Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/dbqgb0/protester_shot_in_chest_by_live_police_round/

by nodea2345 • 7 years ago

628 765 7 years ago

easytiger7• 7 years ago

Obviously China is evil etc etc.

But isn't it pretty obvious these people are physically attacking armed officers as they are retreating? And they are beating up and kicking another downed officer in the head?

Whilst I might have sympathy for their cause the kid struck an armed officer with a weapon whilst he wielded a gun as his friends beat another armed officer. I have very little sympathy for anyone who makes such poor decisions in a group delerium of impunity.

Edit: If anyone downvoting would care to offer another option, that would be appreciated

marliechiller• 7 years ago

i think i saw yesterday though that the Government there is infiltrating the protest groups with agent provocateurs so i dont know what to believe anymore

easytiger7• 7 years ago

Entirely irrelevant as there is a video of the kid hitting a police officer with his gun drawn. This is entirely self inflicted.

There is no strategic advantage to physically attacking a police officer in this context. It didn't further a cause in any conflict. If you go and hit someone with a gun pointed at you it is undeniable that the person acted in self defence.

I hate to be defending these things, but the hypocrisy and hyperbole are unhelpful in understanding the truth

AdmiralAsshat• 7 years ago

That's the point.

swebs• 7 years ago

You "think" you saw? That's not very convincing.

simonh5• 7 years ago

There are two things to unpack here.

One is, what it the police officer right there and then supposed to do? Police forces across the world have faced similarly violent protests, and even riots while managing not to shoot anybody. It's part of their job. Police in the UK in riot situations aren't even armed with firearms. Pretty much the only situations in which UK police ever get issued firearms is when facing similarly armed criminals. If they are getting themselves in situations, against protesters not armed with guns, where they feel the need to shoot their way out, they have badly screwed up.

Secondly, HK police routinely assault and very severely beat even non-violent protesters. They have frequently provoked and incited violence. This isn't an isolated example of defensive violence by peace keeping law officers. This is a further escalation to potentially lethal violence by a hostile force that has repeatedly upped the scale of violence in HK.

easytiger7• 7 years ago

I'm afraid that's not even close to an accurate comparison. Indeed I find it entirely disingenuous. There are plenty of armed officers in the UK for a start, I see them most days. Riot police in the UK are supported by authorized firearms officers in most cases.

Secondly most world police forces have weapons, and the citizenry in those countries are aware of that. At the end of the day, a small group of officers were being attacked by a larger group of people. An officer is on the ground being kicked as violently and as brutally as possible. Another officer is being attacked despite warning use of his weapon and I'm afraid seems well within his rights to protect himself here, with unfortunate outcomes.

You cannot excuse the role of the protesters in provoking this action.

dang8• 7 years ago

Obviously China is evil

Good grief. Would you please review the site guidelines and take care to edit such flamebait out of your posts to HN?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

easytiger7• 7 years ago

Apologies, but I was clearly making humorous reference to the hyperbolic knee jerk condemnation of China in the thread irrelevant to the situation. Not actually making an ideological statement.

dx873• 7 years ago

Not to defend what the police have been doing overall during this protest, but in this specific incident you can see the protestors beating a police officer on the ground, and the protestor who got shot was swinging a metal pipe at the police officer that shot him.

sigzero• 7 years ago

Context is everything.

nodea2345• 7 years ago

Full context is police officers often beat protests during arresting. Sometimes they just fight each other. Anyway, I think the officer have better choices than attempting to kill the kid(shot in chest is obvious willing to kill).

LandR2• 7 years ago

I think anytime you shoot a gun at one someone you are shooting to kill, shoot to maim feels like it would be practically impossible outside of movies.

But I might be wrong, I've never shot a gun.

mlevental• 7 years ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/dbqsfl/video_show...

shows cop ran into the crowd and had a clear exit path (not necessary to shoot to remain safe)

dx873• 7 years ago

It looks to me like he ran in to try and protect the police officer that was surrounded on the ground, and didn't fire until he was attacked. I don't know the context around this specific event, but it doesn't look like the "police officer runs in and shoots child protestor" narrative that is being pushed on reddit.

vnchr2• 7 years ago

The police are allowed to shoot someone in the leg. Lethal force is not the only option with a firearm.

tyingq2• 7 years ago

Curious if there's any place where this is common. I assumed everyone trains center mass. Also, there's a femoral artery in your leg... you'll be just as dead if that gets hit.

kube-system5• 7 years ago

Any use of a firearm is potentially lethal and should be treated as such. The precision necessary for the scenario you are proposing is not physiologically possible during an active conflict.

ptero• 7 years ago

Different police units are trained for different rules. Somewhere it is a verbal warning, warning shot, shot in the leg, shot to kill. Sometimes it is just a verbal warning and a shot to kill. Not defending the police in this specific case (I do not know the details), but blaming an officer for following the sequence he has been trained for is misplacing the blame. My 2c.

MichaelApproved2• 7 years ago

Citation needed.

Which police force trains their officers to shoot people in the leg?

My understanding is that, if you need to shoot someone, there’s an immediate threat. You shoot for the largest target, so you won’t miss and so you do the most damage.

If you aim for the leg, you’re likely to miss. Even if you hit the leg, there’s a femoral artery in there. If you hit that person will bleed out in just a few minutes.

goles• 7 years ago

In defensive shootings the objective is to stop the immediate threat which is best accomplished by shooting center mass and damaging the vital organs. Shooting to maim will give the attacker the opportunity to disable you or take the weapon from you which will likely result in your death.

doomleika2• 7 years ago

At that scenario you might shoot right through someone's brain.

There's significant high chance to shoot through arteries at leg shots.

woutr_be2• 7 years ago

I've been fairly critical of protestors before, but in this instance, you can see the police going in for a fight, already heavily outnumbered. I'm not sure what they expected to happen, but the officer drew his gun almost instantly and shot a high school kid at point blank range.

There's been other instances today where police was just looking to fight protestors, and as soon as they realized protestors weren't having any of it, they drew their guns and shot in the air. There's a difference between an officers' life being in danger, and the officer stupidly putting his life in danger.

dmix• 7 years ago

There's been other instances today where police was just looking to fight protestors

And protestors obviously looking to fight police. They swarmed the other officers partner who was being beaten on the ground and he was next.

I find it shocking so many people were expecting him to just take it the beating or 'run away' and leave his partner there.

There's a very good argument for having police on the streets when there's protestors running around throwing petrol bombs and swinging metal pipes. This is basic civil society 101 stuff. I'm not convinced the solution to China's totalitarianism is random street violence and property destruction by teenagers.

bhy5• 7 years ago

Today is China's National Day. That probably heat up the conflict.

qbaqbaqba• 7 years ago

https://www.liveleak.com/view?t=kVZq_1569989463 They run to save one of their own being beaten to death with pipes and hammers.

program_whiz2• 7 years ago

Sure, the kid was swinging at the officer, and I suppose that warrants the officer acting in self-defense. But another question is, what are the protesters supposed to do? The government has all the power, and can simply snuff out any resistence. If you just stand in the streets, they really don't care, they are going to take your freedom. Imagine if the US suddenly had a dictator that just decided they were going to take all property rights and freedoms like that -- I think taking to the streets, and even resorting to violence might be necessary (otherwise the powers-that-be have no reason to listen to a bunch of people standing in a street hundreds of miles away).

TheAdamAndChe• 7 years ago

You said yourself that the government has all the power, and can simply snuff out any resistence. If that's the case, doesn't that make the protesters assault a senseless assault? What were they trying to accomplish when they were beating the officer?

schuke• 7 years ago

I’m from the mainland and totally with HK’s cause. But I do think the violence is at least unnecessary if not detrimental to the movement. If tanks roll in, there’s no point using violence as they’ll be crushed. If they don’t, it seems to me there’s enough space for peaceful protests, which can be even more effectual in many ways. And the people of Hong Kong have shown an incredible amount of creativity in non-violent protests. The kid is so young he shouldn’t be involved in such violence. I hope he will make a full recovery.

JumpCrisscross• 7 years ago

the violence is at least unnecessary if not detrimental to the movement

Judgement is complicated by documented evidence of undercover Hong Kong police dressing up as protesters and acting like belligerent idiots [1].

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/22/world/hong-kong-police-pr...

baylearn• 7 years ago

I agree with you. I think the (relatively) success of the movement so far is due to the sheer creative energy of the protester population.

That said I am fine with measured civil disobedience and symbolic destruction of government / quasi-government / tax-payer funded infrastructure when appropriate.

hanniabu• 7 years ago

If tanks roll in, there’s no point using violence as they’ll be crushed

There are many impromptu homemade devices that can be used to deter tanks

jdsully• 7 years ago

Tanks are quite vulnerable in urban combat. As the Russians learned at the start of the battle of Grozny: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Grozny_(1994–95)

mc323• 7 years ago

Obviously this is very complicated. Protesters have rights but so do police officers —we hope both operate within the bounds of the law and then that politicians would do the work for a compromise.

But, it becomes really complicated rather fast when rights get eroded.

When the Russians were caught unprepared for war, it wasn’t “right” to send their young conscripts to war with antiquated arms against a modernized force. But what was the alternative to certain carnage? Supplicant carnage? I don’t condone what the Soviets did to their own, but at the same time they had little alternative, though it was due to negligence at the highest office at the time.

program_whiz2• 7 years ago

Yeah, I don't favor violence against anyone. But also have to question the ethics of someone who would join the police force to take the rights of HK citizenry by force.

But we need compassion for those officers too, likely they didn't have many options, and dropping party loyalty because you're getting squeemish is a recipe for disappearing or at least a life of poverty and suffering (I'm guessing).

djsumdog3• 7 years ago

Surrender? People criticize the French and others prior to WW2, but would it really have been better to fight unprepared and let a few tens or hundreds of thousands die right off the bat? Sometimes the strategic decision is not the emotional one.

