[quote=“BigJohn”]I get what you are saying, blueeee11, I just don’t agree.
I am saying India is democratic because that’s what Indians wanted, as interpreted through the lense of Western style concepts of politcal governance.
Taiwanese deserve a lot of credit. I am not saying that the credit should go elsewhere or their so fa so good execution of the only Chinese speaking democracy in history. But let’s give credit where credit is due: The West is the main source of the concept of human rights, as applied to modern politcal models. It is the main source of modern political models.
No one has said that being colonized is an infallible source of becoming democratic. It’s just an overall trend. The old ways of kings and emperors were over, as those countries were defeated or outclassed by the modern powers. Those developing nations that attempted to modernize did so according to the modern i.e. Western model. These models created political spaces for human rights that previously hadn’t existed.
Of course the people who took advantage of these spaces deserve cerdit for their inspiration and dedicated efforts.
Of course there are the Myanmars of the world…[/quote]
The fourth and last point I was constantly trying to make on this thread was that democracy does not always lead to human rights. Take India for example since you talked about it. India is democratic but there is widespread poverty, corruption, low (relatively) standards of healthcare, living and education. There are plenty of slums and many citizens are not able to live their life with dignity in a humane manner. They have democracy but some of them do not even have safe drinking water.
Human rights require a certain level of prosperity as well. And the citizens themselves have to work for this. The US didn’t build up all of Taiwan’s business infrastructure or universities or hospitals or houses.
So what we’re saying is human rights didn’t exist more than 200 or so years ago because they had dirty water and no vaccinations (let’s not drag that thread to here though).
Not really. German by way of pre-war Japan with a KMT tweaking.
Elegua, the reason why I don’t reply to your arguments is because they are just so irrelevant and unreasonable…You are just wayyyyy out there…floating around in space…doing your space dance. I don’t even know what you are driving at seriously so I guess I will leave you alone to do your space dance in the forum.
BigJohn and the rest do make relevant points which are rather interesting to debate and discuss.
[quote=“Elegua”]So what we’re saying is human rights didn’t exist more than 200 or so years ago because they had dirty water and no vaccinations (let’s not drag that thread to here though).
Not really. German by way of pre-war Japan with a KMT tweaking.[/quote]
Is German not Western? Did Japan not follow Western models of government?
[quote=“blueeee11”]
The fourth and last point I was constantly trying to make on this thread was that democracy does not always lead to human rights. [/quote]
It wasn’t me that is saying India has no human rights because it is too poor. So by my simple thinking, then no one had human rights past 200 hundred years ago since most countries had, " widespread poverty, corruption, low (relatively) standards of healthcare, living and education". How could they have human rights if they had Typhoid Mary?
[quote=“BigJohn”][quote=“Elegua”]So what we’re saying is human rights didn’t exist more than 200 or so years ago because they had dirty water and no vaccinations (let’s not drag that thread to here though).
Not really. German by way of pre-war Japan with a KMT tweaking.[/quote]
Is German not Western? Did Japan not follow Western models of government?
You don’t have a point.[/quote]
I didn’t say “Not”. It’s not so black and white as that. But, the constitution and the legal structure had been changed so much from its German origins by the time it got to the ROC that it has become something very different.
[quote=“Elegua”]It wasn’t me that is saying India has no human rights because it is too poor. So by my simple thinking, then no one had human rights past 200 hundred years ago since most countries had, " widespread poverty, corruption, low (relatively) standards of healthcare, living and education". How could they have human rights if they had Typhoid Mary?
But don’t let me get in your way.[/quote]
Human rights is RELATIVE.
In the 20th century, certain countries had human rights (relative to their time) while others didnt.
Similarly, in our century, certain countries have human rights (in comparison to contemporaries) while others dont.
Well if you were to compare the human rights situation in thailand today with the human rights situation in America during the 19th century, then yes, Thais today have human rights in comparison. It is all relative.
