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You misunderstand. I don't care that the Chinese have a different system, I may even admire parts of it. I'm saying that the democratic/American system cannot be blase about this in the same way. Americans are very puritanical about their liberty, if nothing else.
Countries don't do things, people do. The question is whether the American people will tolerate that argument baldly put. I think there's obvious financial incentives in destroying the last guardrails of the old world, but the arguments about freedom that license it find far more purchase than they did in the past and that's because of the people.
It's self-evident to me that Islam Is Right About
WomenGambling. But "this is simply a net loss for society and you're fooling yourself if you think we need to run this experiment again - humans are still as weak and stupid as they ever were" probably would have failed on many, many people and that matters.Xi doesn't have to care. Small d-democrats do.
If by puritanical you mean have our head up our own ass, then I’d agree. Americans tend to fetishize the concept. We proudly go around thinking we’re the freest and most open society on Earth. And in some ways that’s accurate. But in reality America is an open society with a closed mind. Americans tend not to listen to the rest of the world.
And people are what make up countries. Families make up nations. Nations make up state’s.
And democrats only have to pretend to care. To me bread and circuses are insufficient to have a functional democracy.
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