Bullocks, for the most part. Bad history, shallow analysis and just a lot of personal hurt.
I mean, today's China is, certainly, no more totalitarian than Soviet Union for most of its history: and is increasingly rather more attractive on material grounds. Nor were Soviet police shrinking violets in terms of inflicting violence: even if doing that often remained off the equilibrium path. If one could provide the necessary competition, than so can the other.
Nor, of course, is the Western democracy any "less free" today than it was back in the day. If anything, it is precisely the rather substantial progress that makes certain things controversial today that would not be in the past. The sorts of violent police suppression that was not uncommon back in the 1960s appears to be entirely off limits today.
And as for labels you do not like: I mean, if you do not care about those who assign them to you, why are you at all upset? And if you, in fact, do care about acceptance in a certain society, it would certainly seem reasonable to behave in a fashion acceptable to it. In any case, being accused of "communism" (often on rather tenuous grounds) used to be a cause for much greater potential damage than being accused of, say, misogyny has today. Talk about "marginalizing opposite views" or "labeling opponents as extremists" what you want: but pretending it is something "new" or even more common now than in the past is a touch ridiculous. Again, personal hurt should not make for shoddy history.
no subject
I mean, today's China is, certainly, no more totalitarian than Soviet Union for most of its history: and is increasingly rather more attractive on material grounds. Nor were Soviet police shrinking violets in terms of inflicting violence: even if doing that often remained off the equilibrium path. If one could provide the necessary competition, than so can the other.
Nor, of course, is the Western democracy any "less free" today than it was back in the day. If anything, it is precisely the rather substantial progress that makes certain things controversial today that would not be in the past. The sorts of violent police suppression that was not uncommon back in the 1960s appears to be entirely off limits today.
And as for labels you do not like: I mean, if you do not care about those who assign them to you, why are you at all upset? And if you, in fact, do care about acceptance in a certain society, it would certainly seem reasonable to behave in a fashion acceptable to it. In any case, being accused of "communism" (often on rather tenuous grounds) used to be a cause for much greater potential damage than being accused of, say, misogyny has today. Talk about "marginalizing opposite views" or "labeling opponents as extremists" what you want: but pretending it is something "new" or even more common now than in the past is a touch ridiculous. Again, personal hurt should not make for shoddy history.