• @[email protected]
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    2211 months ago

    I visit China frequently for work and feel that the impression most older Americans have of China is incredibly out of touch. The traditional media portrayal of the country is definitely a part of this. Yes, it’s certainly an authoritarian state, but this doesn’t change whether the people are nice or what they want in life.

          • @cucumber_sandwich
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            -211 months ago

            the state maintains that this is a moral and legitimate use of force: that it has the authority to do this.

            I don’t necessarily agree with “moral”. In western democracies laws and use of force doesn’t legitimize itself by a call to morality usually. Just using some kind of authority, doesn’t make a government authoritarian by any common definition of the word.

              • @cucumber_sandwich
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                -411 months ago

                It absolutely does imo, it legitimises itself through an appeal to an underlying moral framework.

                Yes, but very indirectly. We don’t have a “moral police”, but one that enforces laws which are, as you say, legitimized by the people as a sovereign.

                So you don’t see police stopping people on “moral grounds” in some vague interpretation.

                • FeminalPanda
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                  411 months ago

                  What about abortion? Tracking if women are pregnant and hunting them down if then stop being pregnant.

                  • @cucumber_sandwich
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                    -211 months ago

                    Usually codified by lawy not prosecuted as “immoral behaviour” as such. Although if you look at recent anti-abortion legislation in the US it is intentionally vague. That shifts some burden of interpretation to the executive branch and is a sign of authoritarianism I’d say.