If Only The Romans

[dyresand]

I mean minus being an authoritarian one-party state, and their record on human rights, China is ideal.

Do we consider China to have less of a moral compass because they are more open about their human rights abuses?

I would always trust a Chinese government to do what they say they will do, at least I know exactly how I'm being oppressed.

They may be Orwellian but I'd take that over Huxlian any day.

MM

I'm with parkers on this how would you know.

communism
a political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs.

you know what the sad part is communism works more than capitalism.
look back at ww2 and seen what stalin did he made russia a second world power from communism.

[Anomalocaris]

Common sense is often cultural, and almost always nothing more than a coarse set of heuristic rule s of thumb based on a limited, and biasedly chosen, set of experiences, and reasonably applicable only to a limited set of circumstances, but which intrinsically encourages the less thoughtful to regard them as both universal and fundamental.

What's that? A justification for any ethically and culturally inferior system of rule? Yeah, that's a nice abstraction about diverging traditions and contrasting forms of civilization, but I rather care to think about the well-being of actual people in the actual world.

We openly and commonly acknowledge only the most rudimentary exceptions to our rule of thumb - shouting fire in a crowded theater, probably because we have so little diversity of common experience. But in practice we often strongly discourage many forms of expression or conscience. But by culturally based habit we overlook our own inconsistency. The Germans based on experience of 1933-1945 deemed untrammeled freedom to advocate nazism, as well as some cults like Scientology, to menifestlygood not be a good idea. So they are open about more exceptions than we are, but politically we find it inexpedient to challenge them. The Chinese probably have more diverse range of well remembered collective continuous cultural and sociological experience than anyone else in the world today. They deem it not adviseable to tolerate any significant evangelizing apocalyptic cults. But we feel the fact they have their act disturbingly together threatening, and find it politically expedient to highlight the fact that they do not conform to how we would like to represent our own principles.

Mind you they have neither now, nor through most of their history, been hostile to all what we might call cults. But they clearly have had a distinct set of very painful experiences with evangelizing apaclyptic cults which drew their special attention. The last such apocalyptic cult that advocated a heavenly kingdom whose putative rules trumped those of the actual Civil authority attempting to run a real country on earth and which the central government failed to promptly suppresse ended up costing 40 million dead in China less than 160 years ago. Nor was that by any means a singular experience. They associate the failure to suppress similar such cults throughout history with subsequent failure of central authority, deadly civil war, failure of nationally run public works such as flood control and irrigation, and widespread famine and misery since about 280 AD.

I would not challenge their judgement based only on some contemporary political philosophical theory, especially when their judgement have appearently enabled them to, in defiance of our political philosophical theories, chalk up the single largest and fastest movement humanity out of poverty into modernity through all history.

So, if a government can ensure that everybody is employed, then it should also be able to discriminate what beliefs people are allowed to practice, even when those beliefs don't necessarily interfere with anyone else's well-being. This is a silly argument. I don't even know why I'm wasting time talking to someone that would have federal agents barge into people's private gatherings if their decorative ornaments do not adhere to official regulation, perhaps hauling a few to jail and confiscating their reading material. Someone has to be a quite dense to argue that such a scenario is conducive to human flourishing.

I think you "don't know why" because saying "you don't why" allows you to pretend to yourself and me that your lack of argument stems from not bothering to present the argument you have , rather than admitting you have no argument and are susceptible to conviction without real support.

[Thumpalumpacus]

And you know this how? In order to judge, you'd need to know everything they've done vs everything they've admitted, and then make a direct comparison with us using the same data fields.

The debate isn't who's better: us or them? It's what is a better ideal to strive for.

Oh, I know that. I'm only addressing that point in order to point out that bald claims are, well, bald.

I certainly agree with you, as I've argued consistently throughout this thread, that we ought not take China as any example of how we ought to treat religious folk here. I disagree profoundly that our government ought to be that intrusive. Even taking into account Chuck's and Min's points about Chinese history -- and they're very pertinent -- their own point about the fallacy of us imposing our own values on the Chinese cuts both ways: advocating the importation of Chinese values into our own milieu is equally fallacious, for the exact same reason -- it wouldn't work in our American sociocultural setting.