"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play." -Wargames

baybal26• 7 years ago

But another question is, what are the protesters supposed to do?

But another question is, what people in Beijing supposed to do?

Think of that. To many, it's very clear that men in black will not be content even if given suffrage. Then they will want places in legislature, own foreign policy, armed forces, and ultimately sovereignty.

The popular sentiment that it's "poor HK kids" coming out at large out of desperation for their material situation can't hold water. Most of activists are children of very well off people, well educated, with a lot of life experience overseas, who had their future well being secured by their parents. No way they will be appeased with just a carrot.

The Party is well aware of that. There for long been a sentiment that Hongkong is a "trojan horse" the West gave to China, and the current crisis only reinforces this opinion among people in Beijing, and down to junior-mid-level cadres. There is no way the Party will back down.

This mess will take years to settle down in any scenario.

fennecfoxen3• 7 years ago

Ah yes, democratic representation and sovereignty. Entirely unthinkable.

unethical_ban3• 7 years ago

The very notion that people want free government and self-determination is a bad thing is why you're being downvoted on an American forum. There is not a lot of support for oppressive governments that commit genocide against religious minorities and put people in prison for political dissidence.

You may be playing devil's advocate for the "party" but it comes too close to sounding like you're defending them.

bhy5• 7 years ago

Most of activists are children of very well off people

Do you have data or reference to back them? Surely there could be rich kids among the protestors, but is that a majority of them?

golergka• 7 years ago

This kind of discussion seems to constantly confuse "good" as in "moral", or at least "morally justified" and "good" as in "effective to achieve one's goal".

I believe that while protester's violence may very well be morally justified (I don't have enough data to judge, but I can easily imagine this case), I don't think that it can be effective to achieve protester's political goals. Violent protest is only effective when the violence reaches it's logical conclusion and opposing force simply withdraws or surrenders. As was the case in Ukraine in 2014, or in USSR in 1991, it doesn't even need to be a LOT of violence - just enough for the opposite side to get completely demoralized. But China's police and military are not only numerous, well-trained and well-funded - they're also very highly motivated and believe (I think, mistakenly, but truth of their belief is irrelevant) in their cause.

So, the only way for protesters to succeed is to make China look bad: and generally, peaceful protesters are much more effective at creating positive sentiment than armed ones.

UIZealot15• 7 years ago

Imagine if the US suddenly had a dictator that just decided they were going to take all property rights and freedoms like that

Do you know anything about China and Hong Kong? What exactly do you think China has done in Hong Kong?

EDIT: Down-voters, can you answer the question? Or are you just going to try to bury it with down-votes?

ripperdoc• 7 years ago

I DO know something about China and Hong Kong, having lived/worked/studied in them, and having half of my family there. And of course, as in any of these things, nuance is the first thing that goes out the window.

First, although Hongkong has been peaceful in the last decades, it has had some pretty severe rioting before, in the 60s and at various other times. But what we see now is a drawn out result of the 1997 hand-over. There are many factors. One is that China (and the colluding business interests) have moved step by step in opposite direction of democracy. Another is more about psychology - Hongkong used to be a star in the region, but it's now in Chinas shadow and more and more dependent on the mainland, even "overrun" in certain ways. So there is a built up frustration in Hongkong around both of these things.

China has not yet brought down the hammer on Hongkong, and they have not removed property rights and the overall freedom. Sadly, these protests are more likely to bring the dictatorship closer. But all revolutions are like that. Almost inevitably they turn violent (on both sides). The government feel the need to push back harder to quell the fire. In any conflict, both sides lose. And yes, almost inevitably

Now, that's the nuance. Then you have the simple fact that China is not a democracy, it's an oppressive surveillance one-party state. All of the democratic world has a certain moral obligation to either attempt to transform or to oppose China. Unfortunately, most have gotten in too deep and have too much to lose on criticising China. Therefore the global response is weak, and large corporations tend to follow the money rather than the principle. This is very sad.

SuperFerret• 7 years ago

Imagine if the US suddenly had a dictator

Not so hard to imagine these days.

mytailorisrich7• 7 years ago

The situation of HK and the rights of the residents have not fundamentally changed since it was ceded to the British in 1842. In fact they have more democratic representation now than during most of their history.

It's far from perfect but it's infinitely better than on the mainland.

Nothing justifies "resorting to violence" in HK today. The violent actions along with anti-Chinese displays are in fact counterproductive because they push the central government to tighten the screw and unite the mainland's public opinion against them.

Many of these protesters have no democratic culture themselves. Anyone who disagrees with them is wrong and an enemy that must be fought by any means.

UIZealot15• 7 years ago

Any time there's an article about China and Hong Kong, people who know nothing about either, besides that China is ruled by the communist party, come out of the woodwork to take a dump on China.

People look down on Trump and ridicule him endlessly when he spews bullshit about things he knows nothing about. But if you spew bullshit about China, you get lots of upvotes.

And if you dare to speak the truth and the nuances about the situation in Hong Kong, you get downvoted to oblivion.

EDIT: Case in point, downvoters! Go ahead, show me you know something about China and Hong Kong.

tempguy99995• 7 years ago

Nothing justifies "resorting to violence" in HK today

If they're basically going to be steamrolled by a rather unsubtle up-and-coming superpower, perhaps they have no choice. In fact IF violence is all you're left with (and that does seem to be the case as legal recourse is blocked) then violence is necessary.

The CCP is not backing down until it has borged HK.

philliphaydon• 7 years ago

The full video shows a officer on the ground being beaten with sticks. So it wasn’t just a kid swinging at the officer.

sixothree• 7 years ago

Could you imagine what would happen in America if an officer was on the ground being beaten?

koheripbal5• 7 years ago

...and the extended version of that video shows how the protesters chased down that officer first, tackled him, and beat him on the ground (including the exact protester that was shot).

Full video: https://twitter.com/bbcchinese/status/1179082367337713666

goblin894• 7 years ago

warrants the officer acting in self-defense

I question the appropriateness of using a firearm with conventional lethal ammunition.

A rubber bullet in lower body would have had enough stopping power. What happened looks like a blatant violation of any reasonable protocol law enforcement would be supposed to behave in accordance with under the circumstances.

mieseratte2• 7 years ago

A rubber bullet in lower body would have had enough stopping power.

No, it wouldn't. I've sustained worse injuries than a rubber bullet and remained fighting.

A bat to the head is a lethal assault. Using a firearm against such an assailant is completely justified.

This has nothing to do with pro / anti CCP feelings. As far as I'm concerned the CCP should be eliminated.

Your assertion is devoid of any reality.

mattnewton• 7 years ago

There is another angle that shows the cop charging in with a gun drawn before the shot. https://mobile.twitter.com/antielabhk/status/117897105163343...

Also, further muddying things, it shows a moltov cocktail nearly miss a cop right afterwards, and a cop tackle and arrest someone who is on the ground trying to attend to the protestor who was shot. It looks like total chaos on both sides and is way more complicated than someone swinging at someone else.

koheripbal5• 7 years ago

Here is a more complete video showing the exact protestor who got shot (with the blue shield) chasing down an officer and then beating him on the ground before attacking the rescuing officer and getting shot.

https://twitter.com/bbcchinese/status/1179082367337713666

koheripbal5• 7 years ago

When we are judging individuals, it's important to judge with individual circumstances.

Was THIS protestor being violent? Was THIS police officer justified in firing?

In this case, there is one video that isn't getting much viewership which very clearly shows the protestor who was shot, chasing down and beating a police officer on the ground. The officer that fired was coming to the rescue when the protestor attacked him with a pipe and was shot.

Here is that video from BBC Chinese: https://twitter.com/bbcchinese/status/1179082367337713666

spacehunt3• 7 years ago

The video shows that the police officer had his handgun drawn before he was hit with the pipe.

Furthermore, the same officer was actually carrying a rubber bullet gun on him at the time.

Why didn't he deploy rubber bullets at a distance, but instead charged in with his handgun drawn?

mav3rick6• 7 years ago

Do you know about Gandhi's nonviolence and civil disobedience movement ? Not saying this is what's required right now. But ultimately it was that that turned the British public opinion and the Crown was forced to withdraw from the colonies.

sandy123• 7 years ago

This would work, if they had a leader representing this movement.

sushid• 7 years ago

I understand what you’re saying but the irony here is not lost on me.

flukus2• 7 years ago

Civil disobedience worked because it became unprofitable for Britain to stay in the short to medium term, for China it's a territorial claim and they're happy to wait out any lost profits.

Gandhi's first stint at civil disobedience also landed him in jail for 6 years and there was a lot of violence that also played it's role in Indian independence.

Even with an Afghanistan style insurrection it's hard to see China bleeding enough money to give in, so I'm not sure violent means are much of an answer either.

daveheq• 7 years ago

How many American military personnel would just be OK with being told by the President to take property rights and freedoms like that? Do you think they're mind-controlled idiots? It doesn't just suddenly happen, we don't have a totalitarian mindset, it would have to be very gradual and against people who are demonized as immoral or as a scourge on society, like Mexicans or Jews or liberals or Christians. Even then it's so easy to spread news and there's so many people with guns and easy accessibility that it's just going to happen unless we become a more complacent fascist country.

pdkl95• 7 years ago

How many American military personnel would just be OK with being told by the President to take property rights and freedoms like that?

