Chee: Without rights, there can be no change

[steffychun]

That was South Korea 30 years ago. Dictatorship and economic miracle. Same story as Singapore. But now South Korea is very different from 30 years ago. It's more of a functioning democracy. They protested in the streets, and they won their freedom by fighting for it. And this economic miracle bullshit - Singapore is an economic miracle. We had stunning GDP growth for a long time. Why are people so unhappy? Now I no longer believe anybody who talks about "economic miracles". It's all bullshit. Why don't you say, Singapore is an economic miracle under a dictatorship, and therefore nothing has to change? Why did we accept a dictatorship 30-40 years ago, but we don't accept it anymore?

In any society, not everybody in the country has rights. Everybody who wants rights will have to fight for it. It is not true that Native Americans are imprisoned. But they have had their lands taken away from them. How about the rest of the Americans? But then again, the rest of the Americans are also slowly losing their rights. People got kicked out of their houses. Rights is also about being able to make a living. Job opportunities are disappearing. Nobody has a right to a job. But some people consider economic opportunities as a right as well.

The point is human rights don't necessarily given any change. What change was there when the Negroes were free finally due to Martin Luther King? There was still racism. What change was there when there were Vietnam war protests? Men were still drafted in. So what change is there? Which great human rights society has made change?

 

[metalmickey]

The point is human rights don't necessarily given any change. What change was there when the Negroes were free finally due to Martin Luther King? There was still racism. What change was there when there were Vietnam war protests? Men were still drafted in. So what change is there? Which great human rights society has made change?

You can't have too high expectations. There was a lot of change, but that took a long time. After the change has happened, you will shift the bar upwards and forget what life was like before that change.

There was a time when non-landowners were not allowed to vote. That changed. Black people weren't allowed to vote. That changed. Women were not allowed to vote. That changed. There was no minimum wage in the western countries at one point. That changed.

Less than 10 years ago, people were complaining that every president of the USA has been a white man. Now they are complaining the life isn't good enough even though they now have a black man (actually he's only half black).

Black men have been fighting since the Civil War. Their lives are better now than back then. There is a lot less racism now because white men and black men are in the same platoon. Once you allow gay and straight men to fight side by side there will also be a change in attitudes. But black people still don't have very good lives because the job market is not good for black people. But if you want to talk about the glass is half empty, it will always be half empty.

The Vietnam war still went ahead - actually the Vietnam war would have happened without the US involvement, so I'm talking about US involvement. It stopped the US from fighting a good war. Actually it made it much harder for the US to enter a full scale land war for a long time, and we didn't have any wars until Saddam Hussein. So it did change something.

Stepping away from angmor countries, do you know that in Taiwan and South Korea, they made the transitions from dictatorship to democracy because of human rights protests? Do you know that life before and after those protests were like night and day? Do you know that it took around 15 years between a period of time when the Kuomingtang had almost all the seats, to them losing their first election? Well of course the Straits Times wouldn't tell you that.

 

[kukubird58]

Stepping away from angmor countries, do you know that in Taiwan and South Korea, they made the transitions from dictatorship to democracy because of human rights protests? Do you know that life before and after those protests were like night and day? Do you know that it took around 15 years between a period of time when the Kuomingtang had almost all the seats, to them losing their first election? Well of course the Straits Times wouldn't tell you that.

hahaha... the empty vessel is back.
KMT lost their first election becos of spilt in the party.....a little knowledge is always dangerous.

 

[kingrant]

You aint got credentials to correct other pple's history when you know shit about yr own country's.

hahaha... the empty vessel is back.
KMT lost their first election becos of spilt in the party.....a little knowledge is always dangerous.

 

[metalmickey]

Sometimes I will say that A (in this case KMT losing an election) happened because of B (the rise of a protest culture). Then somebody will say A happened because of something else, C. (ie a split in the KMT). Now, you can see right away that this sort of argument is completely not correct because both statements are not mutually exclusive. Just because A was caused by C, it doesn't mean that it wasn't caused by B as well. It's an argument you can write off immediately solely on logic alone.

In any case you can read the following and decide for yourself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaohsiung_Incident

 

[steffychun]

The point is there are so many examples to the contrary. Change happened under systems of no rights. Under places where rights were granted (not to the fullest) change hardly or never occurred at all.

 

[Cosmos10]

Watch this:

Without rights, there would be NO abolishment of slavery.

[video=youtube;KJVuqYkI2jQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJVuqYkI2jQ[/video]

 

[Cosmos10]

Article 1 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

 

[steffychun]

Article 1 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Which is bullshit since Human Rights has never done anything for development

 

[steffychun]

Watch this:

Without rights, there would be NO abolishment of slavery.

[video=youtube;KJVuqYkI2jQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJVuqYkI2jQ[/video]

Slavery stills exist in many forms. MNCs exploitations. What have rights done

 

[metalmickey]

Slavery stills exist in many forms. MNCs exploitations. What have rights done

There you go again. This is the standard half full half empty argument. Uh, they have abolished slavery?