[Mudhammam]

I think you "don't know why" because saying "you don't why" allows you to pretend to yourself and me that your lack of argument stems from not bothering to present the argument you have , rather than admitting you have no argument and are susceptible to conviction without real support.

Bravos on your subtle circular reasoning. The support for my argument rests in the same presuppositions you hold in proclaiming religion to be a harmful and oppressive influence that ought to be dispelled---that the well-being of human life is a value and ideal that religion often diminishes. Well, I quite agree that dogmatism and irrational thinking must be conquered except that I disagree with your religious faith in the State to effectively accomplish such while also perpetuating its own irrational fanaticism.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

And it annoys me no end, the christers are going to work themselves into a froth over this decrossification in China without first evaluating the franchise there for ideological purity and conformance to the terms and conditions as set down by god almighty.

They might be apostates, blasphemers and/or heretics, and the Chicoms are actually doing the Lawds work there !!!!

It seems that the Chicoms have part of the First Commandment down pat:

Exodus 34:13 (TLB) = "Instead, you must break down their heathen altars, smash the obelisks they worship, and cut down their shameful idols."

[downbeatplumb]

When last I checked we are in the midst of our own struggle to keep those same xtian fuckwits from turning our country into a mindless theocracy. If you are asking me if I resent the Chinese looking to prevent that sort of a cancer from spreading the answer would be 'no.' Religion is about earthly power....not 'beliefs.'

This is what scares me about atheists running a country. It happens every time. They decide to try to wipe out religion and it leads to mass persecutions and executions. I thought you guys were for freedom of expression. This sounds like Stalin all over again.

Russia was a very religious country and the Orthodox church was basically another competing pillar of power, Stalin did not like competition.
What actually happens in most countries is that the power of the religions wane and things become more secular.
Secular is always to be preferred over religion.
Take a look at the world most religious countries throughout History and see the unbridled horror that they mostly bring.
Christianity being in the top horror exporters.

[dyresand]

And it annoys me no end, the christers are going to work themselves into a froth over this decrossification in China without first evaluating the franchise there for ideological purity and conformance to the terms and conditions as set down by god almighty.

They might be apostates, blasphemers and/or heretics, and the Chicoms are actually doing the Lawds work there !!!!

It seems that the Chicoms have part of the First Commandment down pat:

Exodus 34:13 (TLB) = "Instead, you must break down their heathen altars, smash the obelisks they worship, and cut down their shameful idols."

But i love my shameful idols...

[Minimalist]

When last I checked we are in the midst of our own struggle to keep those same xtian fuckwits from turning our country into a mindless theocracy. If you are asking me if I resent the Chinese looking to prevent that sort of a cancer from spreading the answer would be 'no.' Religion is about earthly power....not 'beliefs.'

This is what scares me about atheists running a country. It happens every time. They decide to try to wipe out religion and it leads to mass persecutions and executions. I thought you guys were for freedom of expression. This sounds like Stalin all over again.

Yeah....you're one of the fuckers we have our eye on. Watch your ass.

[dyresand]

This is what scares me about atheists running a country. It happens every time. They decide to try to wipe out religion and it leads to mass persecutions and executions. I thought you guys were for freedom of expression. This sounds like Stalin all over again.

Yeah....you're one of the fuckers we have our eye on. Watch your ass.

Hey Lek guess what were keeping our eyes on you. You know when a person who is really into god and their religion gets into power and has motivations of wiping out a group of people who follow a different religion and has the same god. Oh wait that person is Hitler he wanted to kill all the jews and he was a devout catholic. What would a atheist leader do he wouldn't kill anyone more peaceful options would be sought after and war would be the last thing that would be resorted to.. so tell me what are you afraid of again lek?

[vorlon13]

Would Pat Robertson or mike Huckabee lift a finger if the Chicoms pulled a cross off a mormon temple ? A kingdom hall ? An MCC ?