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Do Young Taiwanese want to Reunify With China?

but do they get into office?

the "ruling party" in china is 1/4 the population of the US, what about the US? what's the ratio of your "representatives" to the population?

yes, no one will stop you from running for office, but you'll never get in without money and you'll never get money without being cozy with wall street.

Sure, they get into office, but you are asking a different question. The people can vote for whoever they want. Our current President, Mr. Obama, you may think of as "cosy with Wall Street". He may be, but I can assure you that his problems in America are from the political right, not the left. The American people are more conservative than Mr. Obama, not less so.

We are a capitalist country where Wall Street and other corporate leaders have power, because that is what the American people want. Label yourself a "socialist" or call yourself any sort of socialist, and you couldn't get elected the town dog-catcher here. We are the only major democracy that doesn't even have a socialist party of any kind that can win even the lowest level elected office. No one would vote for it. Americans are very, very conservative. We think Europeans are basically pseudo-communist. Mr. Obama is the most radically left wing President we have ever elected in our history and he is having a tough time governing because of it.
 
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then i have nothing more to say. after all you just basically admitted that wall street runs the US. i can't argue with that.
 
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Why, theoretically there can be an infinite number of brands. In fact, you seem like you don't know this yet, some of them are not even communist! :woot:

Really, I find it a bit disheartening that I'm arguing with someone who thinks that China is communist in anything more than name. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need...give me a break. China had abandoned that 30 years ago. In fact, America is much more communist than China is these days. Tax dollars for social security, and now universal healthcare? Sounds like from each according to his ability and to each according to his need to me.

As for your demand for causal relationship, I suppose it's only fair that I demand the same of you, no? I don't think either of us can provide anything conclusive. Perhaps you can, but I certainly can't. It was simply speculation on my part, and only future history, I suppose, can prove our predictions.
But it is YOU who said this...

the Chinese brand of communism is vastly different from the Soviet brand.
Try to be consistent, either with what you believe or with what you say and best -- both. If communism is in China only in name then it stands to reason that communism as a political and societal structure utterly failed. So either admit that failure, or the foresight by the Chinese leadership back then, compelled reforms to move China away from communist orthodoxy, or admit that such branding is necessary because China is too proud to admit that for decades the Chinese leadership inflicted nothing but failure after failure upon a people with an enviable history. That communist experiment was so bad that today's Chinese have nothing but their past glories to fall back upon.
 
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don't bother. he thinks he can overthrow vietnam's government by simply visiting and talking. he seems to confuse the "power of democracy" with the "power of CIA money".
Do not like persuasions? Thanks for confirming that communists are inherently mentally unstable and violent people.
 
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number of wars started by communist countries: 1. USSR invading afghanistan. technically it wasn't an invasion, but rather an invitation from the afghan government to help peacekeeping.

number of wars started by democratic USA, 20th century.

spanish american war
invasion of phillipines
korean war
vietnam war
gulf war
yugoslavia
gulf war 2

it also funded osama bin laden, the taliban, al-qaeda, xinjiang islamic radicals and even tibetan terrorists.

violence = USA.
 
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number of wars started by communist countries: 1. USSR invading afghanistan. technically it wasn't an invasion, but rather an invitation from the afghan government to help peacekeeping.

number of wars started by democratic USA, 20th century.

spanish american war
invasion of phillipines
korean war
vietnam war
gulf war
yugoslavia
gulf war 2

it also funded osama bin laden, the taliban, al-qaeda, xinjiang islamic radicals and even tibetan terrorists.

violence = USA.

Amazon.com: The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression (9780674076082): Mark Kramer, Jonathan Murphy, Stephane Courtois, Jean-Louis Panne, Andrzej Paczkowski, Karel Bartosek, Jean-Louis Margolin: Books

Enjoy reading.
 
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But it is YOU who said this...


Try to be consistent, either with what you believe or with what you say and best -- both. If communism is in China only in name then it stands to reason that communism as a political and societal structure utterly failed. So either admit that failure, or the foresight by the Chinese leadership back then, compelled reforms to move China away from communist orthodoxy, or admit that such branding is necessary because China is too proud to admit that for decades the Chinese leadership inflicted nothing but failure after failure upon a people with an enviable history. That communist experiment was so bad that today's Chinese have nothing but their past glories to fall back upon.

I'm not sure what needs to be clarified? Of course it failed. I just wouldn't call it an "utter failure" because some elements of the system did survive in the form of social security and universal healthcare. Were Roman and Greek republics "utter failures"? No, they had their day, they eventually failed, but some elements of their governments can still be found in governments of today.

