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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   28346 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 29, 2023

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British RAF describes applicants as "useless white male pilots" in leaked emails.

In a bid to increase its diversity, an organized and systematic discrimination of white men was implemented. Leaked emails from RAF staff include vehemently racist and sexist remarks, reports have revealed.

Under a subject line entitled: "BOARDING PROFILE", a squadron leader wrote:

"I noted that the boards have recently been predominantly white male heavy, if we don't have enough BAME and female to board then we need to make the decision to pause boarding and seek more BAME and female from the RF. I don't really need to see loads of useless white male pilots, lets get a focussed as possible, I am more than happy to reduce boarding if needed to have a balanced BAME/female/Male board."

The emails date back to 2020. But even before then there had been a focused anti-white anti-male effort to discriminate against white men in a bid to get women and browns into service. The full article linked above gives further account to the full extent of the conspiracy that kept multiple white men applicants out of service and further discriminated against those that managed to enter. In contrast with women and browns who were fast tracked through the process.

As is noted in the article, the conspiracy was temporarily halted as Group Captain Elizabeth Nicholl resigned from her post in protest to what she thought were unlawful hiring practices back in 2022. Voicing disagreement with Air Vice-Marshal Maria Byford, the RAF's head of recruitment. The row led the RAF to claim that no discrimination was taking place, as a Ministry of Defense inquiry was launched into the nature of Nicholl's resignation.

"The Royal Air Force will not shy away from the challenges we face building a Service that attracts and recruits talent from every part of the UK workforce. We will continue doing everything we can to increase our recruiting intake from under-represented groups within the provisions of the law."

And at the time the evidence for 'strict' discrimination was lacking. As then leaked emails only noted anti-white sentiment in propaganda creation:

'Gents, do any of you have a "pilot who is preferably not a white male" who would like to be the "RAF" face at a press event for the release of Top Gun 2? Shy guys get no cakes so shout quick as offer has also gone out to other units.'

Nicholl's replacement, Group Captain Dole, saw no issue with furthering the conspiracy of active anti-white discrimination and went on to be awarded an OBE in the 2022 New Years Honours List. As the RAF proudly met its target of 20% women, 10% browns. Thankfully a part of the racist and discriminatory process by which the goal was reached is now out in the open.

Contrasting this anti-white conspiracy with last years report that China was "luring" UK pilots to train its pilots, what exactly does a white person owe a state that actively discriminates against them?

Contrasting this anti-white conspiracy with last years report that China was "luring" UK pilots to train its pilots, what exactly does a white person owe a state that actively discriminates against them?

This is completely pathetic. A pilot feels, perhaps not unreasonably, disadvantaged by this one policy, so that's grounds on which to throw your toys out of the pram and work for a state which, for most RAF pilots one imagines, behaves in a manner completely antithetical to your values?

  • -23

This is literally the plot of Shakespeare's Coriolanus - "discriminated-against military leader defects to erstwhile-enemies" is so common as to be a trope throughout history.

If all states adopt values antithetical to your own, I think it's a reasonable response to abandon loyalty to nation-states and instead prioritize other loyalties - and if the Chinese give you enough money to set your family up in comfort and style, you might choose them over the nation that discarded you.

I am actually surprised at how well right leaning military men have cooperated with the system. The war in Afghanistan ended with large numbers of migrants comming to Europe. Afghans are the second most overrepresented minority in crime stats in Sweden. The war flooded Europe with heroin. What exactly was going to be conserved by that war? What socially conservative agenda was ever going to be promoted by that war? Yet, thousands of right leaning white men volunteered to die or get their legs blown off to defend the military industrial complex and globalization. The war in Iraq caused a million migrants to come to Europe and has been a disaster for the Middle East and Europe. I can't see any socially conservative goal ever have been achieved through that war. Yet, thousands of right leaning white men got killed in Iraq in order for their kids to be in a class full of refugees.

Libya ended with a million migrants a year coming to Europe and a jihadist trained by the UK government killing 22 girls at an Ariana Grande concert.

Taiwan is important because the globalists wanted to dump wages by moving electronics production to a lower wage country. If China tries to take Taiwan, the counterattack that gets mowed down will be manned by conservative white men. Towards the end, a few elite forces will walk over the bodies of dead polish Catholics in order to raise the pride flag over reconquered Taiwan. In the movie, the white men will be replaced by women of colour.

Israel/Palestine is a conflict between those who want Arabs to live where their grandparents live and those who want millions of arabs to move. The same conservatives who say they are opposed to arab migrations will be more fanatically zionist than what is allowed on Israeli TV.

