Comment by derelicta
10 days ago
I would know cuz there are independent polls made by western NGOs: https://allianceofdemocracies.org/democracy-perception-index
10 days ago
I would know cuz there are independent polls made by western NGOs: https://allianceofdemocracies.org/democracy-perception-index
Immaterial how independent they are because it's completely impossible to get honest opinions of repressive regimes. The people within the regime have no real way to know whether a poll response will make it back to the government or not, so they must assume that it will. When the repercussions for having the wrong opinion are that you disappear or find yourself "volunteered" for the front line, it's best to either lie or say you think the leader is a top bloke.
You can watch Youtube videos of citizens refusing to answer contentious questions quite easily. I believe William Spaniel has produced videos (relating to the Russian General Election) where he points this out, too.
When asked in a way where the opinion can't be identified, the support numbers do drop significantly, but the approval is still estimated to be about 50-70%. In western countries governments with clear minority support start to be almost the norm.
UK government approval has surpassed 50% in a handful of polls in over 10 years, and approval peaks are typically immediately after elections before the government starts to implement its policies. The approval is currently 14%.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/government-app...
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/china-quarterly/arti...
> When asked in a way where the opinion can't be identified, the support numbers do drop significantly
Bear in mind that the person answering the poll still lives in an oppressive regime where wrongthink can get you killed. You spend your whole life training yourself to never say anything bad about the government in public. Would you be able to turn it off?
Also, there’s literally no free press in these countries. The government will get primarily positive coverage whatever they do! The current Labour government could only dream of such coverage!
How can you tell it is a repressive regime? They have elections, a press and they are pretty satisfied about their form of governance, actually much more than their western counterparts.
So let me sum this up. We cannot ask the people. We cannot base ourselves on how their institutions function and how well they perform.
This discussion highlights how westerners suffer from some serious superiority complex where only THEY can experience genuine freedom and democracy(probably due to their superior phenotype or some inane bs), and everything outside of their little group of friends is a masquerade. The issue with that is that westerners disconnect themselves from reality. They are losing ground and it shows.
LOL, who ran against Xi in his last "election"?
Which "free press" runs stories against Xi?
Where is the other half of the bell curve of public opinion that's critical of the CCP?
Yeah they have elections alright, you can vote for any Xi Jingping you want to.
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if people refuse to answer contentious questions about their regime... it's probably repressive.
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"Elections in the People's Republic of China occur under a one-party authoritarian political system controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Direct elections, except in the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau, occur only at the local level people's congresses and village committees, with all candidate nominations preapproved by the CCP. By law, all elections at all levels must adhere to the leadership of the CCP."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_China
> This discussion highlights how westerners suffer from some serious superiority complex where only THEY can experience genuine freedom and democracy(probably due to their superior phenotype or some inane bs)
There is democracy in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.
Just say, "I'm a tankie and I support Russia's invasion of Ukraine."
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Organisations try to measure this: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/democracy-index-eiu
> This discussion highlights how westerners suffer from some serious superiority complex where only THEY can experience genuine freedom and democracy(probably due to their superior phenotype or some inane bs)
You are quite literally commenting on a topic where Brits are complaining about our democracy. You will find reams of articles about the problems with western democracies.
However, you're also commenting about countries that quite literally changed our governments in the last year. USA voted in Trump, the UK voted in Labour. Germany just voted in a new party.
China and Russia, the main comparison points, have not changed government since the 90s. This is nothing to do with phenotypes, it's 100% just looking at the facts.
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