• bitwize01@reddthat.com
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        6 days ago

        I bet this logic trap goes hard if you’re a fucking moron. To spring it: No, I don’t support Jan 6 insurgents.

        I am against any lethal action by governments towards their own citizens. And I don’t support murder or overthrowing governments by force either. So I don’t support insurgents trying to depose governments violently, and also I don’t support police killing people. The ideal situation would be to identify and arrest rioters. Which is, as it turned out, exactly what the US did until the new administration took over.

        The idea that rioters attacking and beating people to death should be reasonably countered with expanding bullets, that poles and firebombs are reasonably opposed by rifles, frankly puts you in some sorry moral company. You should take a hard look at yourself if that’s the kind of behavior you condone from a government, under any circumstance. Professional soldiers and law enforcement don’t kill civilians.

        • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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          6 days ago

          I am against any lethal action by governments towards their own citizens

          “Governments are only meant to kill subhuman foreigners!”

    • folaht@lemmy.ml
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      6 days ago

      Only a few hundred people died, not thousands. And some people may have been armed! So it’s fine to kill scores of people.

      “Some people” aka insurrectionists were not maybe armed.
      These insurrectionists bombed and killed soldiers. And THEY. BOMBED. FIRST.
      There is no maybe in this scenario just as much as there is no maybe in the Jan 6th insurrection.
      What were these other soldiers supposed to do that are trained to fight and protect their country?
      Just stand there and take some more?
      What is the proper response according to you when a group of terrorists bombs a military convoy?

      The tanks were driving away and didn’t kill anyone this time

      They didn’t kill him because he posed no threat unlike the terrorists that bombed their convoy.
      End of story.

      • bitwize01@reddthat.com
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        6 days ago

        What were these other soldiers supposed to do that are trained to fight and protect their country? Just stand there and take some more? What is the proper response according to you when a group of terrorists bombs a military convoy?

        You edited your post so I’ll reply again: The test, which America and China both repeatedly fail, is having professional law enforcement and soldiers kill their own citizens. This is one of the most utter, final failures of government. There are plenty of options besides killing people, and when you take up arms and swear oaths to protect your country, and then kill citizens of your own country, you break your oath.

        Your argument fails because there’s no need to actually intercede and halt protests. In the case of the pro-democracy movement crushed by the PLA in June 1989, martial law and attacks on protesters had begun en masse 2 weeks before the massacre. There was a steady escalation of violence leading up to the riots in early june. So the idea that the protestors “struck first” (even if that is a justification, which it isn’t, is false. The facts, which aren’t in dispute, were that the anti-corruption policies implemented to answer the complaints of the protestors were well-received, and further reforms were desired by everyone, not just the student protestors. Everyone except the local officials who were at risk of losing their positions by a government overhaul from authoritarianism to democracy.

        The protest could have continued to be disrupted the way they already were before the massacre:

        • Through wiretaps and arrests
        • Through planted dissenters sowing chaos in the student’s ranks
        • Through rubber bullets + tear gas, and other nonlethal methods

        Instead, even though 300,000 people were protesting that period, the actions of an interim commander who acted on poor discipline and leadership, directly lead to at least hundreds, and possibly thousands, of his own people, in a small section of the city. That is a spectacular failure, and the end of a certain degree of human autonomy in China.

        This is coming from someone who actually thinks China is leading the world in many ways. I do genuinely believe that China is actually less corrupt than many other nations, and the high degree of social cohesion in-country is something that gives them strength. Like I said in my first post: lots to admire, but this ain’t it.

        • RiverRock@lemmy.ml
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          6 days ago

          The protest could have continued to be disrupted the way they already were before the massacre:

          Through wiretaps and arrests Through planted dissenters sowing chaos in the student’s ranks Through rubber bullets + tear gas, and other nonlethal methods

          A) There was no “massacre”

          B) We have no idea if these tactics weren’t also used, and

          C) Let’s be honest, if they had done these things and it had worked, you people would never shut the fuck up about that either.

      • bitwize01@reddthat.com
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        6 days ago

        This is just the other bullet points again! I’m sure if more armed rebels entered the capital it would have been incredibly messy and people would have died. And killing a ton of people, regardless of why, is a failure of government. Conflating one violent protest with another and then saying “America Bad so China Fine” is inane.

        • folaht@lemmy.ml
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          1 day ago

          Were the deaths of 20 “armed rebels” during september 11 2001 and the consequent killings in Pakistan a failure the Usonian government?
          Was the cause of the twin towers collapsing and ~3000 dying, a result of Usonia being too much of a police state?

          Or why not go to something more recent, is the armed rebellion since 2014 in Ukraine,
          that’s more recently backed by Russian troops, against Zelensky,
          an example to you that Ukraine is a police state?

          I’m sure if more armed rebels entered the capital it would have been incredibly messy and people would have died.

          Is thus the Jan 6th insurrection an example to you of Usonia being a police state?

          And killing a ton of people, regardless of why, is a failure of government.

          So if a government A declares war on government B and starts to use lethal force, it’s a failure of government B if it decides to kill the invading army?
          What if government A has a drug policy to keep as many people addicted to a drug in government B and if government
          What if government A decides to support a destructive religious cult in government B and these people start to violently suppress any form of criticism against them while infiltrating key political positions?

          And does a “failure of government” automatically mean that such government is a police state?

          Conflating one violent protest with another and then saying “Usonia Evil so China Good” is inane.

          No, what’s inane is to conflate the actions of a government that uses lethal force to respond to terrorists doing terrorist acts at a protest with legalized murder by car to any protester that blocks a roadway, have your secret police shoot and arrest anyone who films during a protest including journalists, have your secret police force migration of the homeless and of legal immigrants and citizens deemed “culturally inferior”, by calling them both police states.

          You are not living in a totalitarian police state when your government is failing to arrest a terrorist group carrying dozens of petrol bombs during a protest that was going on for months on end. A police state would suppress the protest on day one, which is what Usonia is doing to pro-Palestine protests. A totalitarian would surveil all protesters on day one, which is what Usonia is doing.

          Usonia is experiencing indirect pressure from another country for the first time in history,
          indirect pressure that is extremely mild and yet I would argue it’s reaction was to immediately put a fascist into power and go further into fascism than Nazi Germany. Nazi Germany tried to genocide all Jews, Usonia seems to target the whole planet except for the Zionist Jews.

          Usonia harbored an extreme “we are the exceptionally freedom people” ideology, an off-shoot of the century earlier “we are the exceptionally civilized people” ideology, but now due to the extremely mild external pressure, Usonia has gotten far worse and made a 180 degree turn to every rule it imposed on other nations for itself and now forces other nations to follow.
          Even worse, it’s gone so far as to flip these rules again on a daily whim, if not every hour, minute or second.
          Nazi Germany did not do that.

          Nazi Germany at least seemed to care somewhat about its own citizens.
          MAGA Usonia seems to want to starve its own citizens to death, even the vast majority of its own supporters seem to be inferior creatures not worth living in the eyes of the Usonian oligarchs.