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New York Times: China's political system superior to Americas.

Virus

Philosopher
Virus
Joined
Jun 19, 2006
Messages
6,875
The New York Times printed an opinion piece by a Mr Eric X. Lee which asserts China's political system is superior to Americas. I don't know if they though they were being edgy, but that's a pretty stupid thing to print.

What next? Islamic attitudes to women superior to the West's?
 
Virus said:
The New York Times printed an opinion piece by a Mr Eric X. Lee which asserts China's political system is superior to Americas. I don't know if they though they were being edgy, but that's a pretty stupid thing to print.

What next? Islamic attitudes to women superior to the West's?
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Why was it a "stupid thing to print" - opinion pieces as far as I know are meant to be opinions and it may surprise some folk but not everyone holds the same opinions as they do. Given that news papers often print opinion pieces to raise interest in their title it seems that it is far from being a pretty stupid thing to print as we are talking about the newspaper...
 
Yeah, your thread title rather gives a misleading opinion about the NYT Virus.

I'm sure that was a complete accident of course.
 
Space in the New York Times is a premium. I don't know why they'd devote it to this drudge that insults people's intelligence.
 
Maybe they can do a follow up on how Gaddafi's Libya had more respect for human rights than the West. Diverse opinions and all that.
 
Virus said:
Space in the New York Times is a premium. I don't know why they'd devote it to this drudge that insults people's intelligence.
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Do you have some specific points of disagreement with the article or are you just saying "the US system is better because it is, so there!"

If you have something specific then lets discuss it, otherwise you're just looking for a pissing contest.
 
Virus said:
Maybe they can do a follow up on how Gaddafi's Libya had more respect for human rights than the West. Diverse opinions and all that.
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I'm not sure what your problem is.

Do you object to others having opinions you don't agree with?

Or do you not mind others having opinions that don't match yours, just so long as they doni't actually voice them?

Where do you stand on freedom of speech?
 
Virus said:
Space in the New York Times is a premium. I don't know why they'd devote it to this drudge that insults people's intelligence.
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To piss you off, perhaps. Or maybe just to shake things up, and print something different from the usual Democrats-vs-Republicans BS.


But really, we all know it's because the NYT is actually run by a cabal of Chinese communists.
 
Well that's the first time I heard anyone claim the Tiananmen Square massacre was A Good ThingTM.
 
3point14 said:
I'm not sure what your problem is.

Do you object to others having opinions you don't agree with?

Or do you not mind others having opinions that don't match yours, just so long as they doni't actually voice them?

Where do you stand on freedom of speech?
Click to expand...

I never said it should be censored. Chill.
 
Virus said:
I never said it should be censored. Chill.
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You've not actually said what your point was. From what I can fathom from your opening post and subsequent posts is that you did not understand what opinion pieces in newspapers are or what they are meant to achieve for the newspaper. Is that correct?
 
WildCat said:
Well that's the first time I heard anyone claim the Tiananmen Square massacre was A Good ThingTM.
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You obviously missed this line: Eric X. Li is a venture capitalist. Most of those I know measure the value of something in terms of money.

From that perspective and from the piece I understand that he is saying that if the Tiananmen Square protests had led to an end of the regime (similar to recent events in Libya) then the country would have been thrown into chaos and its economy would have suffered with more people being harmed by the lack of economic growth and social breakdown.

It's the same argument we see libertarians on this Forum make when they say that regulations imposed by the likes of the FDA may prevent short term suffering but by slowing down progress harm millions in the future.

What it boils down to is a "the ends justify the means" argument.
 
Virus said:
I never said it should be censored. Chill.
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So, no specific point to argue, just (apparently) annoyed that a "quality" paper would give space to an opinion that you disagree with. Except that you haven't said why you disagree with it, just that you think it's "stupid", "drudge that insults people's intelligence" and insinuated that it shouldn't have been published in the first place.

Still nothing constructive or even discussable.
 
3point14 said:
Oh. Right.

So what was your point?
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He posted an opinion about their opinion piece?

My opinion:
It seems that the writer of the NYT op-ed would be OK with a fascist one-party state - just as long as they mostly did what he considered would make the nation great.

His main point seems to be that you can justify restricting democracy as there are objective "right" courses of action, which the powerful can perceive but the hoi-polloi are too ignorant to appreciate. (Consider me underwhelmed)

He also appears not to value highly:
a) the right to disagree with him (aka what right would he have to force his policies on an unwilling majority)
b) Cut down corruption and keep politicians responsive by the threat of not re-electing them.

Far from being dogma, point (b), when combined with transparency, is a very practical tool for encouraging good governance.
Point (a) may somewhat be considered dogma... but to ignore it would be to throw away vast amount of equal rights/equal protection ethics and law.

In my opinion, his opinion ain't worth the paper its written on. (And that's plenty bad as the NYT aint worth much at all).
 
Huh. I thought this thread was going to be about another Thomas Friedman column. Go figure.
 
Virus said:
Maybe they can do a follow up on how Gaddafi's Libya had more respect for human rights than the West. Diverse opinions and all that.
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Do you have anything logical to support the notion that China would have been better off if they had adopted the US model of government following their Revolution?

One short term president, 2 chambers of Congress and a Supreme Court would have done exactly what better to deal with famine, Japan, Russia, etc?
 
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