Hi,everyone, how many of you can understand what is real

20 years in the US, huh. You have my sympathies.

It's no wonder you have forgotten what it means to be a true Chinese, and what it is truely like in China.

I must question what it is that kept you away for so long, and I recommend that you return to the motherland immediately before you are utterly corrupted.

I will be waiting here for you ready to give you a good Chinese political education, and to remove any filthy foreign human rights that you might have picked up.

Indeed, you will learn the correct way to kowtow before one of your Communist masters!

So dirty american, don't you think that you're contradicting yourself. If you really think that our understanding of China here is so one-sided and not worthwhile reading, why do you bother leaving a message here?

Raj: CORRECT YOUR THOUGHTS!

"dirty american": If you spent 20 years in America then you have my sympathies. I spent a bit more time in America than that (from the time I was born) and then I left. America is truly a fucked up country, these days.

Ah, but, hm. Well, I was BORN in America and then I left when I was an adult, when I was free to leave. So, dude, I wonder WHY HAVEN'T YOU left yet?

I have permanent UK residency. I don't ever have to go back to America. So, dude, "dirty american", WHY do YOU STAY in America?

I mean, when the Socialist Paradise of Communist China is waiting for you?

Don't you LOVE the great socialist Chinese MOTHERLAND? Why do you stay away? Why do you stay in that GHASTLY country, the USA?

Heh. The great Socialist Motherland. It reminds me of a joke I heard in Russia:

...well, the joke goes back to the 1930s. A KGB man (back then it was called the "NKVD") visited a school. And he asked one 12 year old boy:

"Who is your Father?"

And the boy raised his fist and he said:

"Our father is our great leader, Comrade Joseph Stalin!"

And the KGB guy said, "GOOD! And who is your MOTHER?" And the boy raised his fist and he said:

"Our mother is our great Socialist Homeland, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics!"

And the KGB guy said, "GOOD! And what do YOU want to become?"

And the boy said:

"AN ORPHAN!"

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

What's realy telling is that he signed himself "dirty american". After 20 years in the US, I wonder if he counts as being Chinese any more.

Maybe having been out for so long, Beijing won't let him back in without a Visa.

Typical, Ivan can get perimnant residency in the UK, but I can't get permission to travel on a US airliner.

Something's wrong here.

ACB, I see your point, but in response I will say:

I LOVE Britain, and I would give my life to defend it. I say this without reservation.

So, ACB, whenever you become willing to die for the USA, you will deserve residency in the USA.

:wink:

I can probaly get perminiant residency if I am posted to the US on a perminant basis, and I could apply for citizenship. However, this still wouldn't gurentee that I would be allowed past airport security once I got it.

Ivan, it's nothing personal, but I spent quite some time in the UK and didn't find it to my taste. It's a very scitsophrenic country that's afraid to impose order on the chaos.

Plus the weather stinks and they couldn't run a train on time if their life depended on it.

:shock: Seriously.

Weather's a lot better than in China! Plus our trains actually have improved their punctuality. If you take annualised figures, trains arriving on time are over 85% - periodically it's now over 90%. Could do better, but are improving.

ACB, if you "didn't find the UK to your taste", then why the fuck don't you LEAVE?

I mean, considering that you live in the UK at this time.

ACB, you have a habit of spelling things phonetically.

How would you define "schizophrenic" in this instance?

"Imposing order on chaos" and making the trains run on time is a little too reminiscent of Mussolini for my taste.

Calling for one thing, and doing exactly the opposite.

for example, Britain is undergoing a youth crime pandemic, and in order to curb it, rather than bringing in tough new legislation, they introduce less severe punishments for youth crime.

The British government actually instituted state mandated grounding, (Just like your parents used to do if you broke your mom's vace). Seriously, I'm not making this up.

"Don't go to jail. Go to your room and think about what you've done."

They are also so worried about offending anybody that they can't institue any meaningful social reforms.

