politics

big if true

He was doh

Robbing banks to fund revolution is political activism

Ah, nice, a fellow mod and a fellow CPUSA member!

criticize the government freely

How many peaceful protesters got bagged in unmarked vans in 2020?

Also the Chicago PD have black sites where they would disappear people without cause and their families would not be notified.

due process and unpartial justice

Yeah it would really suck to be locked up for years without a trial.

fair treatment of minority groups

Yeah that's definitely not a thing in the US I'm not even sure how you could possibly think that it is unless you got kicked in the head by a donkey.

run for office

Okay...

when qualified

Who determines this qualification?

free press

It's really easy for the press to be free when the same multinational corporations that the US works on behalf of also own the "free" press.

It's really interesting that you didn't mention the one thing that I think a democracy actually has to have: representation/reflection of the will of the citizenry.

Yes, in China, you can do these things.

With regards to the US and UK.

Ask people like Julian Assange or Dr David Kelly whether or not you can criticize the government. You can't ask Dr Kelly because he was murdered, and you will have trouble with Assange as he's been illegally imprisoned for 4 years.

Again, ask Assange if he is getting due process, if you can get into Belmarsh prison.

Minority groups don't get fair treatment.

The qualification for running for office is to be rich and connected. If you are not rich and connected and it looks like you might actually win, your name will be dragged through the mud by the "free" press.

The press is bought and paid for and dances to the tune of capital.

due process and unpartial justice

fair treatment of minority groups

The US

I question all governments that claim some higher ground.

Wow, such insight. I'm glad we have such an enlightened person in our midst to tell us that what if, like, all governments are bad, man? (and by that I mean China bad)

I question all governments that claim some higher ground.

Then you agree with Hua Chunying because she is literally doing the same thing.

I think e.g. Daphne Caruana Galizia would have some interjections here

free press tends to mean "press for hire by people with money" not "broadly representative press"

due process and unpartial justice

This is absolutely not the case in the US. Do you have any idea how common it is to just take plea deals because public lawyers are too overworked to handle their caseload?

The US has a lot of headwinds on this short list but at least I am aware of the atrocities it has committed, can ask questions without being disappeared, and can theoretically run for office without being shot.

You can criticize all you want but your criticism will be buried and ignored. You can run for office but you won't stand a chance unless you bend the knee to a major party or be rat fucked by them.

The Western demcratic system has devolved to a point where it's mostly for show. Parties only differ from each other on relatively minor policies and in most places you are simply voting for neoliberalism or more neoliberalism. Studies have shown that public opinion has pretty negligible effect on the chance of a law passing. You can see this I'm how a majority of Americans support universal healthcare but that reform never passes.

You've been taught that the choice of red coke or blue coke is the ultimate power, never questioning why you must always drink coke and nothing else.

In America you can change the party but not the policies. In China, you can change the policies but not the party.

Democracy, the way you and western chauvinists describe it, is nonsense. "Power is vested in the people" is absolutely meaningless apart from a government doing what is desired. In all western countries, these 2 requirements come in complete contradiction. Elections only allow you to choose someone who will not do what you really want and need materially anyways (because their interests are only to convince you once in 4 years to vote for them, but each party is only really competing against the party next to them, and so both move simultaneously in the direction of helping those in power and the ratchet stays). China's definition is much more truthful. Democracy can only be measured by how it achieves what it's populace desires. China is leagues ahead of the west in this way

The idea that they're not elected is nonsensical though. They are elected at the local level, and then climb.

Not only that but there is absolutely no western democracy where you can replace a candidate with a simple majority vote. If we had the ability to get any candidate thrown out of their role by simple majority vote of the constituency we would have a fucking field day getting every single person in government thrown out of their positions until we got people that were actually doing what the people wanted them to do. This policy alone makes China significantly more democratic than the western democracies. Like holy shit we could get literally ANY person thrown out of government if we had that power, it would be fucking easy. We don't have that power in western systems because it's a massive pressure to keep popular support.