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Old February 16th 17, 01:56 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
Chris L Peterson
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Default An Alternative View of Global Warming

On Wed, 15 Feb 2017 14:06:09 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc
wrote:

On Wednesday, February 15, 2017 at 7:58:31 AM UTC-7, Chris L Peterson wrote:

The Chinese population is happy, the country is successful and
prosperous.


China has enjoyed a measure of economic success, such that things are definitely better than they have been.

It's people are some of the most free in the world.


Not even remotely.


I disagree. I've traveled in the country, and have many Chinese
friends, none of whom have any interest in living elsewhere (despite
traveling regularly outside of the country). In China you can quite
freely discuss and criticize the system, you can work at what you want
to work at, study what you want to study, live where you want to live.
Its economy is highly capitalistic making it possible to acquire
reasonable wealth if you desire.

Sure, you don't generally get to vote for your government. But very
few Chinese care, because they have a benevolent government. It's not
like we have more than an illusion of democratic control in the U.S.

For example, they aren't genuinely free to practice their religious faith. They
are only allowed to go to imitation churches that are actually run by the
government.


That is a myth. In fact, people are generally free to practice
different religions in China. (Not that I consider a restriction on
that to be a serious challenge to freedom.)

They aren't free to debate political issues. So they can't draw attention to
problems such as corruption or pollution.


Again, not true. There are a very narrow range of topics (with
justifications sometimes not very obvious) that are off limits. But
Chinese people discuss politics very freely, and criticize
institutions.

And there is plenty of corruption in
China, just not at the very highest political levels.


Many "free" countries have greater corruption. Corruption is always
found in governments. It's no worse in China than in many other
places.