenous peoples to steal their land, slaveowners writing about the inalienable freedoms of man and building a country on slave power, Japanese internment, etc. We got all this here manufactured consent. I'm not going to sit here and say I don't trust the word of Chinese citizens. Just that capitalist systems are great at manufacturing consent and it seems insane to me to suggest that China isn't doing that as well. And it makes it really difficult to evaluate what is actually going on there when the American media is manufacturing sinophobic consent here and Chinese media is manufacturing their own consent there.
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This is the shit I love.
Plenty of people think the US and it's democracy are just fine, who am I to doubt the majority of people
Because it's literally not the majority of people. The same polling shows most Americans don't consider it a democracy. 48% of Americans to 73% of Chinese. Read the damn links, people.
I can't tell what comment you linked to
But you are correct, 59% of Americans are dissatisfied with democracy in the US.
I don't know anything about China really, and don't have much of an opinion, but I see no issue with disagreeing with the majority of people somewhere
Comment links are a little sketchy right now because on long threads the page doesn't load all the comments right away. Something on the TODO list.
Yeah, installing oneself as President For Life is a paragon of democracy.
While I'm here, my other nitpick is the "China might have the 2nd most billionaires, but they aren't afraid to jail one of them and are therefore the spitting image of Kropotkin!" If that's the case, then hell, let's throw all our hats into Russia's ring where they routinely assassinate and jail billionaire oligarchs, and therefore Russia's model is what we should seek to emulate. This reductive reasoning is so damn basic and an affront to any deep thinking.
So just to be clear, you do know better than the people of China?
Edit: To make it obvious what I'm talking about, since you probably didn't read anything I linked: 73% of Chinese citizens consider their country a democracy. This is 20-30% higher than Western nations, excepting Scandinavian countries. Also, Chinese people have an overhelmingly positive view of the central government's performance, and this is only improving over time.
If being critical of my government will incur visits from state authorities or get me jailed, as well as have impacts on my financial, social, professional, and family's future, then you can bet those answers are under Stockholm Syndrome duress. If you think self-reporting is the airtight, end-all, be-all of cross-sectional studies, then you're on some Jonestown Kool-Aid.
But will it? Do you have any evidence at all to support the idea that responding negatively to a poll will get people jailed or that that is a fear of Chinese people? You've constructed a perfect rhetorical shield, where high support of the government is proof of low support of the government. But it doesn't match with the data. The second link explicitly discusses the change over time in government approval and how it correlates with material changes in what the government does and delivers.
Uh yet you still feel free to criticize the US despite this being the literal, actual reality in the US as we speak
"US bad therefore China good!"
Did I say that? Or did I point out the inherent flaw in your reasoning?