We actually have some data about that. See this[1] comment for excerpts from a survey of "300 US Marine Corps soldiers". Short version of the results: 61.66% would not fire on US citizens if given the (illegal) order "I would fire upon U.S. citizens who refuse or resist confiscation of firearms banned by the U.S. government.", with 16% of respondents using very heavy pencil marks or writing comments in the margin for that answer.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10753894

fapjacks• 7 years ago

To add anecdote to the data in a sibling comment, I was in the infantry for many years, deployed many times, saw lots of combat. The US government would have a big problem on its hands if any part of it ordered the US military to take property and/or shoot American citizens: Almost no one I ever met would follow those orders. It is a not-uncommon topic of conversation in the grand tradition of military "what if" games. But this is sort of to be expected: Civil wars are extraordinarily messy and complicated, and history bears out that no state goes into this kind of conflict with its military intact. In fact many times it's the kind of thing which triggers the civil war or coups d'etat: The army gets wind of some "unconscionable actions" by the government's ruling party, and some populist general rounds up a few of his most trustworthy subordinates, and seizes power. This is the story of human state failure.

bsder4• 7 years ago

Imagine if the US suddenly had a dictator that just decided they were going to take all property rights and freedoms like that

He wouldn't be in power long because the economy would shut down and the US cities are extremely dependent upon a functioning economy.

And say California and Texas don't go along--now what? That's more than 50% of your military.

This is similar to Syria. Sure, Assad is still in power, but what's left of the country?

coldtea4• 7 years ago

Sure, the kid was swinging at the officer, and I suppose that warrants the officer acting in self-defense. But another question is, what are the protesters supposed to do?

That's not how it works in several western countries. People can swing, throw rocks, even molotov cocktails at the SWAT teams, and they still don't shoot live rounds back - and it would be a huge political issue if they did...

easytiger7• 7 years ago

It was a few cornered officers, one of whom was having his head stamped on. Not even remotely the same thing

jamesb93• 7 years ago

It's not proportionate to shoot someone for fighting you with their fists.

peter_retief• 7 years ago

https://twitter.com/Piet00065526/status/1179025357959237639/...

nvahalik• 7 years ago

Imagine if the US suddenly had a dictator

This is why we have the second amendment. And the constitution as the thing to which office-holders swear allegiance to rather than to "the party" or "the president".

kristiandupont3• 7 years ago

If HK'ers had a similar right to carry guns, do you honestly believe that they would be any better off right now?

mc323• 7 years ago

It’s uncertain what the eventual outcome would be, but one thing is for sure, it would increase the threshold before the tanks rolled in.

Elect22• 7 years ago

You need to define what is "better".

abstractbarista• 7 years ago

Yes. Without == no chance of freedom. With == marginal chance of freedom.

zacharytelschow• 7 years ago

Do you think it's coincidental tyrants are more powerful when their populace is unarmed?

dorfsmay• 7 years ago

No. Chinese army would have walked in and do away with armed protesters.

SkyBelow• 7 years ago

With or without the gun culture of the US?

djsumdog3• 7 years ago

You really can't protect yourself from a government in a stable State, because the State needs a monopoly on violence to exist. Even in America, the argument from 2nd amendment advocates, that guns help protect American citizens from their government is absolutely ludicrous.

There is no realistic way for Americans to stand up to the entire US State with violence. Not without some very wide spread belief in the failure of the state, believe that would probably be easier to get with non-violent protest (and it still wouldn't be easy).

kaolti4• 7 years ago

They would be infinitely better off.

I don't understand this sentiment of "even with guns it's not gonna work so let's just roll over and take it".

If you personally don't think you'll be better off that's fine, but surely you get that if someone WANTS to fight tooth and nail in self-defense he should be given a chance to do so.

planetzero• 7 years ago

Yes, they would. But only if they were given the right a decade or more ago, so more people were trained to use firearms. Now, it won't really do much.

The 2nd amendment isn't necessarily a way to win a fight one-on-one. It creates an idea in any leader in government not to even attempt to start killing people by force, because of the potential bloodbath and resistance that would ensue.

IEDs are also pretty effective.

ajross2• 7 years ago

If there were guns in those protest groups, the military would have long since rolled in and simply seized the territory in a routine urban invasion.

No, you can't fight the People's Liberation Army with your tricked out semi automatic .223, no matter how many drum magazines and bump stocks you attach to it.

emptysongglass• 7 years ago

This is absurd. Any chance a rebellious citizenry had armed to the teeth evaporated with standing armies.

Gun owners of the US cling to this ideal even while experiencing the worst spate of mass shootings in its history. There is no solution to this other than disarming.

bhupy3• 7 years ago

The US (with its standing army) has been at war in the Middle East for nearly 2 decades now with insurgents.

The argument is not that a rebellious citizenry will necessarily win a war, it's that it will draw out a bloody civil war so long and so expensive as to be a form of mutually assured destruction, the risk of which acts as a check in and of itself.

Clubber8• 7 years ago

I'm sorry, but you are absolutely delusional, or refuse to observe world events in history and going on right now. You need to stop looking at this emotionally and start using reason. Who killed more people, Stalin or all the US mass shooters combined?

Edit: He is delusional and his ideas aren't based on any understanding of current events or history.

kaolti4• 7 years ago

Is it really absurd? What is absurd about you having the right to protect yourself? You seem to be saying "I can't protect myself anyway, so let's not allow anyone else to try either."

Disarming is a solution. If everyone would come together as one and hand their weapons in because THEY wanted to.

Do you really think forcibly trying to take guns from people is a solution? Damn, talk about absurd.

Fezzik• 7 years ago

I always find this sentiment a little silly - if the US President went in to full dictator mode and had the support of the military, do you really think a militia of armed citizens would be anything but gnats against the windshield of the United States Armed Forces? And if s/he did not have the support of the Armed Forces, it would not be a very effective dictatorship and you would not even need guns for a rebellion. I truly do not get it.

bhupy3• 7 years ago

The US (with its support of the military) has been at war in the Middle East for nearly 2 decades now with insurgents.

The argument is not that a rebellious citizenry will necessarily win a war, it's that it will draw out a bloody civil war so long and so expensive as to be a form of mutually assured destruction, the risk of which acts as a check in and of itself.

dannyw• 7 years ago

Dictating over a country of armed resistance is not very valuable. I also think you underestimate the power of sheer numbers and guerilla warfare. The ones fighting would be the friends and family of the armed forces.

MrBuddyCasino2• 7 years ago

You need ground troops to conquer and occupy any country, especially cities. Tanks or jets won’t help you. If civilians are armed with assault rifles, good luck.

markstos• 7 years ago

The US Armed Forces is made up of people, many of which would not support a self-appointed dictator attacking their own people.

baseballdork• 7 years ago

Depends on the circumstances, probably. 100 million armed people is nothing to ignore. I would also assume that the enforcement would be via the police, not the military.

LinuxBender• 7 years ago

Yes and No. Would many small militias "win". Of course not. Would they cause nearly endless pain and chaos for decades? Most certainly. Some of them would also be members of the standing military and embedded in every level of government. Even the most malevolent narcissistic sociopath dictators don't want such a high maintenance and unstable situation.

onepointsixC• 7 years ago

I supposed that's why the Taliban has been gnats against the windshield of the United States Armed Forces.

kaolti4• 7 years ago

You seem to be saying because it wouldn't work - why would we allow it? It's your right to defend yourself. Whether it works or not has nothing to do with it.

kgwxd• 7 years ago

I would hope, since our military hasn't been conditioned from birth to believe they're serving a living god, that there would be heavy resistance from within the military itself if such a thing were attempted.

tfha• 7 years ago

Yes, it would matter. If you don't want to raze your own cities an armed and hostile restiance even in the thousands of people is a massive thorn in your side. If the resistance reaches millions of people you basically don't have control at all. The country is just in a state of heavy war that point

csomar• 7 years ago

if the US President went in to full dictator mode and had the support of the military, do you really think a militia of armed citizens would be anything but gnats against the windshield of the United States Armed Forces?

You don't really need militias. If a majority of the people oppose the dictator and the military man are from these families then your coup is going to fail. That's why dictatorships with strong oppositions try to lure a portion of their population against another portion or hire an army from another country.

In a nutshell, the current US army is not going to attack their fellow citizens anytime soon for the eyes of a dictator.

Consultant32452• 7 years ago

Guns aren't for taking the military on head first. Guns are for assassinating your neighborhood cop and his entire family for supporting the dictator. The dictator requires lots of small time local support, which is much softer targets. Without it, the dictator can't dictate.

flatline• 7 years ago

People have this vision of a civil war, some all-out armed conflict with winner-take-all. Looking at any country with a history of armed rebels, you see a long-term political standoff that occasionally runs hot. Ruby Ridge and Waco are small scale examples in the US. On a larger scale these types of movements actually can accomplish quite a bit. I'm not condoning it by any means, I think it's completely nuts, but I don't think it's so far fetched. If you get enough people with enough political will they can accomplish a lot, armed or not.

xienze• 7 years ago

if the US President went in to full dictator mode and had the support of the military, do you really think a militia of armed citizens would be anything but gnats against the windshield of the United States Armed Forces?

Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. On paper, none of them stood a chance. How’s everything played out, in your opinion?

JoeAltmaier4• 7 years ago

The US military is made up of Citizen Soldiers. Not clear that 'full dictator mode' would get anywhere.

ravenstine• 7 years ago

It depends on their arsenal and their strategies. Guerilla tactics have proven to be difficult for even modern militaries. The US would have a high probability of defeating it's citizens in a conflict, but it wouldn't exactly be a walk in the park. They'd still be risking dead soldiers, disrupted supply chains, and money just to finance the thing. If citizens posed a credible threat, it might not be worth the time of a gradually corrupting government that otherwise wanted to cross the line. The point of having armed citizens and militias is not necessarily to win but to provide a credit threat that forces an issue to be a cost-benefit analysis.

If memory serves me, the Russians gave up against the Mujihadeen forces(who had help from the US; the Soviet Union was also going broke). The US came back with it's tail between it's legs after fighting Vietnam guerillas and farmers. Military might isn't everything.

