Hacker News Reader

Comment by IfOnlyYouKnew | Hacker News Reader

"Government", "administration", and "party" are all the same thing in China. So something like:

"Huawei would be forced to hand over 5G data to the Chinese government if it was asked for it, because of national security laws, experts told CNBC."

...is really no different from the US, is it?

And while China has lots of problems, citing a lack of "rule of law" in this context is rather brave. Also: if you believe everything called "communist party" is "communist", you definitely have to pay the beer at the next "RePUBlican Party" meeting.

View on HN

> ...is really no different from the US, is it?

It is enormously different in that it is judicially reviewable (if not in need of an outright warrant) and the USA is a country where there are limits on government. This post, specifically the "judge temporarily blocks" is proof that the USA is a fundamentally different country.

> Also: if you believe everything called "communist party" is "communist", you definitely have to pay the beer at the next "RePUBlican Party" meeting.

I have not commented on communism as a general topic at all. I am specifically talking about the entity named the Chinese Communist Party.

Are there actually real limits on government in the US? If the Democrats and Republicans agreed that they wanted to do something, would anything stop them?

The US government is already unconstitutionally doing what you say that judicial review prevents, and the partisan (by design) Supreme Court simply refuses to take the case. So much for judicial review.

There is no check for power, only balances of power. And power in the US tends to agree on such things as much as power within the CCP.

Are you seriously equating the two govts? Consider that, because hackernews/YC is a US company, your post is read by everyone who cares to see it.

Consider what would happen if you decried the powers of the CCP on a China-based platform. Consider what would happen to you, personally, if you did so while living in China.

And what would happen, then ? Any specific examples of such things happening ?

Here's a very short list of pro-democracy or pro-human rights dissidents and what kinds of punishment we know happened to them as a result:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_dissidents

Here's some internet-specific examples:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_China#A...

Criticizing the government and the powers of the CCP are perfectly fair game - these kinds of over the top misinformed takes unfortunately plague HN.

Obviously, China silences dissenters. However, most of the comments in this thread probably wouldn't even be removed.

Take this study (cited 1600 times) from Harvard:

https://gking.harvard.edu/publications/how-censorship-china-...

How does that have anything to do with my point that if the Democrats and Republicans agree on something unconstitutional it will happen anyways?

Both that can be true and it can also be true that the Chinese government is worse to their own citizens.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com