Yes, they inflicted a LOT of failure onto the people from 49 to ~79. 30 years of failed government policies. I agree. From the first moment on, too. Does that need to be any clearer? With that cleared, what's your point? Are you arguing just for the sake of arguing? Why such an accusative tone over something that we agreed upon from the first post on? I mean, I CLEARLY qualified my mentioning of "communism" by the statement of "and I'm using the word communism very loosely here" and that "I assumed you are as well." But it seems that I severely overestimated your knowledge regarding China. You actually meant communism, like real communism as described by Marx. You actually thought(still think?) that China is communist. Unbelievable. You are the very problem with American democracy. People like you are actually participating in deciding the political future of a nation. I think it's safer to let a 3 year old wander on the highway.

Do yourself a favor and stop typing, you need not to embarrassing yourself anymore.
 
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i don't agree that the policies of 1949-1979 failed. they were actually remarkably successful compared to the policies in the 30 years before that, 1919-1949. i don't think i need to explain why do i?
 
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I can't believe I'm still arguing with someone who's dumb enough to believe that China's brand of communism is actually communism.
Nonsense...Am only following the official blurb of China's leadership...

Chinese Communist Party, Communist Party of China

As long as China's official stance is 'communist' I will continue to call the country that and of course, call out failures when appropriate. What I believe is really irrelevant...:lol:
 
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i don't agree that the policies of 1949-1979 failed. they were actually remarkably successful compared to the policies in the 30 years before that, 1919-1949. i don't think i need to explain why do i?

It failed relative to what they could have done as opposed to what their predecessors had done. The great leap forward and the cultural revolution, though not ENTIRELY without their merits, is I'd guess 90% destructive and maybe 10% constructive. Of course, it does look comparatively good with the anarchy that preceded it, which was probably 99% destructive(I don't think anything's entirely black or white, hence no 100% from me).
 
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Nonsense...Am only following the official blurb of China's leadership...

Chinese Communist Party, Communist Party of China

As long as China's official stance is 'communist' I will continue to call the country that and of course, call out failures when appropriate. What I believe is really irrelevant...:lol:

Most of us call China communist, you're the only one who actually believes that they're communist. And to think you were actually talking about the electorate's burden to educate themselves. :rofl:
 
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agreed, however despite the mistakes, it still catapulted china ahead of india in technology.

in 1949 china and india were equally weak, china even more so in fact since we fought a civil war. but in 1970 we already had our own aircraft industry, fought 2 wars against the US, made a nuclear submarine and established the foundation of what 1979-now is.

i am not trying to drag india into this, just serving as a reminder of what we could have become. if we did not have those policies, that failed and then gave our leaders experience, as well as the political isolation that forced us to build everything ourselves, we could've reversed roles with india.
 
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Now you're just nitpicking. What proportion of U.S. representatives, senators, and governors were elected without public record? Of course there has to be a starting point, before anybody has any real knowledge regarding the candidate. But by and large, the important political offices are held by people who DO have public record to be judged. Really, that's the way it should be. It's a failure of the American system that Schwarzenegger can be elected without any type of public record. What credentials did he have before getting elected? Just another sign that the general populace is incapable of handling the burden of general elections.
The Swiss have a rotating presidency...

History Today - Switzerland: Mountains and minarets : Switzerland?s recent vote to ban the building of minarets drew widespread criticism. Natasha Proietto looks at the historical background to that decision, the result of a typically Swiss mixture
There, however, the comparisons with the US and Anglo-Saxon model end because the Swiss went further. They ingrained a rotating presidency among the seven federal councillors, so that no one leader would be able to assume personal power for long enough to mould the nation to his image. This guarantor of freedom through constant change was backed up by regular updates to the constitution throughout the course of the 19th century.
Now...Are you going to tell everyone here that this is another sign that the citizenries of functional democracies are intellectually and emotionally incapable of electing their leaders? Sounds like what I have been saying all along...That in failing to explain why communist regimes either collapse or enacted reforms, communists must resort to pointing the flaws of functional democracies to justify their clinging onto failed beliefs.

Legislators create laws and in theory, those laws are supposed to accommodate and balance diverse and competing desires among the people. Inexperience at creating laws are irrelevant but having responsibilities such as a job, raising a family, running a small business...etc...etc...are very relevant because these responsibilities indicate interactions between people. That is why legislators should come from the community they represent, or the state/province/canton they live and work, and eventually the country that accept their allegiance.

Chief Executives, on the other hand, for Americans at least, usually have their executive experience questioned. That is why Obama and Kennedy are unique, in that it is rare for legislators to get elected into an executive position. Executives do exactly what their title imply: Execute the desires of the organization, or the country's laws. That is why Schwarzenegger was elected by Californians. He was not only a movie star, he has a string of business ventures ranging from a bricklaying partnership with another bodybuilder, Franco Columbu, to mail order. So just like Ross Perot with his technology ventures and companies he founded, Schwarzenegger and Perot have no lack of chief executives experience to earn them some measures of respect among the American electorate.