They want to make youth crime unacceptable, but rather than shaming criminals as is right and proper, they introduce guidelines to say that public servents like teachers and policemen can't do anything that might stigmatize them for being criminals.

Their national drugs education policy is a joke. It practically forbids critisizm of drug addicts and treats them as victims, and their national youth pregnancy prevention prevention plan won't allow teenage mother's to be singled out for critisizm, or for people to mention sexual morality.

The system is basicly chaos, I know no end of British who come to China and say how safe it is. Well here's the news, that is how it is supposed to be.

You comit a crime, you got to jail, everybody hates you and thinks that you're scum. Other people see this and don't folow your lead.

If you coddle criminals and tell them that it's not their fault, and then nobody will ever learn the proper morals.

Oh, and while I'm on the topic.

They want better results in schools, so they cram more and more into the school curiculum, but refuse to extend the school day. Meaning that there is less time for each topic. So their students come out of school not knowing how to do basic math, or science.

Come on. A British school day starts at 9 and ends at three, and only works for 5 days week.

How on earth are they meant to compete with Chinese and Japanese who start before they do, end after they do, and work a 6 day week.

Chaos, chaos, chaos.

The trains are also REALLY bad.

I used to have to commute in Britain. On paper I would have to get one train and then wait on the platform for about 12 minutes for a second connecting train.

In reality, I had to get a train 20 minutes earlier than that one in order to make sure that I made my connecting service.

How on earth can a train be so late that you miss a 12 minute connection? It's inconceivable.

It's not as if I were on a backwater line. I'm talking about a train going into Victoria station or London Bridge. Two of the most important stations in the country. Yet sometimes they ran over 15 minutes late.

You know what would really solve the problem of those trains? Not a strong government. Private competition.

As Reagan once said, "Government does not solve problems. It merely subsidizes them."

1. Can someone translate? I'm too tired to strain my brain.
2. I thought this was a troll?
3. Why is dirty_american dirty? His he a prostitute or something?

1. lightyear: basically, dirty_american is calling this TPD a wankfest of people with ill-informed opinions and no lives.

2. Probably. But since he didn't call this site 'anti-Chinese' nor spammed the board, my guess is Richard tolerates him.

3. All Americans are dirty. Only the Chinese have the ability to shit rainbows.

As Reagan once said, "Government does not solve problems. It merely subsidizes them."

Oh, give me a break, t_co with your neo-liberal claptrap. The British railways are run privately. The deterioration in services coincided with privatisation!

And some of the most efficient public transportation in the world exists here in Hong Kong, with the MTR subway and KCR railways. They are semi-private monopolies (with 50% government ownership).

Oh.

But I still believe that increasing competition across other forms of public transportation (such as buses, the Tube) as well as eliminating the remaining subsidies on the trains (which I know exist) would solve the problem.

But yeah, I'm a dyed-in-the-wool libertarian, so no surprises there.

Nothing more despicable than a "dyed-in-the-wool" economic libertarian who writes apologias for authoritarian regimes.

Economic libertarianism is a threadbare ideology, as should be apparent from any basic knowledge of history (the Irish potato famine, 19th century famines in India, Dickensian England, the Great Depression. etc.) and current developments (the turn away from Friedmanism in Latin America, the problems of an unregulated free market in China, Global Warming, etc.).

HAHAHA! :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Heheh, I guess I should've clarified. I'm a libertarian only when it comes to economic issues, and a utilitarian when it comes to everything else. Although, come to think of it, I really don't expect much from a political system, only enough stability and openness for the best ideas to mix with capital and succeed.

That's why you guys are really cool--I would never feel such a passion over sociopolitical issues--and really didn't until I hit this forum.

