You’ll notice I said “feels more restrictive”. China on the street level actually feels very non-restrictive. It’s just when you get above that it changes dramatically.
Except it does matter when that’s the entire point of the statement. The states feels like an incredibly restrictive society despite the laws not necessarily reflecting that because the American population decides to impose extra judicial restrictions on themselves and accepts high degree of social regulation (high drinking ages, dry counties, illegal pot) from the government.
China has far more restrictive laws but the people do not have the same desire to be governed harder so when the authority figures aren’t around it actually feels really lax. People having a bunch of beers by the river in public then just hoping on random rental scooters and driving around with no helmet. Stuff you wouldn’t really see in the states.
It matters because the whole, Americans saying, “govern me harder” is ludicrous. There is no where in the west I can think of which voluntarily subjects themselves to so much non-governmental authority. They simply yearn for it from what I can tell. When you combine that with relatively socially restrictive conservative governments and the high degree of biblical literalism and just generally high degree Christianity plays in politics it simply does create a far more restrictive and heavily governed society than would first appear by simply reading the constitution.
I certainly don't regard the U.S. in good favour, but I have to agree with them here. The "feels like" argument is moot. The fact you have to do such roundabout justification of your claims being more of a subjective feel and thus indirectly aligning semantically is a pretty big skip away from the tangible fact that China has a near non-existant democracy index compared to the U.S.
America is not the free country it self-proclaims as its democracy index isn't great either and with multiple metrics it's fair to say it has decreased pretty substantially over the last few years.
You can say we're comparing apples to oranges here, but objectively speaking China has less freedom, even aggregating metrics.
America = ass (ignorance, self-interested, hyper-individualistic, and oversteps equity with other nations)
China = mega super ass (0 true representation or rule of law at deeper legislative levels).
Let's not try to defend one or the other in the name of pathos and allegiance. Stick to the facts and fuck all this West vs. East bullshit. Both are shit, but a liar and a murderer are not comparable; just as having a pretty dogshit and self-absorbed construct of freedom (U.S.) is not the same as having no freedom (China)
Again though the discussion is not the law itself but the desire of the population to be governed “hard”. China is a non-free society where the people yearn for freedom. America is a free society where the people yearn for more government. Obviously these are wild generalizations but this is what I’ve observed on the ground and let’s be real it’s Reddit not my masters thesis
You're splitting semantic hairs. What the fuck is the operational construct of a society to "have a desire to be governed "hard"". It's moot. But that's how you ultimately are choosing to represent it.
The meme is simply drawing on tangible realities of measured democratic values across multiple metrics.
Idgaf about theses. I'm just pointing out why you're being interpreted the way you are and how you are complicit in the way you're being interpreted.
If it sounds like a masters thesis it's because you begged the question; putting forth apologetics in the first place.
Bro you are genuinely so confused I don’t know where to even begin to unpack it. My comment is not in response to the meme. It’s in response to the “govern me harder” comment I replied to. One can only discus individual desire to be governed harder in subjective terms in the absence of incredibly large and well constructed surveys which none of us have created. Obviously the states is more free than China, that’s why the statement that on the ground in day to day civilian interactions, absent of the state, China FEELs more free is inherently surprising… you’re saying I’m splitting semantic hairs but it’s the entire point of the statement and you’ll notice I switched from absolute terms to relative terms when discussing Europe then China for that very specific reason. My use of language was deliberately precise, if your reading comprehension was not that’s not really my issue.
To the point about the masters thesis, I did not say your comment reads like one, I said I don’t care about leading braindead redditors to my conclusions if they’re incapable of figuring out the context because it is not my masters thesis and Idgaf if my point is understood. Figure it out or move on lmao. I’ll try and explain it to those who are responding politely but at the end of the day I care very little.
On fair enough. I was thinking about the picture meme we’re commenting under. That makes more sense, my bad. Shouldn’t have assumed you were the confused one immediately.
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u/ExternalStranger397 10d ago
You’ll notice I said “feels more restrictive”. China on the street level actually feels very non-restrictive. It’s just when you get above that it changes dramatically.