After seeing a megathread praising Mao Zedong, an actual mass killer, and a post about a guy saying “99% of westerners are 100000000000% sure they know what happened in ‘Tiny Man Square’ […] the reasons for this are complex and involve propaganda […],” I am genuinely curious what leads people to this belief system. Even if propaganda is involved when it comes to Tiananmen Square, it doesn’t change the atrocities that were/are committed everywhere else in China.

I am all for letting people believe what they want but I am lost on why one would deliberately praise any authoritarian system this hard.

Can someone please help me understand why this is such a large and prominent community? How have these ideals garnered such a following outside of China?

EDIT: Thank you to everyone who has responded! This thread has been very insightful :)

  • YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.todayEnglish
    11·
    21 days ago

    unarmed police

    Real talk homie, there is no way you actually believe this‽

    Edit: real talk! You think the police(who have a monopoly on violence) didn’t come armed?

    Again I’m not trying to antagonize you! You seemed well informed! But you can’t believe that honestly.

    • FunkyStuff [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      5·
      21 days ago

      A lot of countries have unarmed police, that’s just how it is in much of the world. It’s not just a Chinese thing.

      And yeah they still have a monopoly on violence and their presence is supposed to be intimidating. That’s a fair point and someone in the thread I linked brought it up. But having been to protests myself, I think it can usually be a good thing to have the police around because (at least ostensibly, the opposite of this can be true) they should protect the people protesting from anyone who comes up and tries to harm them. In a utopian society maybe there wouldn’t be cops at all, in a slightly less utopian one I think cops without guns that protect you at a protest isn’t a horrible compromise.

    • Amnesigenic@lemmy.ml
      1·
      20 days ago

      It’s an easily verifiable fact that UK police patrol without firearms regularly, idk why you think other countries can’t do the same. From an oversight perspective it’s a really simple way to reduce the risk of police shootings, and it saves a lot of money on equipment and ammo.