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Comment by frotak | Hacker News Reader

In the one case you have China actively violating the freedoms and liberties of the people living under its control and on the other hand you have the UN as a collective body seeking to have a discussion about that.

China is actively seeking in this case to kill any sort of discourse. The UN has no power to impose its values on anyone else. It can, as a body, take certain actions to indirectly affect nations of the world...but it is not a world government that can impose anything.

In this case all that was on the table was a discussion - and even that was untenable to China.

That is China imposing it's values on others in a very absolute way - and I agree...that's an iffy thing. I would go even further and say it's unacceptable (by any country) to try to completely silence discussion.

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> ... freedoms and liberties ...

Yes, they are for sure doing that.

But then, those are European concepts. I'm not even sure if they're really expressible in endogenous Chinese languages.

So is cultural imperialism OK, as long as we're really "in the right"? That was basically Spain's argument for taking over Mexico etc. God was on their side.

> those are European concepts

Only inasmuch as they were born in Europe who in turn had to flee their home country to pretty much make it a reality.

In the article in questions here no one is talking about intervening in the internal affairs of other countries.

The point of contention is that China is actively working to prevent the very discussion of what is happening under its authority. And they are actively using violent physical force to impose their authority and prevent discussion and dissent within their borders.

Is history replete with examples of Western countries undertaking violent imperialistic expansion? Absolutely.

Is that what we're doing now or talking about here? No.

> I'm not even sure if they're really expressible in endogenous Chinese languages.

And it never will be expressible unless and until free and open discussion can be engaged in.

Sure, China doesn't want people dissing its internal policies. No country does, do they?

And yes, they are repressing dissent within China through "violent physical force". That again isn't unusual. There's a broad consensus that a state has internal monopoly on force.

Me, I hate that. But it's not as if China is alone, in that. I'd love to go buy some LSD or shrooms. But authorities put people in jail for that shit. Some huge percentage of US citizens are locked up for nonviolent drug offenses. How is that not just as bad as what China is doing?

Edit: And what if some were organizing a UN conference to discuss the violent repression of recreational drug use in the US etc? That's not even a credible possibility, is it? And that's largely because the US has so thoroughly dominated the world regarding the issue.

I absolutely agree that there are questionable aspects to how the U.S. enforced drug prohibition laws and how non-violent offenders are treated.

But again, the fact is that we can openly have, and pursue aggressively, discussion about and attempts at reform around how this is handled.

In fact we see this by the spread of various drug legalization efforts in the U.S. and efforts at prison reform.

Though there is also a huge difference between a governments authority to regulate the distribution and consumption of psychoactive compounds (and/or the sale of such compounds) and the ability to even discuss how the government is handling the issue.

Free speech and criticism of the government are a bare minimum baseline. So you can actively organize your fellow citizens in an effort to legalize various compounds in the US and you can lobby and protest the government without any fear of being arrested because of what you are saying. That is a completely different world than what goes on in China. If you are a dissident you are a criminal.

And with respect to whether or not the UN could openly address internal affairs of the U.S. - well it does: https://undocs.org/A/HRC/38/33/ADD.1

Yes the U.S. ambassador to the UN had some choice words about that specific report but it was all out in the open and wasn't suppressed

> But again, the fact is that we can openly have, and pursue aggressively, discussion about and attempts at reform around how this is handled.

Yes, freedom of expression in the US is wonderful. As is freedom of religion. But still, when I'm feeling cynical, I observe that freedom of expression in the US ends when you're actually doing anything.

Or even talking about actually doing anything. Issues around the ritual use of peyote and ayahuasca come to mind.

And still, it's about as good as it gets on planet Earth. Except for, in some ways, northern Europe.

That's a great US report. Thanks. I've drifted a lot around the US, and I was seriously into whitewater for a few years. traveling barely navigable creeks and rivers in the southeastern US, I saw some unbelievable stuff.

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