Practically speaking, I don't think today's Americans are equipped to provide a credit threat against a dictator and may never will.

excalibur• 7 years ago

And of course look what happens when your citizen militias actually SUPPORT the dictator. His opposition is swiftly crushed, it's not even a contest. Democracy falls almost overnight.

pjc502• 7 years ago

Exactly. The US won wars against its own citizens on a number of occasions; the Indian Wars, the short-lived Mormon conflict, the entire Civil War, and the city of Tulsa.

newvoiceoldphne• 7 years ago

Bluntly, yes. All those soldiers sleep, eat and live in a larger community. All those civil servants live in neighborhoods. Even if we accept that the entire military would just forget their sworn voe to uphold and defend the Constitution of the US against all enemies, foreign and domestic, an armed civilian populace in revolt would be a nightmare scenario.

ProAm• 7 years ago

do you really think a militia of armed citizens would be anything but gnats against the windshield of the United States Armed Forces

The US has arguably won only one war in the last 70 years (being at war or at least armed conflict for most of those 70 years) with the largest most powerful military in the world.

lazyguy2• 7 years ago

do you really think a militia of armed citizens would be anything but gnats against the windshield of the United States Armed Forces?

Yes, absolutely. If it's a true revolt.

The reason for this is because if the rebels have support of the population then they can get intelligence and material support from said population. They will be able to walk circles around military bureaucracy.

Were as the USA Military is dependent on the USA population for economic support. No economic support means no military sustainability. Sure they have stockpiles of weapons and whatnot, but there is more that is need to run a successful campaign against domestic guerrillas then just stockpiles of weapons.

The reality is that in order to overthrow the Federal government all the American people have to do is just choose to stop paying their taxes and refusing to do business with the Federal government. The Federal government would be dead within months.

Firearms are redundant. What they are useful for, however, is to prevent politicians from getting bad ideas... like using the military against their own population.

daenz3• 7 years ago

Good reads and sums up the basic ideas: https://imgur.com/a/WnTzIxR

bonerman69• 7 years ago

What % of the military do you think will fight for the president? You only need enough weapons(dependent on that %) to create enough of a _mess_, to make it never worth pursuing.

ChrisLomont3• 7 years ago

The US military requires a massive functioning economy to feed it goods, fuel, food, etc. If enough of the US were rebelling against the govt, the military would fold.

And it's likely hard to get troops to shoot their own countrymen.

As direct evidence, over the past few decades the US has been unable to stop a vastly smaller, vastly less armed resistance in various regions of the world.

Maybe you underestimate the power of a few armed people against a military. And in any case, if it came to people vs military (which I do not think is anywhere close to happening), armed people do much better than unarmed.

rgbrenner2• 7 years ago

We can't defeat the insurgents in Afghanistan... and that's just the size of Texas. The rocky mountains cover more area than AF; our borders are more porous (the Canadian border is the longest in the world); and our citizens have the most firearms in the world - total or per person (far more than AF or IQ). The US military cant stop insurgents from moving across the border with Pakistan, but they would be able to stop them on a border 4x longer? They can't stop drugs from south america (at the mexican border, or through the gulf of mexico), but they would if it were money or weapons?

I've posted this here before: The US military has an urban warfare document that states the number of troops required to secure N population. It's based on their experience and the experience of others in past wars in holding urban terrain. If you add up all of the military, police, national guard, fbi, etc... you aren't even close to the number the US military says are required to secure the US. Even if they hired millions of people to do so, they would still leave large swaths of the US unsecured (like the rocky mountains) where insurgents could operate.

I don't know why when this is brought up people imagine citizens would stand face to face with the US military. Like they would be so dumb as to stick their face in front of a gun and ask they be shot.

The US military says they can't secure the US from an insurgency. If you think otherwise, I would seriously like to hear what you base that on.

voldacar• 7 years ago

The wars in Iraq, Vietnam, and Afghanistan would like to have a word with you. Furthermore, there are about 393 million firearms in the USA, and that's just a minimum as you can suspect that many do not report their firearms. Considering that plus the fact that about 43% of American households own at least one firearm, this means that in the event of a rebellion against a dictator, very quickly 100% of households are armed. Modern weapons such as nukes, fighter jets, tanks, etc, are effective at completely obliterating an opponent, if they were deployed against American citizens, there would be no country left to rule over.

merpnderp2• 7 years ago

Large numbers of people find it ideologically necessary to take on faith that millions armed insurgents couldn't have large effects against the US military, contrary to every bit of evidence.

brobdingnagians• 7 years ago

I assume quite a bit of the military would _join_ the citizenry, so yes, they probably would have a fairly good chance combined together. After all, the military in the US comes _from_ the citizenry and have family & friends among the "civilians" and don't feel all that detached.

robotburrito• 7 years ago

A few Vietnamese would like to have a word with you.

parliament323• 7 years ago

It's much easier to mount a "resistance" with a few unregistered and unregulated guns in every household than not.

The US military is very good at wreaking havoc in places where you can just crusie-missle a square kilometer and not have any problems. That becomes difficult domestically: you can't just arbitrarily wipe your own cities off the map cause, you know, those cities are the ones who generate you income/GDP and have your actual population in them. There's no point in being a dictator of a wasteland.

miles• 7 years ago

do you really think a militia of armed citizens would be anything but gnats against the windshield of the United States Armed Forces?

Turned out to be very effective in Vietnam and Afghanistan.

sjwright4• 7 years ago

If every gun owner took their ownership as seriously as you, I’d say you had a point. Until then it’s a narrative that doesn’t map to the overwhelming bulk of reality.

JackRabbitSlim• 7 years ago

Yes.

A) Infrastructure. a huge portion of the US military might is not deployed in the US.

B) Bombings and collateral damage. The military may not give a fuck about the infrastructure of another country but bombing US cities is damaging their own infrastructure. Litterally cutting of their nose to spite their face.

C) Getting soldiers to shoot at other humans is hard. Getting them to shoot at other Americans is even harder.

D) We sure wiped the floor with the Koreans and Vietnamese without the first 3 points right? How hard could a country an order of magnitude larger, with much better armed citizenry be?

ben509• 7 years ago

And if s/he did not have the support of the Armed Forces, it would not be a very effective dictatorship and you would not even need guns for a rebellion.

Unless they don't have the support because of the rebellion's guns.

If anyone wearing a uniform is being shot by their neighbors, military support for the dictatorship is going to dry up quickly.

CapricornNoble5• 7 years ago

>>do you really think a militia of armed citizens would be anything but gnats against the windshield of the United States Armed Forces

Who do think we've been fighting in Afghanistan for the last 18 years? Impoverished farmers with AKs and explosives.

>>I truly do not get it.

Insurgents win by undermining the legitimacy of the government, and moving into the vacuums that are created. You don't do that be attempting to fight force-on-force against overwhelming conventional power. You do it by targeting the mayors, governors, police chiefs, district attorneys, tax collectors, etc.....basically all of the key leadership of low-level government, and law enforcement. Without the support or at least tolerance of the population, ANY army will have exploitable vulnerabilities in essentially hostile territory.

jpadkins• 7 years ago

This has been debated many times. Even the DoD strategic planning has concluded that if a certain % of the population would take up arms, the army would lose an insurgency war (especially if the opposing side has the support of the people).

Also have to factor in the massive defections of trained soldiers and officers from the military. The service members I know are not loyal to a person or group, they are loyal to the idea of the republic.

CharlesColeman6• 7 years ago

do you really think a militia of armed citizens would be anything but gnats against the windshield of the United States Armed Forces?

No, clearly not. Iraq and Afghanistan are proof of that.

The argument that the US military could so easily wipe the floor with a domestic insurgent militia that Second Amendment is obsolete hasn't been credible for 20 years. Widespread gun ownership does block several mechanisms of descent into dictatorship.

behringer3• 7 years ago

Just tell that to the taliban.

celdon252• 7 years ago

This is not a "sentiment", it's the very foundation the country's freedom was built on. When you admit that you don't understand it, then ask questions in a leading form that way, you're effectively arguing against the idea and forcing people to respond to it, or reinforcing others who have the fallacious beliefs against the second amendment based on lack of understanding on military and political strategy.

It's astonishing how many people these days have suddenly become armchair generals to push back against the very foundation of the freedom of the United States in the form of this tired argument.

dmh2000• 7 years ago

its a good question : could the dictator get the support of the military? Would the people in the military from the top down be willing to, say, decimate a resisting US city with artillery and bombs?

jdkee• 7 years ago

Tell that to the Vietcong.

heavyset_go3• 7 years ago

The second amendment didn't stop Kent State from taking place.

tekkk• 7 years ago

It's admirable that Americans hold their 2nd amendment to such high-degree. If only your politicians and people in power weren't such crooks you wouldn't have to fear in the first place. I live in a country near Russia, yet I don't feel a need to keep an assault rifle in my home. I think the reason you are clinging onto your 2nd amendment is mostly purely sentimental, the legacy of your ancestors and their glorious resistance repeated through years of US history lessons. The fact is, you are mostly safe from your "overlords". There isn't and I think won't be any need for a revolution fought with guns. Your rights and freedoms are slowly dwindled away without you even noticing while you are still hanging onto your rifles like shooting down your fellow Americans would make a difference.

It's make-believe, but I guess it makes Americans feel a little special to know that if you elected some dictator you would have a chance to stop them. Your political rulers know far and well that civil war is the last thing anybody wants. Your judicial and political system in place should, before any Hitler came to power, stop them and prevent coup d'état from happening.

It's worrying that we, people living in highly progressive and democratic societies, would have to fear a dictator suddenly coming to power and having to protect ourselves against it. Why anyone would follow such psychopaths and throw away democratic society with free will? But I admit, humans are highly illogical and emotional creatures, that are deep down still driven by the primal urges that are the same as they were thousands of years ago. Just because we dress in fancy suits and dresses doesn't mean we aren't capable of what the Nazis did less than hundred years ago but I'm hopeful that we as species are still slowly progressing.

filoleg• 7 years ago

I dont feel the need to own an assault rifle in the present time in the US, but I feel like you are misrepresenting the point. You have to be prepared for the worst times, not the good times. When the worst times roll, it will be too late to worry about it.

camgunz12• 7 years ago

This is why we have the second amendment.

