https://mander.xyz/post/42872387
I received insults
Someone even posted photos of dead bodies
These comments weren’t reviewed, but I was permanently blocked because my political stance is to hope for the reunification of my country. They said I have nothing to offer, just spreading propaganda and negativity.
Look, I don’t agree with the democracy index fully either. Its set of criterias isn’t entirely ideal imo.
But I intended to bring it up as a separate source from OP’s claiming something else than them, not as a source of truth.
You clearly don’t understand my problem with the original source presented. It’s not about who was asked. The issue is that it’s entirely from asking people how they feel about their democracy. This depends on what they associate with democracy, what they believe democracy needs, and how happy they are with their representation. My primary issue with it is that you can’t compare countries when the criteria differ from country to country.
Like, this isn’t just a China thing. For example, my country has a mechanism that ensures the people are effectively the highest power in the country. Even to the point of being able to veto any law we don’t like. As a result, I actually struggle to reconcile other countries that essentially just seem to have open elective monarchies with distributed power structures as actual democracies. There’s no real rule of the people there to me. But most of the western world would disagree with me there, because they see democracy in a way less absolutist light. There’s also the matter of the US, whose democracy has always been questionable considering they only have two right wing parties and nothing else, but USians see (or saw before Trump) themselves as a role model of democracy.
The reason I brought up propaganda is because it absolutely influences perceptions. A lot of the reason why perception of democracy tanks is because you don’t feel represented. That’s a lot easier to fix if you get everyone to think the same as the party in charge. Hence the value of propaganda.
Anyway, I understand you not trusting the democracy index, but unlike the source given by OP it’s based on observations of facts, not feelings. Of course, the observers or facts could be biased, that is a valid concern. But then the counter is a Chinese facts-based source, not an opinion survey.
That a very softened way of saying that it’s blatant propaganda with zero credibility.
“You can’t trust the Chinese people themselves, because a right wing western propaganda outlet says something different!”
No, I understand it extremely well.
Yeah, nothing biased about this sentence, lol. Please tell me about this perfect anarchist utopia you live in.
When you actually poll them, they really don’t. At best the feel that there is some platonic ideal of America that has perfect democracy, but they never think the current government lives up to it.
Like how you think you live in a country “that ensures the people are effectively the highest power in the country.”
Bahaha. Yeah, sure mate. Unlike those irrational orientals, those perfect icons of rationality at the Economist are able to create a metric for measuring “Democracy” that it pure fact, no feelings or perceptions involved. And what do you know, it just happens to give the exact result that aligns with ideology they already held! Yes, the Chinese people may think they know what they think, but they’re too underdeveloped to know their own thoughts, we need enlightened western pundits for that.
“Could be biased”. Lol, in the sense that it’s outright propaganda where they start at the conclusion then with backwards to arrive at it, yes.
You do realise that opinion surveys literally are a form of “fact”, right?
Again, I’m not saying that. There’s a difference between relying on the feelings of random poll responders and determining something based on specific criterias challenging facts. Present a pro-China source doing the latter and you’ve got an argument.
The bias is the point. My entire point there is that people with different perspectives have different opinions. My perspective shapes my bias, which shapes my opinion. Same applies to everyone else. My perspective is a bit extreme, so similarly my opinion is a bit extreme too.
Well, that is the case. Switzerland lets its people freely launch binding votes to modify the constitution (to which the government is held) and veto laws via referendums. This makes the people effectively the highest power, as they can control what the government can do and also have the last say on any law they try to pass.
I really don’t think you’re getting my argument correctly. And no, I don’t think you know even if you claim you do.
You keep trying to make this about chinese vs western when that’s not my point at all.