Source https://lemmy.zip/post/72029200/29026430

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  • CommunistEnglish
    1·
    12 小时前

    Im not dodging anything, I accept the results of the study, but i dont think its useful for comparison to a non-democracy.

    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?

    “Freedom House was founded in October 1941, with Wendell Willkie and Eleanor Roosevelt serving as its first honorary chairpersons. Most of the organization’s funding comes from the U.S. State Department”

    uhhh

    -freedom of speech/expression

    bad in both places, both have it enshrined in their constitution

    -freedom of religion

    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.

    -protection from discrimination

    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”

    -right to representation

    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

    Conclusion

    In this article, we investigate whether Chinese local governments are responsive to public opinion on environmental protection issues and how the involvement of various response agencies enables the policy responsiveness. Using dynamic panel analysis, we observe a weak but statistically significant policy responsiveness in Chinese local governments, measured by the extent to which online public opinion has an impact on the fiscal expenditure. We also find that this impact is significantly enhanced by the involvement of response agencies with high levels of political authority and interest homogeneity with the public. More empirical studies are needed to better understand the administrative organisations of policy responsiveness, not only within China but also as comparative studies of countries with different political systems.

    slightly better in china, it seems, since there is SOME correlation.

      • CommunistEnglish
        1·
        12 小时前

        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.

        • LaLuzDelSol@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          11 小时前

          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.

          • CommunistEnglish
            1·
            11 小时前

            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

            The Cato Institute is an American libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Ed Crane, Murray Rothbard, and Charles Koch,[5] chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Koch Industries.[nb 1] Cato was established to focus on public advocacy, media exposure, and societal influence.[6]

            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.

            • LaLuzDelSol@lemmy.worldEnglish
              1·
              10 小时前

              I’m having trouble finding v-dems actual arguments about this

              Not sure what you mean by that. You can select any single value you want, select the country, and then see the scores over time. Or see the by-country scores with different sections broken out here.

              I again have to ask how you think elections in china work, do you deny the existence of their elections?

              I certainly deny they have free and fair elections, yes. There’s only one party on the ballot - that’s a hell of a lot more than a “preference”. Elections in the People’s Republic of China occur under a one-party authoritarian political system controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).[1][2] By law, all elections at all levels must adhere to the leadership of the CCP

              “The majority getting what they want” is way too vague of a statement to quantify, but generally speaking I would agree that people in America and most of the Western world are dissatisfied with their governments. That doesn’t make them undemocratic. I get your argument - you’re saying that if people aren’t happy with the decisions their government is making, is their government really representing them at all, and therefore democratic? But politicians making unpopular decisions has always and will always be a thing, and to a certain extent it’s necessary - it doesn’t even mean the politicians are corrupt for doing so. With that said, overall, I’d say that most major government policies are politically popular.

              • CommunistEnglish
                1·
                6 小时前

                Not sure what you mean by that. You can select any single value you want, select the country, and then see the scores over time. Or see the by-country scores with different sections broken out here[1].

                that’s just a number? what objective measures did they use?

                I certainly deny they have free and fair elections, yes.

                How do you know they aren’t free/fair?

                There’s only one party on the ballot - that’s a hell of a lot more than a “preference”.

                  CCP and Nonpartisan (2,478)

                Democratic Parties (369) JS (61) CPWDP (60) CDL (55) CAPD (54) CNDCA (44) RCCK (43) CZGP (39) TDSL (13)

                ^^ these are the seats for the non-ccp parties. there is not just one party on the ballot, but, I want to be clear here, I don’t think it would be a problem if there were, I oppose political parties being the way things are decided because I view them as undemocratic, political parties allow people to not properly judge candidates based on policy and actual thought put into decisionmaking, this is also what the founding fathers of america believed. Political parties should be banned, and having one political party is equivalent to banning them. What political beliefs are you actually required to hold to join the CCP? I actually don’t know and the answer to that would be enlightening.

                “The majority getting what they want” is way too vague of a statement to quantify, but generally speaking I would agree that people in America and most of the Western world are dissatisfied with their governments. That doesn’t make them undemocratic. I get your argument - you’re saying that if people aren’t happy with the decisions their government is making, is their government really representing them at all, and therefore democratic? But politicians making unpopular decisions has always and will always be a thing, and to a certain extent it’s necessary - it doesn’t even mean the politicians are corrupt for doing so. With that said, overall, I’d say that most major government policies are politically popular.

                the paper I linked quantified it, no?