I am nor surprised that the western militaries are skeptical of conservative white men. The shocking part is how loyal they have been.

Was it Orwell who said that phrases like "perhaps not unreasonably" are like ink clouds for indefensible political writing?

Saying it about your opponent's point feels a lot less egregious.

A pilot feels, perhaps not unreasonably, disadvantaged by this one policy, so that's grounds on which to throw your toys out of the pram and work for a state which, for most RAF pilots one imagines, behaves in a manner completely antithetical to your values?

I'm less familiar with the UK than the US, but my understanding of the comment was that after 50-60 years of destruction of national cohesion/sentiment/what have you turning what would have been a calling that a citizen takes up to preform their duty into a mere job that an atomized individual takes, this could be the trigger for said atomized individual to lose the last of their belief in the system and finally try to maximize market value.

When I was 16, I and every other boy in my RS class was made to stand up and recieve chastisement by our then RS teacher, who proclaimed that the world was made for us, by people like us (my school was 99% white working class), that we had it the easiest out of any group of people and that we had a duty to right this imbalance. This is not my lived experience (though I attribute that to my undiagnosed and untreated autism), and it is broadly not the lived experience of young men, who have worse outcomes than their fathers and are expected their bear the dwindling of their piece of the socioeconomic pie and the societal narrative that this is not so with a smile on their face.

And frankly, given the events of the pandemic, I am not so convinced that there is a large divide between the British and Chinese states.

I am not so convinced that there is a large divide between the British and Chinese states.

Well, where you complained (not unreasonably I might add, that is a bit ridiculous) about an unfair upbraiding by your RS teacher for your privilege, ethno-religious oppression in China entails internment, sterilisation, forced labour and physical maltreatment (even torture) in those camps at the hands of state authorities. This really is only a comment someone living in the freedom and prosperity of the West could make. Young Britons have it bad? Hardly anywhere near as bad as toiling in a Chinese coal mine or electronics factory.

Young Britons have it bad? Hardly anywhere near as bad as toiling in a Chinese coal mine or electronics factory.

Have you heard of the Rotherham scandal? I'd say that being discriminated against by the government (which white working class girls are) carries significant costs and problems.

The thing about this, we are constantly told that the tiniest hint of bias against certain races (blacks and jews in the US) is massively dangerous and a slippery slope to literal genocide. Meanwhile, individual hatred and institutional bias against whites is slowly but surely getting stronger, yet there are people (often the same people warning us about how dangerous other types of bias are) who tell us essentially, well they're not literally sending you to death camps yet so what are you whining about? Suck it up and quit being such a scaredy-cat.

Why shouldn't we assume that this type of bias is exactly as unjust and dangerous as any other type? Exactly when will it be okay to do something about it more serious than complaining on the internet?

we are constantly told that the tiniest hint of bias against certain races (blacks and jews in the US) is massively dangerous and a slippery slope to literal genocide

Yes, woke leftists say that, and they are wrong. Copying them doesn’t make that argument any better.

Exactly when will it be okay to do something about it more serious than complaining on the internet?

When they do something worse to you than marginally reducing your chances of getting a job.

  • -11

Yes, woke leftists say that, and they are wrong.

They are wrong about white gentiles. And specifically wrong about people who aren't "pre-judging" anymore, they are merely "judging".

Leftists are likely correct about themselves.

Yes, woke leftists say that, and they are wrong. Copying them doesn’t make that argument any better.

If they're wrong, stop letting them get away with saying it.

Of course, you can't, because you aren't in charge. But the fact that neither you nor anyone else can stop them is, unfortunately, significant. It means the society and the structures we have now can't solve this problem, so changes are going to need to be made.

the tiniest hint of bias against certain races (blacks and jews in the US) is massively dangerous and a slippery slope to literal genocide

I don't think you see much of that in mainstream circles, seems a very online sort of thing, but where you do see it I agree that it is hyperbolic and unhelpful.

well they're not literally sending you to death camps yet so what are you whining about?

Much more than 'not literally sending you to death camps' there isn't that much serious bias against whites, not in the UK anyway. There is some 'diversity hiring' (but the available evidence seems to suggest that there are strong effects of in-group bias in hiring, which mostly of course favours whites, so on net even in the direct hiring process I think whites do fine, before one even considers broader questions of socio-economic inequality etc.) but it's hardly sufficient as to constitute a major or even minor concern for any aspiring professional in Britain. This RAF stuff has been newsworthy precisely because it is unusual for such vigorous policies to be in place.