It's not why we have the 2nd Amendment. 2A applies only to militias, and the Constitution explicitly gives Congress power over State militias to suppress insurrections:

"The Congress shall have Power To... provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions" [1]

Further, the Militia Act of 1792 allows the president to commandeer them as well, and this was famously used by George Washington himself to quell the Whiskey Rebellion.

2A is just a relic from a time when the US had neither the resources nor the political will to create and maintain a standing army. It's been co-opted very recently by the Right to rile people up and drive them to the polls (while incidentally enriching themselves), but it's completely outdated. The only reason anyone thinks otherwise is that Scalia legislated from the bench in Heller to resurrect it.

[1] https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcri...

ChrisLomont3• 7 years ago

2A applies only to militias

This is untrue, and the Supreme Court has ruled several times on it. The states, which mostly modeled their Constitutions on the Federal ones, have a significant majority of them giving the people explicit individual right to bear arms.

Or read the Federalist Papers, or look at common law leading up to the constitution, or realize that the Bill of Rights was added at the states request to protect individual rights, not collective govt sanctioned rights.

wnevets• 7 years ago

This is why we have the second amendment.

Citation needed.

thfuran• 7 years ago

No, we have the second amendment so that Whiskey Rebellions won't get too out of hand, let alone succeed. The militia that the second amendment arms reports to the government and one of its primary objectives is to quell insurrection.

everyone• 7 years ago

There are plenty of examples of the US army (Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan), and US controled dictators forces (Cuba) being beaten or stalemated by guerilla forces. Depending on how widespread and committed a revolution was, they could have a very good chance imo. Also if the revolution is extremely popular, then elements of the army will side with them.

dragonwriter12• 7 years ago

This is why we have the second amendment.

No, we have the second amendment as a safeguard against the government, at the state or federal level, relying on a separated class of professional armed personnel for internal and/or external security, with the idea that by retaining the capacity for the mass of the citizenry to be mobilized for that function, political pressure from the citizenry will be sufficient to avoid professionalization of more than a small cadre. In this way, tyranny would be prevented because you can't have a tyrant supported by the armed forces against the general citizenry when the armed forces and the general citizenry are exactly coextensive, and the armaments of the armed forces, while standardized by government, are held by the citizenry at large.

The second amendment was not created so that the amateurs with small arms would serve as a counterbalance against professional, better equipped troops of the standing army and internal security services. That's just a more recent rationalization by people who like to play with guns and fantasize aboit fighting off tyranny, but who either fetishize the professional forces and their separate authoritarian culture that the founders feared, or who just can't be arsed to do the boring work of a militia that is the primary security services of the state, or—frequently—who have both of those features simultaneously.

adamsea2• 7 years ago

Ensuring all citizens got a great education would do so much more than guns to prevent tyranny. Especially since most forms of power and dominance are subtle and maintained through law, propaganda, systems of communication, and with economic power.

pageandrew4• 7 years ago

four boxes of liberty. can’t give up the last, even if the first three work very well

coryfklein11• 7 years ago

I laugh at this as well. Most of today's gun owners clutch their weapons as a bastion against attempts for their liberty, while simultaneously crying that for decades the government has done nothing but just that!

Sure the OP scenario of sudden-dictator is bizarre, that's not how it works. If the U.S. ever falls to dictatorship, it will be like a frog boiling in water, and there will never be a single trigger point to erupt the populace into violent revolt.

Just look at what we have today! The majority of gun owners are the staunchest supporters of our most authoritarian president ever. You don't need to worry about a violent revolution when the gun owners are "voting" for you already.

nicwolff• 7 years ago

This is why we have the second amendment.

It's not. The same "militia" that justifies the second amendment can be federalized by Congress per Article I to "suppress insurrections" (or since 1792 by the President).

dsego• 7 years ago

There is an episode on the TV show Designated Survivor where the state guard refuses to federalize.

4b11b4• 7 years ago

The 2nd amendment was never created in order to "rebel" against the government. Think about this: it was the goal of the founders of the Constitution to create a new system which would be fair and just and work well. Checks and balances exist in the three forms of government. If you were creating a new system, would you include a clause that says: just in case I'm getting this wrong, let's make sure it's an unalienable right for people to have weapons in case they need to kill me?

The 2nd amendment was actually put in by pressure from slave owners, who needed weapons in order to police slaves. After slavery was abolished, people kept the order of slavery by using tools (guns).

The common "idea" that the 2nd amendment was created for "freedom" can be traced back to a guest post in NRA newspaper written by a teenager which was then promoted heavily by the NRA.

source: https://news.streetroots.org/2019/05/31/thom-hartmann-why-we...

eee_honda• 7 years ago

If you were creating a new system, would you include a clause that says: just in case I'm getting this wrong, let's make sure it's an unalienable right for people to have weapons in case they need to kill me?

I didn't grow up in the US, but being exposed to US political discourse, I always took for granted this right wing talking point (though I thought it was ridiculous from the outset). Thank you for providing clarity and a decent looking source on something that, as you point out, makes no sense once you think a little longer about it.

blockmarker• 7 years ago

just in case I'm getting this wrong, let's make sure it's an unalienable right for people to have weapons in case they need to kill me?

That supposes that the Founders would forever rule and be unified, with no possibility of anyone else ever ruling. That obviously is idiotic.

cryptozeus• 7 years ago

do you mean imagine as in how in "May 1970, the month in which four students were shot dead at Kent State by national police"

cwkoss14• 7 years ago

I think it is unfortunate that so many Americans don't know about the history of the Black Panthers. In US public school system, we are taught that the Civil Rights Act was won through peaceful marching - this is not the whole story.

Black Panthers carried guns to protect protests, and having guns created a situation where cops could not rush in and beat dissent into submission. There is a strong argument that without the second amendment, the Civil Rights Act would not have been passed, and we would still be living in an institutionally segregated society.

I don't own a gun and don't feel I need one because I'm a privileged urban white. Gun control has historically been used as a tool to disarm Black Americans: the NRA supported gun control in response to the Black Panthers! (https://www.history.com/news/black-panthers-gun-control-nra-...)

Any discussion of gun control in America must account for the self-defense rights of Americans who do not have adequate protection from the police.

homonculus12• 7 years ago

Any discussion of gun control in America must account for the self-defense rights of Americans who do not have adequate protection from the police.

Not to detract from your excellent point but when it comes to personal defense against crime, this applies to everyone who doesn't have private security. Even if the police are 100% on your side, they can't help you if they aren't at your side. When seconds count, the cops are only minutes away.

jfim• 7 years ago

Any discussion of gun control in America must account for the self-defense rights of Americans who do not have adequate protection from the police.

Interestingly, that would be most of them, with the supreme court ruling that the police does not have a constitutional duty to protect a person from harm.

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/justices-rule-po...

mav3rick6• 7 years ago

Most people want stricter background checks. If you pass the checks it's fine. No one is taking away your guns.

rr-geil-j• 7 years ago

Hence Dave Chappelle's 'joke' that African-Americans should start registering for firearm licences en masse.

nerfhammer• 7 years ago

Correct me if I'm wrong here but the Black Panther Party was formed in 1966 and the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964

hereme888• 7 years ago

I don't think most Americans care about the history of the black panthers because nowadays they're a bunch of aggressive anti-white racists. At least in the media that's the only thing portrayed about them.

jhowell• 7 years ago

How is the right to bear arms going to help me if the government decides to use RPGs, helicopters, aircraft or submarines, or take away communications? Seems like a thin firewall.

jolotriage• 7 years ago

In the US, a police officer would be justified in killing this protestor for the same action or less. Freedom to physically attack police is something we don't have.

I don't think the second amendment enters into the equation.

seanmcdirmid5• 7 years ago

This is why we have checks and balances, a strong constitution, strong interest in rule of law, and an effort to have fair elections.

The second amendment hardly helps that much, as if shooting those we think are wrong* is going to do anything good (or trying to go after the military, who is much better trained and armed than we are).

* e.g. would Trump supporters be justified in going after progressives with their guns if they thought they were harming the country? Or vice versa?

0xADADA• 7 years ago

Police shoot & kill unarmed people in the United States every. fucking. day.

2019: Jeremy Connolly, Wallace Wilder, Bobby Ray Moore, Raymond Lewis Williams, Channara Tom Pheap, Dennis Carolino, Chad Michael Breinholt, Riley Eugene Peay, Michael Tuck, James Crowe, Amari Malone, Michael Lopez, Jared R. Nelson, Schaston Theodore Lamarr Hodge, Mike Parsley, Uzzle Jerome, Rashad Cunningham, Jovany Mercado-Bedolla, Jamie Fernandez, William Lloyd Jones, Thomas Michael Reynolds, Cole Steele Jessup, Charles Roy Pearson, Anthony Wayne French, Jerry Orlando Weaver, David Ingle, Scott Souders, Aaron Luther, Cole Steele Jessup, John Michael George, Freddrick Andrews Hadden, Manuel Charles Carter, Mark Johnson, Jose Mendez, Jason Xavier Salas, An unidentified person, Kevin Jenkins, Toussaint Diamon Sims, Detravian Allison, Donald Babbit, Allan George, William Biggs, Kaizen Crossen, Derrick Davidson, Marvin Alexis Urbina, James Lee Kirkwood, Riche Antonio Santiago, Marvin Urbina, Robert Clay Wilsford, Connor Betts, Aigon Andrew Wallace, Cortney Ronald Staley, John Clark, Oscar Ventura-Gonzalez, De'Von Bailey, Deshon Downing, Mario Benjamin, Delano Williams, Lenny Blaine Griffin, David Willoughby, Eric Toon, Margarita Victoria Brooks, Andre Leach, Jamaal Simpson

nkurz3• 7 years ago

Your formatting makes it look like you are giving examples of unarmed people who are shot by the police, but your list doesn't reflect this. Here's what I found looking at the first three names:

Jeremy Connolly: Armed with a knife. "The KBI says police shot Connolly after they found his 71-year-old grandmother, Linda Kromer, stabbed to death inside his home in the 2000 block of Harold Avenue. Officers heard noises in the basement and found Connolly in a bedroom with the door closed. He was armed with a knife." https://www.kwch.com/content/news/Man-dies-from-injuries-in-...