Even if slavery exists, it is illegal. And of course there are still a lot of slaves in many parts of the world outside of the USA.

What I see is that there is some sort of a self-justification amongst those people who have always convinced themselves that it's "useless" to fight for rights. Or it's "improper", always work within the system. Working within the system would also mean getting other people into parliament and hoping that they'll do your fighting for you. Or somehow fighting for rights is "not the proper thing to do".

Like I said earlier, you have to keep on fighting. You will not get everything that you want. You may get some rights today, but tomorrow somebody else might take it away from you. And this fight is becoming more and more urgent because one day not long in the future, the US will stop being the most powerful country in the world, and China - a country who doesn't give a shit about rights - will be it. When that happens, will the US grow to be more like China, or will China grow to be more like the US?

What is guaranteed is that if you don't bother to fight, in the long run, all your rights will be taken away from you.

 

[Cosmos10]

There you go again. This is the standard half full half empty argument. Uh, they have abolished slavery?

Even if slavery exists, it is illegal. And of course there are still a lot of slaves in many parts of the world outside of the USA.

What I see is that there is some sort of a self-justification amongst those people who have always convinced themselves that it's "useless" to fight for rights. Or it's "improper", always work within the system. Working within the system would also mean getting other people into parliament and hoping that they'll do your fighting for you. Or somehow fighting for rights is "not the proper thing to do".

Like I said earlier, you have to keep on fighting. You will not get everything that you want. You may get some rights today, but tomorrow somebody else might take it away from you. And this fight is becoming more and more urgent because one day not long in the future, the US will stop being the most powerful country in the world, and China - a country who doesn't give a shit about rights - will be it. When that happens, will the US grow to be more like China, or will China grow to be more like the US?

What is guaranteed is that if you don't bother to fight, in the long run, all your rights will be taken away from you.

Hi brother metalmickey, you are like a breath of fresh air in this forum!

I have a lot to learn from you. I am impressed by the amount of knowledge you have in your writing and especially your forbearing patience in your replies to brother steffychun.

 

[CannonFairy]

Yup not in a Chee life time

That is why I always say Chee should step down and give way to Vincent Wijeysingha. I also do not understand why didn't SDP do anything during their AGM.

 

[steffychun]

There you go again. This is the standard half full half empty argument. Uh, they have abolished slavery?

Even if slavery exists, it is illegal. And of course there are still a lot of slaves in many parts of the world outside of the USA.

What I see is that there is some sort of a self-justification amongst those people who have always convinced themselves that it's "useless" to fight for rights. Or it's "improper", always work within the system. Working within the system would also mean getting other people into parliament and hoping that they'll do your fighting for you. Or somehow fighting for rights is "not the proper thing to do".

Like I said earlier, you have to keep on fighting. You will not get everything that you want. You may get some rights today, but tomorrow somebody else might take it away from you. And this fight is becoming more and more urgent because one day not long in the future, the US will stop being the most powerful country in the world, and China - a country who doesn't give a shit about rights - will be it. When that happens, will the US grow to be more like China, or will China grow to be more like the US?

What is guaranteed is that if you don't bother to fight, in the long run, all your rights will be taken away from you.

It is so simple. Change can occur without rights. Wars can occur with other declarations of them. Peace can occur without final agreements. There is no link that change only occurs with rights. T

 

[metalmickey]

It is so simple. Change can occur without rights. Wars can occur with other declarations of them. Peace can occur without final agreements. There is no link that change only occurs with rights. T

Technically you are right.

But it is easier to make changes when you have more rights. The peace that can occur without final agreements is the North Korea South Korea type of peace. Is that really a peace? Technically they are still at war. "Changes can occur without rights", but this is the argument of the form, "I can do something with 2 hands. I can also do the same thing with only 1 hand, just more difficult. Therefore it is alright to chop off one of my arms."

Why do you want to chop off your arm?

 

[metalmickey]

Hi brother metalmickey, you are like a breath of fresh air in this forum!

I have a lot to learn from you. I am impressed by the amount of knowledge you have in your writing and especially your forbearing patience in your replies to brother steffychun.

Thanks but most people here are brothers, sorda. Everybody wants to change the system now.

But when they have to start figuring out

1. how to change the system,
2. which part of the system they want to change, and
3. what they are going to change the system to,

that's when all the fighting starts again.

Mainly I want remind the forumners that no change is possible until the above three issues are settled. I want to remind people that it is very easy to tear down a system, it is very fun to tear down a system but when they don't build a new and better system in its place they are equally fucked.

Sometimes people have shaky grasp of the facts. Sometimes people are correct, but they interpret the facts with flawed logic. Like that kukubird, who said that KMT lost the election because the party was split. Well that doesn't mean I'm wrong. Most probably the party was split because the political climate became more liberal. Most probably if the party didn't split, another one would have been formed that would successfully challenge KMT for power.

 

[steffychun]

What sort of change? Chee change? No thank you