  • -10

but the available evidence seems to suggest that there are strong effects of in-group bias in hiring, which mostly of course favours whites,

Which available evidence suggests that?

Fictitious applications were made to nearly 3,200 real jobs, randomly varying applicants’ minority background, but holding their skills, qualifications and work experience constant. On average, 24% of applicants from the majority group (white people of British origin) received a positive response from employers, but only 15% of ethnic minorities received a positive response.

https://www.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/news-events/news/new-csi-report-on-ethnic-minority-job-discrimination/

Of course, that assumes discrimination is a result of positive in group prejudice or a result of history with minorities. That is, you stole a base.

levels of discrimination have remained unchanged since the 1960s

This is already not passing the smell test.

I am unable to find the study. It seems to be self-published by the department, but the PDF is unavailable.

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(but the available evidence seems to suggest that there are strong effects of in-group bias in hiring, which mostly of course favours whites, so on net even in the direct hiring process I think whites do fine, before one even considers broader questions of socio-economic inequality etc.)

Oh what do you know, it's actually biased in whites' favour somehow. You know, unless you are in the armed forces, or the police, or the media, or working for the royals, and so on.

before one even considers broader questions of socio-economic inequality etc.

Etc in this instance means "other things that don't actually matter and only distract from the issue of blatant racism that is somehow not a problem when it targets white men, but is otherwise the Greatest Sin In The Universe!". I'd love to see the available evidence though, it's not that recent civil service kerfuffle where that guy reckons there must be bias because the demographics don't specifically match those of the population is it?

Oh what do you know, it's actually biased in whites' favour somehow. You know, unless you are in the armed forces, or the police, or the media, or working for the royals, and so on.

The first article is about a case where an employment tribunal ruled the discrimination was unlawful and awarded compensation to the victim. The third article, unless I am misreading it, doesn't quite support your point, either.

And you think the police committing unlawful discrimination to the extent a tribunal was held and they were required to compensate the victim means they are not discriminating? If I had just linked a guy suing them you'd say it hadn't been tried yet. And if you read to the end of that third link, you would learn that the royal staff now complies with the equality act 'in principle and practice', meaning they now use the hiring quotas. That's why it's at the end of the article, so you know the royals have confessed their sins and can be counted amongst the holy - and then the final sentence tells you that this is provisional, and their good grace will be stripped if they slip up.

“Had he not been such an exceptional candidate he may not even have suspected anything was wrong and this unlawful and unacceptable selection process may have been allowed to continue.

Not every discrimination case is provable. If they managed to be egregious enough about it that they got caught, there are certainly a bunch of other cases where the evidence wasn't as strong and they did it without getting caught.

I would say that the British State currently has little room to commit any of the atrocities you describe. We have no heavy industry, as most of it was shipped offshore to East Asia and other places around the world and thus no Lithium Miners to abuse for the benefit of the global market. The worst crime that can be attributed on this basis is that the government leaves people who cannot adapt to the information economy to rot.

Morever, outside of the post WW2 waves of migrants, the UK has no immediate different ethnic group to victimise - white welshmen and scotsmen have more in common genetically with englishmen than they otherwise wish to pretend. If there was perhaps a group of Zorostrians who lived in Cornwall/Devon at the turn of the 20th century we may very well have had recent state oppression on british soil.

What about the Irish?

Ireland is not really considered "British" soil in the popular conciousness, NI is seen by everyone barring loyalists as this colonial venture we didn't really clear up. Much of what happens in the UK news cycle doesn't consider NI and May's coalition government was the first time many people actually learned about the separate but equal part of their state. In addition, most of the oppression was done by the loyalist ulster government, who are neither truly Irish nor mainland British, rather than the westminster government.

The oppression was done by loyalists, but the specific atrocities, Balymurphy and Bloody Sunday, were done by the British Army and the Parachute Regiment in particular. Operation Demetrius, when 2000 men were interned, was a British Army operation, so is definitely the fault of Westminster.

Things happen slowly; then suddenly. The whole reason why PRC treats its minorities poorly is Han supremacist world view. That isn’t that different compared to the view that white men are less than (ie everyone else is superior).

So right now being a who’re person in England ain’t the worst thing. But right now is slowly. We may see suddenly soon (or we may not).

I’d love to hear more about Han supremacy and Chinese minority oppression.