Wallace Wilder: Probably not armed. "Wallace Wilder died Wednesday afternoon after being shot at his Gordo apartment in Pickens County. He had long ago been diagnosed as a bipolar schizophrenic and even was found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity in a Tuscaloosa County killing in the 1980s..." https://www.al.com/news/birmingham/2019/08/man-killed-by-ala...

Bobby Ray Moore: Armed with a gun. "Authorities have identified a man they say was killed after pointing a loaded gun at San Joaquin sheriff's deputies in Stockton." https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/stockton/man-shot-a...

While we do have a terrible problem in the US with police shootings, it's unhelpful when misleading claims like this are made. Where did you get this list of names? Did the source claim that all were unarmed?

50ckpuppet• 7 years ago

unarmed does not equal harmless

grecy2• 7 years ago

I find it sad that in the year 2019, in what is ostensibly the best country in the world, and is by a very long way the richest country in the world that an apparently significant majority of people still think it possible they will have to actually go to war with their own government, and they need to keep guns for that outcome.

Brutal, bloody, horrible war where literally tens millions of people will die in agonizing pain.

Why the hell is "the best country in the world" thinking about and holding onto it's gun for this?

bdamm2• 7 years ago

This is silly, guns can't protect the population against the modern government. It would start by running a disinformation campaign to turn citizens against each other, then would purge large swaths of the resisting power structure using slaughterbot-type approaches. Areas of significant political resistance would be wiped out using chemical weapons, or even nuclear weapons. The weapons of the U.S. Military turned against the population of the U.S. would be efficiently horrific at reducing resistance. Oh, you think the U.S. Military wouldn't do that? Nazi Germany is calling and they want their history lesson back.

bsder4• 7 years ago

Drones are probably more effective than guns nowadays.

Because of drones, you have to re-secure an area over and over and over while the attacker can move around.

dang8• 7 years ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21125050 and marked it off-topic.

foobarian3• 7 years ago

Great Britain gave HK back to China. They can do with it as they please - unfortunately I don't see how the protesters can come out on the right side of this without a revolution.

Thought experiment: if say Rhode Island had a Muslim majority and they voted themselves Sharia law in violation of federal articles, how cavalier would the federal government / the rest of the populous be in tolerating this?

pimmen8• 7 years ago

A better anaology would be if the US implemented extreme Sharia law, how cavalier would people who don't want to live like that be?

Hong Kong didn't choose the CCP who didn't even exist yet when the lease was signed. They sure as hell didn't choose to lose their rights to a fair trial and freedom of expression either. So, if you do a thought experiment about protests against the government, keep in mind that the government in question commits some of the worst human rights abuses today.

UIZealot15• 7 years ago

A better anaology would be if the US implemented extreme Sharia law, how cavalier would people who don't want to live like that be?

That's a very poor analogy. Hong Kong citizens already enjoy the benefit of an independent legal system and don't have to live like mainland citizens.

They sure as hell didn't choose to lose their rights to a fair trial and freedom of expression either.

They sure didn't. And they sure haven't lost those rights.

nexuist2• 7 years ago

Great Britain gave HK back to China. They can do with it as they please - unfortunately I don't see how the protesters can come out on the right side of this without a revolution.

They gave it back with the condition that HK would remain quasi-independent until 2050. The people are protesting because they see the writing on the wall and realize independence is fleeting.

Without getting into the specifics of Sharia law, I think we can reduce your next question to "how cavalier would the federal government / the rest of the populous be in tolerating a state or city that violates federal law?"

* Northern states endured slavery for dozens of years while passing their own laws that criminalized slavery, allowed slaves to buy their own freedom, etc. (however the South responded by passing a federal law that required Northern states to capture escaped slaves and bring them back, one of the precursors to the Civil War and the only time the system totally failed)

* Prohibition failed so hard the Fed actually gave up and nixed it from the Constitution

* More than 30 states have decriminalized marijuana going totally against the DEA, a federal agency with certain powers defined by federal law

* Many cities are "sanctuary cities" which means they refuse to cooperate with ICE and DHS, again federal agencies

* Some states, especially Southern ones, routinely encode new strategies into law to bypass Roe v. Wade, which was a decision made by the third branch of federal government, the Supreme Court

* Upon the passage of the ACA ("Obamacare"), multiple states immediately sued the federal government and refused to implement sections of the law

While these actions certainly cause tensions between individual states and the Fed as a whole, the Union still holds together due to of the lack of authoritarianism. Because of the decentralized nature of Western power (as implemented via federalism and other strategies), it is impossible for one figurehead or political party to dictate what happens in every corner of the country. Entire legislatures can be overturned by citizens who wish to ignore the federal government's worst wishes. This is a feature - not a bug.

That being said, there are limits to the tolerance, and breaking the Constitution is one of them. Would people support a state ignoring the Bill of Rights? No, absolutely not. But that's a bad analogy because the HK citizenry aren't trying to take away others' rights; they're trying to give themselves more. Would Americans support a state that fights for more rights for the people? I suppose it's subjective, but I would say yes, yes they would support a state that aims to give more freedom to the people. That difference is crucial.

if say Rhode Island had a Muslim majority and they voted themselves Sharia law

This question hinges on the premise that a majority of people in a Western democracy would decide to willingly give up their rights to the state in recognition of a greater power. Are there groups like this? Certainly - evangelicals, Wahhabists, etc. Do they make up a majority? I really doubt it. I am hard pressed to think of any situations in history where any large mass of people have decided to replace their democratic freedoms with a dictatorship or theocracy. Authoritarianism is usually a result of a violent takeover, hence why most dictators live and die by their armies and not their citizens. So the question is a false premise in my eyes - why would any majority vote their right to vote away?

fennecfoxen3• 7 years ago

They gave it back with the condition that HK would remain quasi-independent until 2050. The people are protesting because they see the writing on the wall and realize independence is fleeting.

The government of China pooh-poohs this treaty as a "historical document" and says it basically doesn't apply any more.

That said, the idea that "Hong Kong is China's property" would at least pay homage to the ideal of the Westphalian nation-state, a concept which China has also officially declared as an outmoded concept, and they have made it clear at all levels that they enjoy meddling in other countries' affairs. (Of course, while they are eager to dish it out, they can't really take it, and there is no end to the hypocritical caterwauling about foreign interference, especially regarding Hong Kong...)

foobarian3• 7 years ago

They gave it back with the condition that HK would remain quasi-independent until 2050.

This is I guess the core of the problem - how is this enforceable?

That being said, there are limits to the tolerance

Indeed, there is a wide spectrum of cases where states defied and still defy federal statutes. I picked my example as something that seemed so extreme that it would be hard to tolerate unlike some of the other examples you mentioned.

But that's a bad analogy because the HK citizenry aren't trying to take away others' rights; they're trying to give themselves more.

My analogy breaks down at that level of detail, yes. My goal for that analogy was to describe something that:

- a minority of the population desires (RI vs. HK)

- is egregiously against the enclosing country's founding principles (the US Constitution vs. whatever China has - absolute CP authority?)

I was not trying to match the direction of more freedoms or less freedoms or what have you.

Bottom line, and I am not condoning this - I used the word "unfortunately" - but I don't see much stopping China from pulling a Crimea here.

Also: Edit: Thank you for your thoughtful comment.

0xffff2• 7 years ago

Nitpick: "The Fed" refers to the US Federal reserve. "The feds" is a nickname for the US Federal government.

DanTheManPR• 7 years ago

"They can do with it as they please"... what? The tyrannical CCP has some sort of fundamental ownership right over the lives the people of HK? Your statement about sharia law in Rhode Island not only confirms that you don't care about the will of the people in the democratic sense (which, in your thought experiment, are mostly muslims, and you imply actually do want religiously based laws), but also reverses the reasoning of constitutional rules (which are there by the will of the people, to specifically to bar restrictions on free exercise of religion, with the express purpose of protecting the minority of Rhode Islanders who would be oppressed by Islamic law that was enacted by the will of the majority). That you think this example supports the former is gobsmacking to me.

foobarian3• 7 years ago

It doesn't matter what I care about. It's a simple question: in the stated scenario, which, even if it was the will of the people but a blatant usurpation of the US constitution - what do YOU think would happen?

fennecfoxen3• 7 years ago

There is a real notion of a nation's ownership right in Western thought. It's called the Westphalian nation-state, and dates back to times of the Protestant Reformation and bitter international warfare. The idea is that peace is better than everyone killing each other over religion, even if this means abandoning the people next door to some measure of religious repression at the hands of a different sect of Christianity.

However, it would be a mistake to think of the Hong Kong matter in this way. To quote the Beijing party line, "Xi Jinping thought on diplomacy has made innovations on and transcended the traditional Western theories of international relations for the past 300 years" (i.e. back to the Treaty of Westphalia). Instead, Xi Jinping thought revives tianxia, the mandate of heaven, and envisions total world domination in a heirarchical system under Chinese rule. "The Chinese have always held that the world is united and all under heaven are one family," Xi told us in his 2017 New Year's message.