Economic libertarianism is directly tied to huge increases in GDP. However, it also produces inequality. Because I'm really not bothered by inequality (because I think it's a natural outcome considering that not all humans are the same) I'd take that over slower growth any day. However, there are instances in which gov't intervention is necessary:
1) Negative externalities (pollution) in which economic harms spread beyond the buyer and seller,
2) Preventing fraud and coercion,
3) Smoothing out the business cycle
4) Making necessary public works investments (as a last resort and only when absolutely necessary)
For #4, a vigilant public needs to keep a leash on gov't pork (this is actually my biggest beef with the CCP and their pet projects like the QZ-Tibet Railroad and 3 Gorges Dam--so frickin retarded)

I'd imagine inequality and political oppression would seem a-ok if you're looking at it from a window in the Kerry Centre.
However, despite inherent differences amongst people, I believe that every one of us is a person and should have their own dignity and rights.

T-co, I feel bad that for the past few days you've been getting verbally attacked from all sides, sometimes with undue harshness, and I think you're basically a nice guy and definitely not a wang te, but you must realize that when you write whoppers like the one above you're just giving them more arsenal.

T_co, with your definition of "economic libertarianism," you've just finally clarified for me how so many so-called libertarians could have voted for George Bush.

Thankfully, most of the more socially libertarian types I know have finally woken up and are, if anything, more angry and appalled than I am.

Well, no, actually. I don't know that they are angrier and more appalled than I am. But up there with me on the outrage scale.

t_co, I'm not as nice as Lisa and Nausicca. I always make a point of not responding to your provocation. But I’ll make an exception today. Let me put on my broadest Aussie accent and shout, “t_co, you’re F**K’N unreal. Which BL**DY century are you living in? No wonder China is so scr*wed up with people like you feeding Chinese people with craps.�

Now, back to my calm and collected self. Since when are GDP growth, privatisation and economic libertarianism solutions to political oppression, human rights abuse and corruption? No economic growth can take away the pain of torture and displacement. Any political regime that believes it can use economic growth to make up for its history of abuse is doomed to collapse in a very bad way. So please do not trivialise people’s suffering through your economic rationalism. It’s like burying your head in the sand.

"Economic Libertarianism" reminds me of the story about the two maggots:

Two maggots were born at the same time, in the same place. But then a gust of wind came along and blew them apart. One maggot landed in a big, LUXURIOUS pile of dogshit! So he grew up into a strong, healthy, happy fly.

But the other maggot landed on a pavement, and rolled into a gutter, and all he could eat was a little piece of birdshit. So, he grew into a weak, sick fly.

Then the two flies met again, and the weak, sick fly asked the strong healthy fly, "What is the secret of your success?"

And the other fly said: "Brains, good looks and personality!"

Ha, Ha ... Nice one, Ivan. :D

"Economic libertarianism" is merely another name for what was known as "Steam Intellect" and "Manchester School economics" during the worse excesses of laissez-faire in 19th century Britain.

My recommendation to you, t_co is to read Dickens' Hard Times and its impassioned critique of Gradgrindism. As you are evidently not a complete wanker, there may be hope for you yet.

I take it Generalissimo Pinochet is your pin-up boy?

"Economic Libertarianism" is intellectual wanking with an invisible hand.

Well, I did graduate from the University of Chicago. Some of my professors actually advised Pinochet.

But my rule is that I don't extend my personal beliefs onto society as a whole; basically, even though I believe what I believe, I only practice my beliefs within my own life (my girlfriend is a social liberal; she would find many friends here heheh). Basically, all I do is think hard and make a shitload of money.

That's because I believe I don't have the resources or security to effect any sort of meaningful change (apart from posting in a forum) in the political conditions in China. When I first came here, I was pretty pissed off too, but after a while, that part of me went numb.

I'm here to try and make me react and care about sociopolitical conditions, I guess. Trying to see what the sociopolitical reality is like in China so I can reformulate my opinions.

From someone of my centre-left background, I would have been simultaneously repulsed and fascinated if I had been taught by academics who had advised someone as obnoxious as Pinochet.

Fair enough, t_co. I might disagree with virtually everything you write, but that's a courteous and open-minded comment.