I know a girl from work that is Chinese. The minority groups come up every now and then since one of them are from her hometown. I get no sense of supremacy in these conversations. If anything, it’s more of an attitude like “my hometown has this neat minority with cool food and traditional clothes. They have dance troupes and dress differently at official functions.” Kind of like a unqiue little touristy thing.

The whole Han supremacy thing seems more like a Reddit meme or a porting over of “white supremacy” to China. I’m sure there is disparate impact. And 99% of the communist party are Han. But it doesn’t come across as some systematic oppression. Not at all.

Do you believe the reports of mass repression happening in the Xinjiang region in the past decade+ to be exaggerated or fabricated from whole cloth? Do you expect a random Chinese expat (?) to have accurate knowledge about the inner workings of her country, and to share that knowledge publicly?

It's June 4th tomorrow, why don't you ask her about that on Monday to calibrate how much she's willing to say about China's recent history.

I do believe there is mass repression of the Uighur Muslims. I do think its comparable to the Israel/Palestine situation. Not the same. But comparable. And I think the Isralies are assholes when it comes to Palestine. But they have their reasons.

With israel though, there is a massive amount of media out there explaining exactly why their policies are necessary and/or minimizing what the Israelis are doing. That’s where the comparison ends.

To be clear. I don’t support Israel or China using state power to indiscriminately punish vast populations. I just strongly suspect that everyone eats up the Uighur story because they’ve been fed a one sided story and it fits the broader interests of the TPTB.

And back to my original comment, I’d love to hear more about this Han supremacy. That sounds a lot broader than this specific draconian crackdown on wahabbi Islam and their wider community.

ethno-religious oppression in China entails internment, sterilisation, forced labour and physical maltreatment (even torture) in those camps at the hands of state authorities.

While I fully believed this as far back as high school, I’m not sure I do anymore. Do you have any solid non-western sources for this?

I know a guy who is from Xinjiang (not a Uighur) and you literally need to present photo ID to enter a grocery store. Even if you don't get out in a camp everyday life is nothing like Britain.

Funny that. During the pandemic you had to show Id to get into grocery stores. And there were certain stores you were banned from altogether.

Clearly dumb, but you're not doing that anymore. They are still doing that in Xinjiang.

I tend to agree with you. The entire internment camp story appeared out of no where 5ish years ago and was convieniently timed with chilling western-Chinese relations.

The Muslim groups in western China that are oppressed used to be on the US list of terrorist organizations. They were quietly removed from that list a few years ago.

I imagine the Chinese apologist line is that these are Islamist extremists that have executed terroist attacks in the past. They’re surpressing them not unlike how Israel deals with Palestinians.

It’s not at all surprising that western liberals would be up in arms about this. Islamophobia is one of their pet issues.

I have no idea what really goes on in western china. But I certainly don’t think that the state department, cia, ngos, and media are telling me the whole truth. In fact we’ve seen them make up lies out of whole cloth many many times when it serves their strategic interest.

The Muslim groups in western China that are oppressed used to be on the US list of terrorist organizations. They were quietly removed from that list a few years ago.

The groups being oppressed there consist of entire ethnicities, not merely the organizations within them that commit terrorist acts. Hamas may be a terrorist organization, but Palestinians aren't, unless we are using the same logic that justified Japanese internment camps in the US.

But I certainly don’t think that the state department, cia, ngos, and media are telling me the whole truth.

The whole truth is that the communists destroyed the traditional religious order in western China, which had made its peace with the state, during the Cultural Revolution, and the vacuum was filled by Wahhabis from the Middle East who came in during the decades of economic liberalization. Newly radicalized elements of the Uyghur population advocated for independence and launched a series of terrorist attacks against Han residents and symbols of the government, after which the CCP concluded that Uyghur culture was the source of the problem and must be utterly destroyed. It was at this point that re-education camps were established, cameras were set up at every street corner, and millions of Han colonists were shipped in from the west to either displace the locals or assimilate them through intermarriage, guarded by a militarized police state that scrutinizes the minutest detail of daily behavior and social media history for signs of radicalization.

The entire internment camp story appeared out of no where 5ish years ago

Perhaps because that is when the camps were opened?

And note that China has not denied the existence of the camps but of course claims they are "vocational centers."

And see here

And note that China has not denied the existence of the camps but of course claims they are "vocational centers."

That's denying the existence of the camps. All that they're "admitting" to is owning buildings.

And note that China has not denied the existence of the camps but of course claims they are "vocational centers."