Thus, even as China increasingly meddles with other nations' affairs to effect its strategy of world domination, it is naturally unconscionable for other nations to interfere with theirs or attempt containment. It is against this framework that we should consider the matter of Hong Kong.

tmux3142• 7 years ago

This is not the first time the HKPF has used overt force on a protester, just the first time it has done so publicly. Several protesters have already been "disappeared", and there are many stories coming out of brutal torture against activists. If Beijing authorities have learned one thing from Tiananmen Square, it's that in the internet age violent suppression must happen in private places, where it cannot be recorded by someone's cellphone and shared instantly with the world. Public acts of violence is a PR nightmare and only fans the flames of dissent.

This event will only harden HKers more. In the short term it might prevent mainstream protesters from taking to the streets out of fear of violence. But it will make the average HKer more resentful of Beijing's long arm and empower radical factions. And there are many ways to weaken a government's control outside of public protest.

EDIT: Protester is in critical condition. He was not killed.

radmarshallb2• 7 years ago

As of this writing the protester in question was injured, not killed.

tmux3142• 7 years ago

Fixed. Thanks.

bhy5• 7 years ago

Several protesters have already been "disappeared", and there are many stories coming out of brutal torture against activists.

Are these backed by evidence, or just rumours? Of course the protestors will blame the police, and the police may blame the protestors too.

Joakal• 7 years ago

Rumours mostly. See below for an example.

https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/d0tnei/missing_pe...

grugq2• 7 years ago

This should be put in some context.

Today is the anniversary of China as a communist country. The Hong Kong marchers were all wearing black today as a sign of mourning. That is why the kids are dressed in black (so please, no black bloc/antifa comments.)

The police have been particularly aggressive towards protestors and journalists. They deliberately shoot tear gas at journalist "clusters" (presumably to prevent documentation of police actions?) They have shot multiple people with "rubber bullets" and they beat people with batons. The first people to use shields and clubs at the protests? The police.

Besides the state authorized use of violence, there is also the use of non-state assets. The authorities have encouraged the triads to assault protestors. The police stand back and allow this to happen, probably because a picture of civilians beating people is a less polarizing image than police beating protestors.

# the shooting

From the videos it is clear that there was an officer on the ground and he was being assaulted. He is wearing protective equipment. When police beat protestors with batons the protestors do not have the benefit of riot gear.

The officer who shot the 17yr kid should not have had his service weapon drawn, and should not have had his finger on the trigger. When a cop points a gun, finger on trigger, at someone the only party responsible for that shooting is the cop.

The "descent into violence" narrative adopted by the Western media is completely missing the nuance of the protests. Most of the "violence" by protestors is property damage. It is seldom violence against a person.

seneca• 7 years ago

Today is the anniversary of China as a communist country. The Hong Kong marchers were all wearing black today as a sign of mourning. That is why the kids are dressed in black (so please, no black bloc/antifa comments.)

The Chinese color of mourning is white, not black as it is in the west.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_in_Chinese_culture#White

White is also the color of mourning. It is associated with death and is used predominantly in funerals in Chinese culture.[3] Ancient Chinese people wore white clothes and hats only when they mourned for the dead.

They have been intentionally reaching out to the west though. Perhaps they're intentionally appealing to western sensibilities.

khuey2• 7 years ago

They've been wearing black for the five months or whatever that this has been going on.

grugq2• 7 years ago

This is not supported by the evidence. They wear street clothes. Look at any pictures or videos, you'll see that they're wearing normal clothes of all colors.

potatofarmer45• 7 years ago

Just like the Yuen Long attack by white shirt triads sparked the current cycle of violence, this will further escalate a dangerous situation. There is a clear difference between fighting with sticks and stones to guns. It is now only a matter of time before somebody shoots a police officer in retaliation and when that happens, violence will spiral out of control.

vnchr2• 7 years ago

Closeup video of the shooting: https://streamable.com/2hei6

Longer video of the shooting: https://streamable.com/qtyii

factsaresacred• 7 years ago

I respect the bravery of the protesters but in certain cases the violence is getting out of hand. An example from today: https://twitter.com/FxLowe/status/1179019436923056128

You can't mob the guys with guns. Not in HK, not in the West, not anywhere.

There's a complete breakdown of trust on both sides so likely a long time before this defuses.

azemzaj• 7 years ago

Here is the full video from BBC for context https://youtu.be/Q0AiW_qMTt8

loquor• 7 years ago

This might sound alarmist, but do you think China is the biggest upcoming global problem after climate change? For two reasons:

1. China has a totalitarian ruling system. They intend to realize George Orwell's 1984.

2. Present-day China essentially has no ethics. Take the US in comparison. No matter how perverse the people in power become and even if they do messed up things, the US has some founding morals and principles they do not forget. China, in comparison, systematically rooted out these values since the Great Leap Forward. The happenings at Hong Kong and Xinjiang epitomize that.

I do think China's expansionist policy bodes poorly for all of humanity.

dev_dull• 7 years ago

Yes I absolutely do. It’s especially frustrating that politicians speak endlessly about Russia when China is clearly the larger threat to US dominance. Even stories like “senator’s driver of 20 years is Chinese spy”[1] are basically ignored.

1. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/weekly-standard/the-spy-w...

api2• 7 years ago

China is the world's #1 carbon emitter, the top emitter per GDP, and has over 200gw of new coal still planned. (For scale, California consumes about 50gw on a hot day.) So they are not even unrelated problems.

China is also the top source of plastic in the ocean.

Tangent but: the way China turned out has IMHO been the major factor in the collapse of the post cold war neoliberal narrative in the West. The idea was that freedom and prosperity are a reinforcing cycle has been disproven. China shows that at least the business parts of capitalism work just fine without human rights and that therefore prosperity and totalitarianism are compatible.

The collapse of that narrative has in turn unleashed a revival of hard right fascist and hard left socialist ideology in the West.

wysifnwyg2• 7 years ago

Before your tangent, I agreed with you.

paul_milovanov3• 7 years ago

That carbon emitted is largely from the manufacturing of cheap products that you consumed. Western countries have offshored both manufacturing and the associated pollution to a country more concerned about pulling its people out of poverty than about its environment. The ocean plastic is partly from these industrial processes and partly because western countries have exported most of their plastic waste to China for more than a decade.

Also, according to this, China's per capita emissions are half that of the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...

X6S1x6Okd1st2• 7 years ago

The collapse of that narrative has in turn unleashed a revival of hard right fascist and hard left socialist ideology in the West.

I disagree with that point.

braindead_in2• 7 years ago

I would argue that failure of Neoliberalism has nothing to do with China and has everything to do with flawed economics which assumes that our planet has indefinite resources and wealth can grow infinitely. Authoritarianism is the natural outcome of unchecked capitalism and Marx predicted that a century ago.

kiba• 7 years ago

Am worried about China imploding(relatively soon) due to their totalitarian system deleting feedback loops and accelerating negative ones.

markus_zhang4• 7 years ago

I'd rather worry about EU as there is already a large gap there...

gnode• 7 years ago

They intend to realize George Orwell's 1984.

With advancements in technology (particularly machine learning), I'd say more like a cross between 1984 and Minority Report. E.g. https://mashable.com/2017/07/24/china-ai-crime-minority-repo...

It doesn't get much worse than thought-pre-crime.

parliament323• 7 years ago

I'm usually not a huge fan of the US rolling in and stomping out governments (and installing their own, of course), but this is one faux-dictatorship where it sorely needs to happen. Some actual democracy would be amazing for these people.

With the recent "trade war" and whatnot the stage has been set pretty well for a US intervention.

bigpumpkin• 7 years ago

How should we intervene?

dragonwriter12• 7 years ago

I'm usually not a huge fan of the US rolling in and stomping out governments (and installing their own, of course), but this is one faux-dictatorship where it sorely needs to happen.

It's not a faux dictatorship, it's the real deal.

But, the idea of the US “stomping out” the PRC (or even somehow “just” rejecting it from Hong Kong) and installing its own preferred government is downright insane.

umvi• 7 years ago

You can't force democracy upon people that don't want it and aren't ready for it - it ends disastrously. The US tried to do that in the middle east and failed miserably.

The only success story seems to be South Korea, but I would argue they wanted democracy and fought alongside the US for it.

solotronics• 7 years ago

Wow what a horribe viewpoint! I can not disagree with you more here. Can you even begin to imagine the massive scale of casulty and human suffering that would occur in this scenario?

Lets break it down - tens or possibly hundreds of millions of people would die - there would be almost a 100% chance of a hot ww3 but this time with hydrogen bombs, there is a good chance if this happens all life will be wiped off the face of the Earth - starvation on a massive scale, modern society with its on demand supply chains would suffer greatly in a new world war - automated drones targeting people

inscionent2• 7 years ago

Are you usually a partial fan of stomping out governments? So much hubris. So little understanding.

baddox• 7 years ago

What policies does China have which are expansionist?

magduf6• 7 years ago

Wanting to take over Taiwan, and trying to take over the South China Sea by building artificial islands and using them as military bases, for starters.

onemoresoop2• 7 years ago

China's new silk road comes to mind.

bdamm2• 7 years ago

The belt and road initiative is fascinating, including their cultivation of Africa. The scheme where they lend poor nations money to build ports and then when the port authority fails to fulfill the repayments, they simply take over the port and basically establish a Chinese base is rather diabolical. From a business perspective it is brilliant but it does seem rather obviously predatory. I consider that expansionist. Did America do the same with Panama, did UK do the same with Gibraltar? There are some parallels.

vkou• 7 years ago

No, the biggest global problem is the same one that is causing inaction about climate change.

It is domestic enemies of the public. People with money and power, who are happy to push the rest of us under the proverbial bus, in order to acquire more money, and more power.

They have, historically, caused incalculable misery the world over, democracies have, historically, not had a great track record in dealing with them, and they have, and will continue to have a lot more impact over my life than China ever will.

Unsurprisingly, it is in their interest to point fingers at foreign boogiemen.

