Neither of us can convince someone whose friends had their asses beat by cops at a university protesting Biden’s action. Only Biden can do that, by ending the genocide.

When dems lose for not doing the things they need to do to get elected, are you going to blame the dems or are you going to blame every single voter in the US for not voting for a party that shows nothing but contempt for them?

I notice a certain slight tendency in your comments to talk about China, implication that aid for Taiwan was "bought" from the US congress by someone, tendency to delve into the details of tariffs and suchlike.

Quick question for you: If I protest in China against a Chinese policy I don't agree with, what happens to me?

(This isn't a whataboutism -- China doing something doesn't excuse the US police from doing a much milder version of the same thing. I don't think they should be beating or arresting protestors here either. I'm just curious how universally you apply this concern for protestors who had their asses beat.)

Quick question for you: If I protest in China against a Chinese policy I don’t agree with, what happens to me?

Quick Answer: You can just google “site:scmp.com (or any other english language chinese news site protestors”? Even when the government wants to shut down protests, such as in HK, it’s 100x more gentle than the US is. Think of how many people getting run over by cops we saw in 2020. I didn’t see a single child get domed with a pepperball in Hong Kong.

100x more gentle than the US is

Faaaaascinating

Also, look at all the happy Uyghurs leaving their re-education camps after the Chinese government helped boost their job opportunities. Sounds great.

Bro, it's not a fuckin contest

I'm not in favor of Abu Ghraib, or Guantánamo, or the Uyghur detention camps, or the genocide in Gaza. From my point of view as a person who likes human rights, it's actually not really that complicated to say that I'm not in favor of any of those things. It wouldn't even occur to me to bring up one of them as a defense for any of the others, because I would have no reason to want to defend any of them.

This is exactly why I wanted to ask you that seemingly unrelated question. I was curious whether you were an overall pro-human-rights person who came organically to your viewpoint about not wanting to vote for the Democrats, or whether that "of course I hate that Palestine protestors in the US are being abused" -- a pretty sensible view, tbh -- came alongside some other views which were incongruous and surprising, and wouldn't commonly be encountered in a person who has strong feelings about human rights as they pertain to domestic US politics.

Sounds like I got my answer.

(Edit: Oh, not that this is the point, because (1) as I said it's not a contest (2) it is actually a little unfair to compare Hong Kong's mini-insurrection against peaceful US Palestine protests -- but Hong Kong protestors absolutely were shot in the head with nonlethal rounds, shot with live ammunition, given brain injuries and broken bones, sexually assaulted, and in some cases had their eyes shot out. Maybe they can get together with the BLM people who had eyes shot out and the lot of them could start working out how we can get these assholes out of power please.)

a person who has strong feelings about human rights and domestic US politics.

My take on any enemies of the US is uncritical support; the only impact the US will have on those people is further immiseration, thus to criticize them as an American living in America is to carry water for imperialism.

It’s why you see people get more worked up about Iranian oppression than Saudi oppression, despite Saudi Arabia being dependent on US military aid to oppress it’s people. The context of you, and American, hearing about gay rights in Palestine is to support further oppression of the Palestinian people.

My take on any enemies of the US is uncritical support

Also, I want to circle back to this for a second. Doesn't this mean that we maybe shouldn't take your advice on how as voters to approach the presidential election?

Or does your "enemies of the US get uncritical support" stance come in conjunction with a "the US election is very important to me and I have some criticisms of the Democrats but they're purely meant from a constructive helping-the-country-get-better point of view" viewpoint on electoral politics?