Is that a direct translation of "labor camps" from English (or perhaps German "Arbeitslager") to Mandarin and back again?

The Chinese name literally translates as the rather long-winded "Educational Center for Training of Professional Skills."

I suppose sometimes you really need to spite your face and your nose is an acceptable price.

So what's the State that has values that are antithetical to the pilot values in this scenario exactly? It's not the one that's racially oppressing them? I'm not sure I understand.

has values that are antithetical to the pilot values

China. Most Britons and doubtless RAF pilots would and do abhor their form of government.

And yet, no Viet Cong ever called me a nigger.

Now how exactly is the Chinese form of government different from the UK in practical terms right now? What is it that you would be defending that is practically different?

And before you make any invocation of the natural freedoms of Englishmen or to democracy, remember this is the UK right now we're talking about. A regime led by a bureaucrat that owes his seat to a coup where people are routinely harassed by the police for speech the government disapproves of.

Now how exactly is the Chinese form of government different from the UK in practical terms right now? What is it that you would be defending that is practically different?

The UK government did not literally weld people into their apartment buildings to enforce covid lockdowns. It has not within living memory shot protesters en masse in the streets or run them over with tanks. It does not throw its citizens into internment camps for believing in the wrong religion. It has not within the last century so thoroughly destroyed its own economy and agricultural production that tens of millions of its people starved to death or sent forth mobs of brainwashed children to smash the graves of their ancestors with sledgehammers or stone their relatives and friends to death on made-up charges to meet a quota.

There are more worlds of difference between the Chinese and British governments than there are in the solar system.

The UK government is committed to replacing the British population with foreigners from all corners of the world, regardless of what voters have to say: https://twitter.com/t848m0/status/1560662923101347840

In 100 years time, judging by present trends, China will be Chinese, albeit old and authoritarian. Britain will be one of several North Atlantic Economic Zones.

It really doesn't matter, in the grand scheme of history, what the Iroquois domestic policy was, if they had a coup or whether they had famines from time to time. Does the nation actually exist as an identity? Does it have sovereignty over land? Those are the most important questions.

This is the key issue here. Why does the UK expect British people to show loyalty to a government that is trying to take their country from them, that has no concept of national interests? If you turn a nation-state into an economic zone then don't be surprised if your soldiers become mercenaries.

It has not within living memory shot protesters en masse in the streets or run them over with tanks. It does not throw its citizens into internment camps for believing in the wrong religion.

Not to say that the UK is as bad as China, but this isn't strictly true. 1971 saw British troops shoot dozens of protesters or just people going about their day indiscriminately with Bloody Sunday and the Ballymurphy massacre. And 2000 people were interned without trial, some being tortured, in Northern Ireland over 4 years starting in 1971.

A regime led by a bureaucrat that owes his seat to a coup

Probably not much continuing here now thar these points have come up in your other comment but this is absurd. This is just how the Westminster system functions and even this party-orientated system has been the norm for coming up on a century. It's called the 1922 Committee for a reason.

When you are on your third PM since the last election there is a real question of democratic legitimacy for their current administration.

With that said, I think there are a lot more complaints about the British system compared to the above (eg lack of freedom of speech).

When you are on your third PM since the last election there is a real question of democratic legitimacy for their current administration.

How so? He has the support of the MPs we all elected on the understanding that they could if they wished replace the PM with another.

Under that logic you would never need another election. After all, you already elected the MPs once.

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Because generally speaking when people voted Tory they were voting for Boris. At a certain point, the ruling regime is so far from what people voted for it would be appropriate to call for a new election.

The only reason Tory’s don’t is because they’d lose.

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I agree the Chinese government is abhorrent but what makes them so much worse compared to the UK government? That is, sure China is worse but the UK government also sucks.

Surely whatever you think about the UK, any plausible faults are on a completely different plane to those of the Chinese state, especially if the complaints you're levying are the aforementioned ones about affirmative action or whatever. Most importantly of all of course is the total absence of any genuine democracy or appreciable freedom of the press in China. Certainly to the extent that assisting China militarily because you were hacked off at a diversity initiative is indefensible.

First, I don’t really value democracy qua democracy. Second, the point isn’t just affirmative action (which is wrong) but actual dislike and disgust toward whites and specifically white males. That hatred will eventually lead to big problems for white males.

So while China sucks, strategical strengthening an enemy may in fact be beneficial. Granted, I wouldn’t strengthen since it believes in Han superiority. But the basic concept of strengthening the enemy of a regime that despises you isn’t a crazy idea.

