China 'social credit': Beijing sets up huge system
This gets scary, and scarier. China, IMHO, can safely be called a Fascist system now, they have the dicatatorship, government controlled media and economy, finance, and yet manage to be a mashed up measure of this and that. Unlike previous CXommunist and Socialists nations, they seem to have found other ways to stealk everything, and still allow the poor something. I wonder how many of the peasants actually give a damn about their social credit score, when digging in the rice paddies...
Do we know how to describe the Chinese “model” in this context? Let’s first look at how we can ascribe characteristics to any country, then look at China specifically. Does the country protect the right to life and associated (derivative) rights? Does the country have a more or less reasonable means of funding? Does the country have an ethical government? Does the country value individualism and merit-based value judgments? Does the country support “ethical” egoism?
If we cannot answer the affirmative of the above questions, then by what means can we verify China is capitalistic or pro-market? The evidence, of which there is a vanishingly small amount, suggests China is governed hierarchically, making use of favors and pragmatism. Modern China is perhaps best represented as the “People’s State”. The Left have shockingly little to say anymore about human rights or environmental violations in China not because of the increase in wealth or pro-market Leftism, but because of the productive capability. This productive capability, we are lead to believe, is a result of smarter control of the productive process. Sound eerily familiar?
That’s what I often hear with amazement from real-life Americans on how the Nazi Party was able to maintain its war machine for so long. (Never mind the slave labor.) The trouble with the Left is that it is doomed to one of three fates: Anarcho-Primitivism, Elitist Socialism (oligarchy), or National Socialism. Out here on the West Coast, the latter two comprise the loudest voices, with the Elitist camp stoking the flame of a new (Inter)National Socialism wearing Che Guevara T-shirts. China is pleased that we will fight to lose productive capability so they can fix prices and implement some warped idea of national strength.
"and the real criminal is so obvious, and never gets called out or prosecuted"
If we had hardcore criminals operating openly in such a way that's it's obvious even to people who are not attorneys or in law enforcement, we would have done it to ourselves. In this scenario, we could not blame outside groups. I don't think that's happening, but if it did it would be way bigger than the name-calling, emotional arguments that you mention outside groups fomenting. The impunity would be the problem and everything else just noise.
I'm not be flippant in disagreeing. I just think our law enforcement institutions are decent and have a good chance at getting to the bottom of anything illegal.
I now see the connection you're making between name-calling and criminal activity. My guess from the beginning has been that the campaigns did not work with Russia in a nefarious way, President Trump acted guilty about the investigation but actually is not guilty, and there was no quid pro quo in the Unranium deal. So if I'm right, all of this is nonsense. If I'm wrong, I have a naive level of belief in US institutions.
I definitely want them investigating how the campaigns interact with foreign governments. The idea that the Russian gov't either worked with the campaigns or tried to derail political discourse is plausible and frightening. If I'm right about US institutions, denouncing them as a charade plays right into the hands of any foreign gov't who wants to destabilize the US.
From: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-met...
I use this because it seems it may be somewhat interested in facts, although I have yet to see any of the "drop" they talk about.
Different version (of course):
"The donations from those with ties to Uranium One weren’t publicly disclosed by the Clinton Foundation, even though Hillary Clinton had an agreement with the White House that the foundation would disclose all contributors. Days after the Times story, the foundation acknowledged that it “made mistakes,” saying it had disclosed donations from a Canadian charity, for instance, but not the donors to that charity who were associated with the uranium company."
http://www.factcheck.org/2017/10/fact...
Since the Democrats practise a policy of hide and lie until you die (which people close to Clinton seem to do regularly), truth fromn them is incredibly hard to get. Since the Republicrats have yet to figure out how to whine and scream until they get something, relying on rules and law, they take forever, especially when Obama departments just lie and ignore their subpoenas, requests and demands.
Belive what you will, the Crazy Hag, Obama and his administration are in this up to their silly necks, and will fight like crazy to obfuscate, deny, lie and hide. Just like the email server. Just like the DNC IT scandal, just like Fast and Furious, just like all the racist incidents they sponsored Oh yea, just like the IRS and Losi "never held to account" Lerner..
If I'm right this is nothing. I'm going on reading a few newspaper article. I could very easily be wrong. Presidential candidates could easily be doing these illegal quid pro quo deals and they haven't gotten caught or are using their connections to get away with it.
Regardless of whether my guess is right, the original claim was politicians worked with foreigners aiming to "put us at each other's throats" using slurs and not noticing the bigger picture. People who have that aim are getting their wish.
And I'm sorry, but we should be far more worried about our own government's corruption than the paltry attempts by foreign governments to influence a few thousand people using Facebook and Twitter. A very interesting point was made in the following podcast (https://soundcloud.com/user-969026842.... With the current distributed voting scheme via the Electoral College, it is really, really difficult to affect a national election (such as that for President) because one would have to falsify so many different voting results. In contrast, if the vote was moved to a popular vote - as advocated by Democrats - all one has to do is corrupt the vote of a few large cities and one can swing the election.
Regarding: "What concerns me is that there is far more smoke (from real fire) from Democratic dealings with the Russians than there has ever been with the Trump campaign." I seem to have noticed the "smoke" over Trump in this matter isn't really smoke at all. It is a dust cloud raised by all those Hillery supporters stamping their feet in tantrum fashion because they lost the election. LOL.
They rarely have ideas for reforming our institutions to catch wrongdoing. It's evil people. It smells like politics.
"one would have to falsify so many different voting results"
We had a fair election with the Electoral College, and I am completely confident in our ability to do a fair popular vote if we wanted. I think the Electoral College, as we have it today, does not work because the country isn't divided along state lines. To do what it was supposed to do, it would have to be by urban areas, so anyone running would have to campaign for urban and rural voters. I don't have a solution to that, but I would like to see the presidency and gov't less powerful so it would matter less.
Please listen to the podcast I posted above. They address this very issue.
"but I would like to see the presidency and gov't less powerful so it would matter less."
The only way to do that is to vote for people more interested in LESSENING the power of government than INCREASING it. So take a long hard look at the candidates: are they interested in MORE power in government or LESS? Take a look at the party platforms. Which party is trying to limit government and which is trying to expand it?
Reminds me of another empire.
China: A mixed economy credit generating system based on leftist principles.
USA: A mixed economy credit generating system based on Capitalist principles.
What's the difference? Well...we're the good guys. You just have to take our word for it. 2020 here we come!
A large customer's scoring system might matter because vendors want to be on their approved vendor list. The financial industry has managed to have their customers concerned about being on the industry's approved customers list. It's backwards for vendors to score their customers, but they if can pull off a "negative sell" where their customers actually see it as a privilege to buy a product, that's a marketing achievement. It's not immoral if they're not lying or using force. Gov'ts do lie and use force. That's the whole problem. If a gov't can pull of a Songbun-type system that citizens don't see through, it's just one more propaganda too to justify using force on its citizens.