But we are talking about now, in comparison with advanced countries today.
[quote=“blueeee11”][quote=“Elegua”]It wasn’t me that is saying India has no human rights because it is too poor. So by my simple thinking, then no one had human rights past 200 hundred years ago since most countries had, " widespread poverty, corruption, low (relatively) standards of healthcare, living and education". How could they have human rights if they had Typhoid Mary?
But don’t let me get in your way.[/quote]
Human rights is RELATIVE.
In the 20th century, certain countries had human rights (relative to their time) while others didnt.
Similarly, in our century, certain countries have human rights (in comparison to contemporaries) while others dont.
Well if you were to compare the human rights situation in thailand today with the human rights situation in America during the 19th century, then yes, Thais today have human rights in comparison. It is all relative.
But we are talking about now, in comparison with advanced countries today.[/quote]
Do the Kombai tribe in PNG have no human rights because they live in, “a state of nature”, in the jungle? Comparatively they are quite behind. I saw it on Discovery.
Do the Kombai tribe in PNG have no human rights because they live in, “a state of nature”, in the jungle? Comparatively they are quite behind. I saw it on Discovery.[/quote]
Lol. I would say Papua New Guinea have a lot of room for improvement in terms of human rights. I don’t know about the tribes but if they are happy living in the forest then who are we to interfere? A very basic part of human rights is having the freedom to live your life the way you want isn’t it? If someone likes to live in the forest or in a cave on his own free will then why not? There are plenty of urban PNG citizens who would like to see improvements in things though.
Do you agree my view?
But my main point on this thread is that human rights is not an exclusively western concept. Chinese citizens do want and deserve human rights too. Contemporary culture in many parts of Asia (korea, taiwan, hk, japan, macau, nz, australia) do have an emphasis on human rights.
Countries like German were one or two decades faster than the Asians but now some parts of Asia are slowly catching up.
Maybe because that’s the way it’s been for all 5,000 of China’s glorious history as the “middle kingdom” and greatest civilization on Earth? tongue planted firmly in cheek[/quote]
Dude 中国 or 中國 (sorry I learned Chinese in Shanghai, not used to traditional characters yet) does not mean “middle kingdom”, a better translation would be “country at the center”, i.e. they are at the center of everything, the most important, the best and so on.
In Chinese culture there are five heavenly gods 東，西，南 and 北 on the outside, and in the center the most powerful one labeled 中, so by calling themselves 中國 they are effectively saying that they are the most powerful country on earth.
But yeah, one of the things I always wondered about, last year China celebrated it’s 60th anniversary, but yet they keep on saying “we have 5000 years of history”, how can a country be both 60 years old and 5000 years old. In fact if it is 5000 years old that means they’ve had a lot longer to try and get their shit together and get it right, and still haven’t, all of us “young” countries (i.e. Britain, Europe and most of the west), with our mere 3000 years of history (wtf), couldn’t possibly understand right?
[quote=“webdoctors”]forget exactly where, but somewhere I read on China-Rising website that the person is not smart enough to choose for himself who to vote for and what his rights should be, so its easier if the CPC party chooses for them.
By having only one major party dictating how you should behave and what your freedoms are, it saves you the trouble of having to think for yourself, and helps keep everyone united and stops people from getting bad ideas.[/quote]
Well Chinese have always been good at bold faced lying. After all there was no China 5000 years ago.[/quote]
Whatever Everyone knows that China invented people… Didn’t you see the excerpt in 10,000 BC with where Mao was filmed drafting the original King James version? Get with the program man’g.
Well China is fucking pissed now that Liu Xiaobo has been given the Nobel peace prize. Makes you wonder how they are going to justify keeping this quiet.
It is like no foie gras cos of cruelty to duck but u could cut them, eat them, roast them, skin them… etc. U get the point.
If you are enough of a threat to the local establishment controlled by the control group then u will be taken out, period. Doesn’t matter if there is any human rights law or not.
