>so if a reformed mob boss sees other mobsters extorting people, he cannot step in and stop them because he did the same thing in the past?
Reformed? LOL.
>i really don't understand this kind of ethical reasoning, just sounds like pious excuses to sit on our hands
It's the ethical imperative of:
- not being a hypocrite,
- being the change you want to see in the world, and putting your house in order first
- the old-mob-boss not getting to keep his illegal riches (not to mention his old ways) and claim to be reformed,
- and not using the plights of "poor X" as an excuse to attack their opressor, when you don't really care about poor X, you have opressed and are still opressing others all over the world, and you have no problems with other opressors of third parties if they are allies...
Without self-reflection and equal corrective moves on the finger-pointing side, the finger-pointing at China is merely used as a political weapon to justify aggression and pressure against them in the ongoing trade/influence war.
As for the finger pointers, those higher-up cultivate this for this exact purpose (as popular support for their hawkish plans), and the masses just point at the "enemy of the day" as they are conditioned...
As for the "pious excuses to sit on our hands" that's what happens anyway, nobody is actually doing anything. The one's that do are those who control armies and policy - and those have their own agendas, could not give less fucks for justice for Tibet.
Puerto Rico does not want to be "given up". It wants, and deserves, statehood. A so-called "independent" Puerto Rico would be nothing more than an impoverished client of the United States.
> Taiwan deserves provincehood so it isn't a impoverished client of the PRC.
Now, Taiwan is quite rich, but still, optics matter. Better to give Puerto Rico tons of reparations if you are worried about it being impoverished and dependent.
so you are fine with allowing all the human atrocities by CCP because of what usa has done in the past? i cannot make heads or tails of this perspective
as one of jewish descent, i am glad usa denounced the holocaust during ww2, and didn't use its past injustices as an excuse to remain silent
>so you are fine with allowing all the human atrocities by CCP because of what usa has done in the past? i cannot make heads or tails of this perspective
Let me reverse the question: are you fine with selective-outrage against all the human atrocities by CCP be used as a tool for foreign policy to further interests/help in new attrocities?
At the same time when those using those (to help their policies) have commited themselves, and continue to commit similar attrocities?
I'd say condemn all attrocities, don't be selective.
Else I can't make heads or tails of this perspective. It's basically "my country right or wrong, plus, I will condemnt whatever country my country's foreign interests want to target this period and ignore what others that are allies do".
>as one of jewish descent, i am glad usa denounced the holocaust during ww2
Well, not that much. For one, its businesses gave the logistics assistance that helped it go through. And few batted an eye in such cases:
"The American public discovered the full extent of the Holocaust only when the Allied armies liberated the extermination and concentration camps at the end of World War II. And as historians struggled to understand what had happened, attention increasingly focused on the inadequate American response and what lay behind it. It remains today the subject of great debate."
every culture has done horrible things in the past. does that mean no one should try to prevent modern crimes against humanity?
i really don't understand this kind of ethical reasoning, just sounds like pious excuses to sit on our hands