So while China sucks, strategical strengthening an enemy may in fact be beneficial. Granted, I wouldn’t strengthen since it believes in Han superiority. But the basic concept of strengthening the enemy of a regime that despises you isn’t a crazy idea.

Strengthening foreign enemies of the regime is almost by definition strengthening people who believe in their own superiority over you. If not China, then whom? Russia? ISIS? No outsider is going to help native Britons out of the goodness of their own hearts, and I daresay most of the world still despises them more than their own government does.

but actual dislike and disgust toward whites and specifically white males

This is so terminally online. Are you British? I have literally no idea where you have picked this idea up.

  • -22

Reading the relevant emails posted in the first link.

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This is so terminally online. Are you British? I have literally no idea where you have picked this idea up.

Did you read the OP in this thread? Declaring shocked ignorance isn't the great argument you think it is.

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Here's a counterargument. China does despise white people, they are just better at hiding it due to East Asian cultural norms.

Meanwhile in the West, while its true that white males face serious dejure discrimination, we are still on the top of the social hierarchy in some ways. For example, white men have an easier time finding dates with women. This "revealed preference" of women shows their true beliefs. Even if they might claim to view all races equally, they prefer white men.

So I think you are overestimating hate for white men in the West and underestimating it in China.

Men do not face de jure discrimination, they face de facto discrimination. It is still technically illegal to discriminate against white men.

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Oh I noted that China believes in Han superiority. I don’t doubt the PRC loathe whites. And I wouldn’t buddy up with the PRC. My point is that buddying up with the enemy of the UK may not be a bad idea.

China seems to have a hierarchy of Han->honkees->everyone else. Which puts the white people above the bottom, anyway, unlike in more enlightened countries.

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There is no freedom of the press or genuine democracy in the UK.

The PM is a party man the public did not vote for and people are routinely arrested for disagreeing with government ideology.

The PM is a party man the public did not vote for

Welcome to the Westminster system. The public did not vote for him, but they voted in the MPs that chose him as leader. A slight degree of removal but every action he wants to take (at least in the realm of primary legislation) must be voted upon by the people's elected representatives and those representatives could remove him and his government at any time should they wish to.

people are routinely arrested for disagreeing with government ideology.

Like with @Lizzardspawn before I respond to this I'll ask you a question; is it your genuine belief that the Chinese state does not restrict freedom of speech to any considerably greater degree than the British state?

I'll just try to answer here instead of having two threads for the same points.

I believe that using constitutional means of removing elected representatives in favor of bureaucrats approved by the real power structure is accurately characterized as a coup.

I believe that the current regime in place in the United Kingdom is no less totalitarian than the one in China. I believe it has similarly declared totalitarian designs, when challenged it has made similar exceptions to individual freedoms, and it has no ideological mechanism to stop it from growing more oppressive to those it sees as it's ennemies.

I can name ennemies that have suffered similar repression and harassment. I can name truths that are not allowed to be said. I can name people killed without trial. I can name ethnicities whose property has been seized. I can name statutes that allow the government to break the law. And now I can even name ethnic cleansing initiatives.

I don't like that things are the way they are. But I don't think it's in any way rational to consider the UK a free state. And I would like the case to say it is one still is to be explicitly stated and solid enough it doesn't sound word for word like Chinese propaganda.

I'm glad to be wrong. But why is the UK in any sense of the word freeer than China?

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Yup. In UK they arrest you for misgendering and in China about mentioning Tianamen

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6687123/Mother-arrested-children-calling-transgender-woman-man.html

Before I respond with anything else is your genuine belief that the Chinese state does not restrict freedom of speech to any considerably greater degree than the British state?

In which country are you more likely to actually be arrested (or at least have the police show up) for posting in contradiction of state mandated beliefs? I actually don't know the answer. I do hear about it more often from the UK but that doesn't prove much for multiple reasons.

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In the same order of magnitude. Just different things you cant say. British libel laws are notorious. And the police is quite active in anti bigorty and hate speech online.

China cares about things people say that towards the state, UK - what people say to each other. Since I am quite fond of China retaking Taiwan, suppressing Tibet and don't give a fuck about Tiananmen - I don't think I can get in trouble with my speech in China ...

China does not claim to represent the white pilot's values, China does not demand any "duty" or "service" from them, the pilot's work in China, if they sign up, would be voluntary on purely capitalist mercenary basis. Not the same thing.

My contention is that the UK is exactly the same and any support of it from Englishmen in its current iteration is also purely mercenary.

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