Yeah, and China does equally disgusting things to its own citizens. Literally right now they are enacting cultural genocide on millions of their own people (see: the uyghurs)
Do you really have faith that China is going to act any differently to outsiders?
>Yeah, and China does equally disgusting things to its own citizens.
Which I'm against, but that's for them to oppose.
Several Eastern and Western European countries had dictatorships, torture, executions, etc, in 20th century as well, didn't see anybody coming from outside to fix things (and don't think their population would welcome an invasion to "fix" things -- like those "democracy bringing" wars in the middle east).
And those pointing the finger at China today, were doing "disgusting things to their own citizens" (Jim Crow? Seggregation till the 70s? western world's worst prison system, 90% titled to blacks + death penalty still in use in 2019?), or were (and are) assisting regimes doing "disgusting things to their own citizens" then and now, so there's some hypocrisy involved too.
>Do you really have faith that China is going to act any differently to outsiders?
No, but there's a player with a known track record on this matters (a bad one) and one that is yet to build one. It's kinda like what Muhammad Ali allegedly said once: “No Viet Cong ever called me n....r”. Sure, they might. But thus far...
But we have due process and most of these offenses are due to the failed drug war. Whether or not people should be locked up for drug offenses is one thing, but the laws being broken are pretty clear and generally aren't being used as punishment for expressing anti-government sentiment.
>Americans imprison and torture children at the border
This angle is pretty ridiculous. The border facilities are totally overwhelmed by an influx of people who by law are not allowed entry to the U.S. The vast majority are economic migrants, not assylum seekers. Moreover, they made the choice to come here knowing full well the illegality of their actions, and they are not being "imprisoned," they are being detained for a few weeks while the overloaded system processes their claims. Calling it torture is an exaggeration. Also the miserable conditions at the contentious facilities recently in the news are not representative of ICE facilities in general.
Only when people are not just executed by cops because they dared look too black or homeless or whatever (so many more cases of police killings that any European country when adjusted for population that it's amazing).
And even then, the due process is full of batshit-crazy aspects, from prosecutorial blackmail deals, to "three-strikes" BS.
And let's not even get into prison conditions, use of solitary confinement, rape as "joke", private prisons and prison labor, and so on...
Or the fact that it's the only (or close) western country to still have the death penalty...
And that's for official prisons. Now let's add the various "sites"...
>Only when people are not just executed by cops because they dared look too black or homeless or whatever
These atrocities are an exceedingly tiny minority out of millions of yearly police interactions.
>And even then, the due process is full of batshit-crazy aspects, from prosecutorial blackmail deals, to "three-strikes" BS
The system is not perfect, but the point is that in contrast to authoritarian China, it is generally not abused to suppress political dissent and U.S. citizens have rights to due process and representation in the legal system that do not exist in China.
Why don't you talk to the parents who are knowingly taking the risk to entry the country illegally?
>Save you speech for the children being tortured
I don't think you know what the word torture means. You've been misled by propaganda. And, again, the problems are happening limited to a select number of overwhelmed facilities.
" The severe mental suffering that officials have intentionally inflicted on these families for coercive purposes, means that these acts meet the definitions of torture under both US and international law,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International’s Americas Director."
>The alleged conditions documented at the facilities follow a Homeland Security inspector general report that found "dangerous overcrowding" and unsanitary conditions at a different CBP facility in El Paso, Texas, where hundreds more migrants were being housed than the center was designed to hold.
>The El Paso Del Norte Processing Center housed as many as 900 migrant detainees earlier this month despite only having a recommended capacity for 125.
9x over capacity. What exactly are you expecting? The implication that this treatment is intentional is pure political bias. In any case these conditions are not a secret and people continue to voluntarily make the illegal journey. Who is responsible here?
That said, the actual ACLU CBP report was enlightening, detailing abuses going back to 2014 when the CBP program lowered standards during rapid expansion. It's hard to trust other modern news sources like those you provided because of their heavy political slant and propensity for sensationalism.
You're missing the point. No, it isn't "fine" to torture children, but these facilities are hugely overburdened and have procedures to follow. Aside from the corrupt agents who do mistreat migrants, it's hard to ensure humane conditions for detainees when your facilities have nine times more people to process than they're designed to handle. What's the alternative right now, release them into the U.S.?
We need to stop conflating abuses by individual agents with poor conditions caused by underprovisioning of resources due to a general increase/spike in migrant activity.
Also, there is some merit to the idea that poor conditions at these facilities act as a deterrent to voluntary migration. No one is forcing these people to come here illegally and, again, the vast majority are economic migrants, not legitimate asylum seekers.
Let me reword what you said so that I better understand it. Is this what you're saying: "Also, there is some merit to the idea to torture children, these facilities are hugely overburdened and have procedures to follow"
I think that's the gist of your argument, even if it is putting words in your mouth.
Well, at least you admit you're not arguing in good faith. That's not what I'm saying at all. Apparently the involvement of children precludes you from considering this discussion rationally.
This is an example of what I mean by lack of scrutiny or criticism. If you look at the study by CHRD [1] cited in the article you’ve linked, you’ll see that their methodology is flawed in many ways. The most worrying part is that this study in particular is the basis of many articles similar to the one you've posted.