If you disagree, please consider enumerating the ways in which China has been a threat to your, or your fellow citizens' prosperity, life, or limb. Then consider enumerating the actual threats to prosperity, life, and limb that you and your neighbours have to deal with in your lives - or have had to deal with in the recent past.

new26287• 7 years ago

biggest upcoming global problem after climate change?

maybe, but climate change is around number 20 in that list for me.

uoaei5• 7 years ago

You're lucky you get to die soon enough for that to be appropriate.

NilsIRL• 7 years ago

What are the 19 first?

chrisco2555• 7 years ago

After climate change? I have always feared totalitarian governments more than climate change. The death tolls are a hundred million higher.

ryan_j_naughton• 7 years ago

The six mass extinction event that humanity is currently causing is going to affect billions of people for centuries to come. If we have systemic ecosystem collapses and 90% of species go extinct, there will be a profound effects. When crops fail and fresh, potable water is extremely constrained, authoritarianism will sweep the world at an even more accelerated pace and regional and world wars are likely. It will be interesting to see how mutually assured destruction holds up and prevents nuclear war when climate change will have already guaranteed many levels of destruction and created a very desperate populace.

jhedwards3• 7 years ago

Present-day China essentially has no ethics

Source? I lived in China and didn't ever feel like I was in a place without ethics. Different ethics, sure, but it really looks to me like you simply don't know or understand China.

The Great Leap Forward had nothing to do with routing out values, it was about hyper-fast industrialization, and it failed.

There are real problems with modern China, and, separately, with the CCP, for example a lack of separation of powers and a lack of rule of law. But your statements look much more like fear of the other and demonization of what you don't understand that well reasoned arguments.

If you live in China, you'll experience some things that are much better than they are in western countries. I'm not saying there's any comparison really, but the fact is that the reality is far more complex than you're making it out to be.

markus_zhang4• 7 years ago

I mean, people can believe in what they believe in, right? And there are plenty of articles from the media.

danbolt• 7 years ago

That’s interesting to hear. Not trying to troll, but I’d love to hear about what you have found to be better about it.

SimbaOnSteroids3• 7 years ago

If you kill political dissidents and harvest their organs as part of an active genocide campaign, you lose any claim at behaving ethically. Ethics are measured by the actions you take that you'd rather not advertise.

orthecreedence5• 7 years ago

US has some founding morals and principles they do not forget.

Excuse my french, but what the fuck are you talking about?

How about imprisoning and torturing US citizens without due process in the name of a nebulous war that only gets worse the more we fight it?

What about all the puppet governments we've set up so that our corporate overlords can make a quick buck at the expense of some country who's resources we want to plunder?

The US is an empire. Not based on governmental control, but based on financial control. The difference between surveillance in the US and surveillance in China is that we've managed to keep our surveillance largely in the private sector; but that doesn't mean 1984 doesn't already exist here! In fact, you carry 1984 with you in your pocket everywhere you go!

I'm not saying I'd rather live in China than the US, but putting the US on some high moral pedestal is extremely ignorant of all the terrible things we've done as a country.

jumelles• 7 years ago

The key here is that the executive branch of the US government doesn't get to do these things in a vacuum - both Congress and the Supreme Court temper its power, and though elections in the US are far from perfect they are still free.

sbmthakur• 7 years ago

The US is an empire. Not based on governmental control, but based on financial control.

But people in the US can remove legislatures and the top executive(the President). Do people in China have that option?

dang8• 7 years ago

Please don't take HN threads further into nationalistic flamewar. This is not at all what this site is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

jtms• 7 years ago

Yes.

throwaway77976• 7 years ago

the US has some founding morals and principles they do not forget.

It took the US around 200 years to fully live up to those founding morals and principles.

The PRC is a relatively young country. Only 70 years as of today. Give them a hundred more years and perhaps it’ll change drastically.

yellowapple• 7 years ago

I think the point is that the PRC wasn't actually founded on those same morals, but rather on ones of "we know what's best for the proletariat and anyone who disagrees must cease to exist". With a handful of exceptions (most notably: McCarthyism), the US has always had a very different attitude when it comes to political dissent.

Case in point: the freedom to openly criticize or even outright mock/ridicule a politician is demonstrably far stronger in the US - and historically has always been - than it is or has ever been in the PRC.

atomi• 7 years ago

China is what you get when you have a one party system. The country lives and dies for the party. Individual freedom is suppressed. Everyone must tow the party line. China is most certainly a concern for those of us that love freedom.

thegranderson• 7 years ago

Point #2 actually follows from Point #1. Hayek makes this argument very thoroughly in The Road to Serfdom:

Advancement within a totalitarian group or party depends largely on a willingness to do immoral things. The principle that the end justifies the means, which in individualist ethics is regarded as the denial of all morals, in collectivist ethics becomes necessarily the supreme rule. There is literally nothing which the consistent collectivist must not be prepared to do if it serves ‘the good of the whole’, because that is to him the only criterion of what ought to be done.

This quote is from the condensed edition, because my paper copy is at home: https://fee.org/resources/the-road-to-serfdom-condensed-edit...

carapace3• 7 years ago

During the depths of the Cultural Revolution there were incidents of cannibalism committed not out of hunger but out of a desire to prove unquestionable loyalty to the cadre.

no_opinions• 7 years ago

It may be helpful to differentiate Chinese people and society from its government.

I view Chinese people individually, and on the whole, as very humanistic. The real question is what would China look like if its system represented the sentiment of its people?

I think they like private property, inheritance not being taxed, and in general focusing on their own lives without interruption.

Like anywhere else, many Chinese people enjoy civil engagement.

If China broke up into multiple countries and had a union to reduce redundancy/inefficiencies in common areas, that'd be a huge improvement.

This also preserves Chinese culture/customs on a more granular basis.

carapace3• 7 years ago

It may be helpful to differentiate Chinese people and society from its government.

Not to mention some 50M+ Chinese that don't live in China.

Overseas Chinese (traditional Chinese: 海外華人/海外中國人; simplified Chinese: 海外华人/海外中国人; pinyin: Hǎiwài Huárén/Hǎiwài Zhōngguórén) are people of ethnic Chinese birth or descent who reside outside the territories of Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. Although a vast majority are Han Chinese, the group represents virtually all ethnic groups in China.

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

Chinese culture is much bigger, older, and grander than the CCP.

dillondoyle2• 7 years ago

No not alarmist. I'm with you and I strongly believe US should undo Trump so we can rebuild an international coalition of 'Democracy' to confront China, unified together, with much stronger action (backstopped with force if needed).

dang8• 7 years ago

Please don't take HN threads into nationalistic flamewar. This is not at all what this site is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

gwbas1c• 7 years ago

Remember the Boston Massacre:

The Boston Massacre is considered one of the most significant events that turned colonial sentiment against King George III and British Parliamentary authority. John Adams wrote that the "foundation of American independence was laid" on March 5, 1770, and Samuel Adams and other Patriots used annual commemorations (Massacre Day) to encourage public sentiment toward independence. Christopher Monk was the boy who was wounded in the attack and died in 1780, and his memory was honored as a reminder of British hostility.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Massacre#Contribution_t...

tehjoker• 7 years ago

This is bad, but the US should not intervene. Never have I ever seen an "intervention" help. If you can name one I'd love to hear it.

nilkn• 7 years ago

I prefer not to get major news from Reddit. The New York Times is covering this in great detail: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/30/world/asia/china-national...

phragg• 7 years ago

watch out sam altman might remove this for being too relevant in important political climate and not relevant in some softbank funded unicorn....

gdubs• 7 years ago

Vice News was doing, IMO, some of the best coverage of the situation in Hong Kong. Sadly, it seems the new AT&T leadership at HBO decided to make their mark and didn’t renew their contract.

justaguyhere• 7 years ago

Saw some of the videos and reports, it is awful. One thing I don't understand - these cops are also from HK, correct? The protestors are fighting for the cops rights too, correct? If that is true, what is going on in the mind of a cop who is beating an unarmed protestor?

Or are these cops from mainland China?

0x262d• 7 years ago

cops are trained to view their own population as hostile everywhere

znpy• 7 years ago

I'm still thrilled at how hypocritically calm the US are about this whole topic and China in general. They're always ready to "export democracy" except when the receiver would be some kind of business partner (or lacks natural oil sources).

So, how long until the US at least express an opinion on the matter?

systematical2• 7 years ago

What is the protestors' end game here? Hasn't the extradition bill been killed? What do they need to end the protests and return to normal? I am genuinely curious.

ptx• 7 years ago

The five demands:

1. Withdraw the bill - which finally did happen, after much stalling.

2. Independent investigation of the police intervention.

3. Not classifying the mostly peaceful protests as riots.

4. Release of the many arrested protesters. (Who could face very long prison sentences because of previous point.)

5. Democratic elections of the HK government - which seems wildly optimistic but is apparently in the HK constitution.

systematical2• 7 years ago

Thank you

dirkg• 7 years ago

Ah yes, if Chinese police did it, its barbaric. US cops do far worse on a daily basis and are worshiped as heroes and literally get away with murder without so much as a charge.

myxozoa• 7 years ago

This is a topic of fierce controversy in america, where police shootings often result in protests

This is an example of the same disconnect you describe in the comment

anchpop• 7 years ago

I expect this cop won't be meaningfully punished either

doomleika2• 7 years ago

Longer context https://twitter.com/ezracheungtoto/status/117901890027863244...

jonasft• 7 years ago

Serious question: Why aren't more from the police protesting as well, and supporting their citizens? I expect it is from fear of the government? What would they do to police unwilling to perform their duty? I wonder, because you have to assume some percentage of the police is in agreement with the protestors. Or maybe it is because right now, no matter what their opinion is, the need for order and police is greater than ever.

flukus2• 7 years ago

No idea what their pay structure is like, but if they're getting paid overtime they're creating a direct cost for the government and making a profit at the same time. Their protest can be as simple as turning up and doing a half-assed job.

Protester shot in chest by live police round during Hong Kong protests

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