right, as long as you are communist

You can't tell me the communists are maintaining power because the people enjoy it

Or Revolutionary Committee of the Kuomintang

China Democratic League, China Association for Promoting Democracy, Taiwan Democratic Self Government League, and more

All legal parties on the mainland

legal doesn't mean they have any real power

if they had any real power china wouldn't remain communist

there were other parties in nazi germany, didn't see any of them actually do anything useful

Nazi Germany actually banned all other parties

All of those parties hold seats in government

And believe me those people do not want to topple their government

Now I'm not saying it's an actual free country or anything

I'm arguing as if it is, for a reason

Problems in the 60s/70s aside. It's very safe. Most people are educated, employed, and well-fed.

except for the political and religious dissidents being shipped off

Political dissidents, meaning Muslims who make jihadist statements

Do you know for sure those are the only ones being carted away?

Here I'll give you some background

Since I don't think we have actually talked here before

I'm a cop in America. Army vet. Still young.

We live in a nation where 7 years ago, the government signed into law the ability to indefinately detain american citizens just based on "suspicion" of terrorism or anything else to make uncle sam look at you funny. Granted it wasn't in law long, but it did happen

My wife is from China. Her father was a colonel in the police. Her mom is a school principal.

Uncles, grandpas etc all soldiers. One cousin is a traffic cop I think.

There is no draft. Anyone who ever said so, is lying. Every soldier is a volunteer and it's fairly competitive to get recruited.

They're all proud of their country, fiercely patriotic, very loyal

I'm the first white man to sit down at their table, get drunk, and talk politics

Everyone else was drunk too

So yeah I basically dissed Mao, the party, communism etc in front of actual party members and regional leaders

Pretty much their response was "yeah that era sucked but things have gotten a lot better"

interesting

People are people man

They're not really religious. Some of the cousins visit Buddhist temples on certain days but it's more cultural

My wife however is Catholic and was an active member of the choir of one of the biggest Catholic churches in the world, right there in China

They gave a concert for some Western VIP but I forgot who

Anyway that was a long winded explanation. Point being, for all intents and purposes they are living in a pretty normal and happy society like we are

Some differences and "inconveniences"

We can say we are better because we have free elections and all that, anyone can become president...but is it really true?

Is our democratic process much different than a repressive communist dictatorship?

While it is perverted, It certainly is supposed to be vastly different

Sure, but in reality, it's not

We chose to settle here because I like land, guns, stuff like that