What they did was they interviewed eight ethnic Uyghurs from eight different villages in Kashgar Prefecture in Xinjiang (the poorest and most problematic area in terms of violence and extremist ideology). They asked them questions like “how many people do you estimate live in your village” and “how many people do you think were taken from your village”. They then calculated the ratio of people detained to total inhabitants in these eight villages and extrapolated this ratio to the entire Uyghur population in the province of Xinjiang (population 23 million, many parts of which are prosperous and violence-free) in order to obtain the million+ estimate. The 1 million number (or 3 million, it’s hard to keep track of these days) is always thrown around like it’s a confirmed fact, which it decidedly is not.
Furthermore, as the article mentions, CHRD is a group based in Washington, D.C that is almost wholly funded by U.S government grants [2, p.9]. There is a clear conflict of interest here especially in the context of growing rivalry and geopolitical posturing between China and the U.S. The article also mentions Radio Free Asia, an organization literally founded by the CIA [3][4] as an anti-Communist propaganda arm. They claim they are no longer affiliated. Again, another source wholly funded by the U.S government.
Most research in America is funded by U.S. government grants at least partially if not mostly. What's your point? Am I to believe that any research agency that receives US grant money is secretly a propaganda arm of the government?
I don't really know what you expect me or the average layperson to do. I can't get on a plane and go to Xianjing, but I can read and listen to the experiences and stories of the many people that have fled the region and entrust the credibility that (certain) journalists have to do investigative journalism. The source of the article I linked to is one of many.
Also consider that you don't have to be sitting in a detainment camp to be a victim of a cultural genocide.
> Most research in America is funded by U.S. government grants at least partially if not mostly. What's your point?
My point, as I’ve stated earlier, is that there is a conflict of interest here. It's not that much of a stretch to think that the U.S government would like to delegitimize the CCP to further their own geopolitical and strategic interests.
> I don't really know what you expect me or the average layperson to do.
I expect you as a HN reader (but perhaps not the average layperson) to not view news reported in the mass media as infallible, but to scrutinize everything that is said with a high degree of criticality. Whose interests do these stories represent? Who benefits from fomenting mass outrage against an external boogeyman? Who is paying for the experiences and stories which you are consuming and why?
Knowledge of history can be of help here. One example is Rebiya Kadeer’s testimony to the U.S Congress about the Uygher situation [1] which many people accept verbatim. We can see an exact, historical parallel in the form of the Nayirah testimony [2], which was a contributor to the U.S decision to engage in the Gulf War. We all know how that turned out.
> The source of the article I linked to is one of many.
Look at the primary sources. There barely a handful of them which 99% of articles like these trace their journalism back to.
> Also consider that you don't have to be sitting in a detainment camp to be a victim of a cultural genocide.
This is true. I’d like to add that asking Uyghers to speak Mandarin in these “education camps” does not constitute cultural genocide and neither is banning elements of Wahhabi Islam which is not native to their culture in the first place. It’s a simple fact of life that if you want to do business in China or have any kind of economic opportunity, you need to learn Mandarin. This does not preclude the practice of your own native customs or languages. People think China is all Han when in fact there are many, many ethnic groups there [3] practicing their own languages and customs, and getting along just fine.
I'll end by saying that Uyghers are definitely being detained and "re-educated", I've never contested that. I'm merely questioning the scale and characterization of these camps as well as the motivations of some of the mainstream publications.
> My point, as I’ve stated earlier, is that there is a conflict of interest here. It's not that much of a stretch to think that the U.S government would like to delegitimize the CCP to further their own geopolitical and strategic interests.
And it's also not a stretch to suggest that a government that defines separatism and religion as two of it's three defined evils is committing cultural genocide on a large (millions+) section of it's country that doesn't conform to the rest of it's society.
> I expect you as a HN reader (but perhaps not the average layperson) to not view news reported in the mass media as infallible, but to scrutinize everything that is said with a high degree of criticality.
There is only so much time in the day, and today I'll spend most of mine scrutinizing the layout of virtual networking devices. In order to receive news and information about topics I am less knowledgeable about I unfortunately must entrust others with the credibility to perform this scrutiny on my behalf. The ones I entrust to do this may fail, but that doesn't mean that I'd necessarily do better than them.
Perhaps my original statement doesn't withstand scrutiny when put into certain context but I don't think it's hyperbole in this discussion.
> And it's also not a stretch to suggest that a government that defines separatism and religion as two of it's three defined evils is committing cultural genocide on a large (millions+) section of it's country that doesn't conform to the rest of it's society.
I’ve already addressed the million+ figure and cultural genocide point above. As far as the Three Evils, religion is not one of them. Religious extremism is (for example, Wahhabism and Salafism). Many religions are practiced openly in China today. There are 39,000 mosques in China, many of them paid for by the state. Separatism is considered an evil for obvious reasons. Namely, it undermines the stability of society which can lead to large scale consequences in a country of 1.4 billion that is barely four decades removed from third world status, like China.
> There is only so much time in the day, and today I'll spend most of mine scrutinizing the layout of virtual networking devices. In order to receive news and information about topics I am less knowledgeable about I unfortunately must entrust others with the credibility to perform this scrutiny on my behalf. The ones I entrust to do this may fail, but that doesn't mean that I'd necessarily do better than them.
This is all fine and understandable. But if that is the case, don’t you think it would be better not to perpetuate conjecture masquerading as facts which can’t withstand basic scrutiny?
I’ve merely said that there exists a conflict of interest due to funding sources, which is a legitimate concern in any context let alone geopolitics.
I’ve never advocated for automatically dismissing anything wherein a conflict of interest exists, only to regard it with a critical eye and a grain of salt.
Do you really have faith that China is going to act any differently to outsiders?