For the US, the country's Founding Fathers decided that the people's share of the burden to be the greatest, hence the minimum requirements for either legislator or executive is so sparse. For the Swiss, the people decided, or came to a consensus, that running the country require more technical experience than charisma so they agreed to remove the presidential election process from the people altogether and create a political mechanism to ensure no one person can remain in that chief executive position for long -- rotating presidency. For the Swiss, the burden is transferred to the political machinery. It is said that if a Swiss President take the subway, practically 9 out of 10 Swiss would not recognize their chief executive as they stand next to each other.

Any student of political history, and I do not mean only student in the technical term but to include professional historians and institutionalized scholars, would see that the extremes of the US and the Swiss and all political systems in between have a common theme that utterly destroyed your claim that the electorate is incapable of handling elections -- choices. The people want choices but the MECHANISMS to select a person, any person, differs. These mechanisms reflects each country's uniqueness in how the people view themselves. This is what make us -- the functional democracies -- inherently superior to date anything else the political man created so far.

Every time communists come to power, the first thing they do is to create a list of "The People's Enemies", meaning anyone who is educated enough, live among the people long enough, and is willing to speak on behalf of the people, and executed them all. The result is in one swift head cutting stroke, the communists remove the country's top thinkers like educators, doctors, engineers, scholars...etc...etc...Then they installed incompetents to manage the complexities of running a country. The result is usually economic depressions and quite often famines.

Communism = Epic Fail.

And we have the mass graves, the prisons, the political induced famines, the internal political oppressions...etc...etc...to prove the Epic Fail.

Theories explain facts, OK? When did I talk about theories? In fact, I specifically clarified that when I talk about truths, I am NOT talking about theories.
Wrong...Whenever you use the word 'truth' you are talking theoretical. The word 'truth' contains a more philosophical component than the word 'theory' but the evaluative PROCESS for both is the same. The scientist and the philosopher cannot postulate their 'theory' or 'truth' unless each seriously examine the evidences in front of them. For the philosopher, that would mean people's behaviors, their interactions, laws, core beliefs, wars, technology...etc...etc...

Bad analogy with the 3 year old? What difference is there between a 3 year old who is incapable vs. a 20 year old who is unwilling? Neither possesses the necessary knowledge to make informed decisions. In this respect, democracy is very similar to communism: great in theory, but impossible in practice. They're both so because they both neglect human nature. Sure, it's nice to live in a society without greed, it's also nice to live in a society where everyone seeks to educate themselves in politics. But neither is happening now, is it?

As for your example of Air America, my point stays the same. People have access to facts, but few are willing to seek them out and verify them. Instead, they rely on ill-informed media talking heads to learn facts and interpret them. Sure, in theory, an ill-informed decision is still an informed decision, but that requires a listener/viewer who is capable of and willing to think independently. That's just an impossible dream, not much unlike the communist dream of people without greed.
The issue here is who is to blame. If the three-yr old gets run over by a car, we do not blame the child, do we? But if the electorate elect someone who for his term in office proved to be incompetent or even destructive, all blame rests on the people, not the democratic mechanisms that allowed the people to make the selection.
 
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agreed, however despite the mistakes, it still catapulted china ahead of india in technology.

in 1949 china and india were equally weak, china even more so in fact since we fought a civil war. but in 1970 we already had our own aircraft industry, fought 2 wars against the US, made a nuclear submarine and established the foundation of what 1979-now is.

i am not trying to drag india into this, just serving as a reminder of what we could have become. if we did not have those policies, that failed and then gave our leaders experience, as well as the political isolation that forced us to build everything ourselves, we could've reversed roles with india.

There were some good policies for sure. Even in the two examples I used, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, some good came out of them. Specifically, the GLF constructed much of the infrastructure that was needed for the explosive growth starting in the '80s, and the CR broke down class barriers that India is still struggling with despite the official denunciation of the Caste system.

I think the focus on independence and advancement in technology were definitely crucial in the rapid development of the past 30 years. However, the SOCIAL programs, namely the numerous attempts at creating an actual communist state, failed miserably and cost many millions of lives. There's good and bad, but in order for a state to be successful, the good needs to clearly outweigh the bad. In China pre-79, that wasn't the case. I think the Chinese leaders realized that and enacted reforms.

In the end, both the core values of democracy and communism are preserved today in all successful nations, so neither has completely failed.
 
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