Source https://lemmy.zip/post/72029200/29026430
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That’s a strawman. It still got that change 43% of the time, and I vote every election!
This is also you not engaging with their arguments. Nobody says don’t vote, they say voting is comparatively pointless next to organization. The study basically proves that if you want change the most meaningful thing you can do is organize and strike, no?
Nobody is saying don’t vote, they’re saying don’t use voting as a way of saying you don’t have to organize and strike. It won’t on its own produce meaningful change.
Ok sure I agree with all that. So what is it that’s so bad about western democracies again? The combination of democracy and the ability to strike, organize and protest are why western democracies have more civil liberties than anywhere else in the world. Working conditions in, for example, China are markedly worse and the right to protest is nonexistent.
you’re dodging the study that was posted. the one that clearly indicates that isn’t happening in western “democracy”
the only reason they ever let you is because they’re in power, but it’ll be quite difficult to explain away making antifa a terrorist organization, for example.
You’d need to compare and contrast which specific rights and civil liberties you’re talking about to say which one has more or less, I could point to at will employment and say the US is obviously worse, there’s also the fact that the US breaks unions and strikes all the time too.
china has freedom of speech written into its constitution too, it ultimately doesn’t matter if these rights are ignored, as they are in both places.
Im not dodging anything, I accept the results of the study, but i dont think its useful for comparison to a non-democracy.
Im not sure what you mean by at-will employment, as it relates to civil liberties?
There are certainly some aspects of Chinese society that are freer than in America, but i think its a false equivalency to say “both sides bad”. Look at any rankings and you’ll see that.
https://freedomhouse.org/country/scores
You might say, well those rankings are biased, but if you look at what i would say are the core civil liberties:
-freedom of speech/expression
-freedom of religion
-protection from discrimination
-right to representation
There really isn’t any comparison. And that doesnt even get into the right to bear arms/the right to form a well-regulated militia. You think the US government is too hard on antifa? Try that shit in China haha
just to be clear here, before I respond, can you state how you think voting works in china, and why it isn’t a democracy?
uhhh
bad in both places, both have it enshrined in their constitution
we’d need to talk about specific points, but yes the US is better, but i’m kinda thinking the US’s stance is backfiring hard on this one, religion is pretty evil.
the US is so obviously worse that this isn’t worth a discussion? native americans? reparations? all the genocides and human experimentation? every single foreign country they have invaded and “freed”
seems about even to me? awful in both places, the study I gave touched on this, what good is representation if it accomplishes nothing?
https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/view/journals/pp/52/3/article-p360.xml?rskey=wMjlkC&result=26#d1190470e2128
slightly better in china, it seems, since there is SOME correlation.
Aight if you think China is a democracy and the US isnt i think were done here.
I don’t think either are, but any definition that includes the US that is reasonable will likely include china.
if you don’t want to have a dialog with people you disagree with and just close your ears what good will that accomplish?
if you’re not even willing to engage with that question how can you be certain it’s correct? why don’t you just have a throwaway copy-paste ready to fight against it? would be more fruitful if you actually care about dismantling that idea? what you did right now won’t convince anyone.
Ok, well I’m slightly encouraged that you don’t think China is democratic, that’s why I thought this discussion was a lost cause.
My definitions for a democracy are pretty straightforward, the people get to either decide the laws of their policies of their government (i.e. ballot initiatives, which are a major part of US government, at least at the state level), or decide who represents them in that government by voting. The elections should be free and fair, and candidates should not be restricted based on their platforms or ideologies. I think that’s a pretty uncontroversial definition.
I strongly disagree with your statements about China being freer than the US on the policies I mentioned. I figured you wouldn’t like whatever expert rankings I provided… I didn’t actually know Freedom House was funded via the state department, but as far as their impartiality goes, consider that per Wikipedia they got their funding through USAID which has since been slashed, and also conservatives in the US don’t like them because they think they’re anti-conservative. But anyways, here’s another few for you:
https://patrickrhamey.com/saturday-research/2025/8/14/2025-state-of-world-liberty-index EDIT: this one at least partially uses Freedom House damnit
https://www.cato.org/human-freedom-index/2025
https://v-dem.net/data_analysis/CountryGraph/
I’m not cherry-picking these, I’m literally just searching for civil liberties rankings. They’re all fairly consistent. If you can find one that shows China above the US with independent authors, I’d be interested to see it.
Just to be clear, I don’t think these indices are of any value at all? This isn’t something that can be measured by a single value, you have to go point-by-point and use actual arguments, but no on Cato
I’m having trouble finding v-dems actual arguments about this
I again have to ask how you think elections in china work, do you deny the existence of their elections? Which parts of your definition does china not meet? I’m not saying they obviously do meet them, i’m wanting to know what you’re really saying about china, obviously they have a preference for ccp for example, i’m not denying this, just asking you how china works, according to you.
I don’t really like that definition because it ignores what’s really important: are the majority getting what they want? Your definition is more like guidelines for achieving that and thus puts the cart before the horse, I could accomplish all of these things, and still make it such that the majority don’t get what they want.