That's why I asked topicseed, accepting her/his argument that emerging markets need protection, when (and if) China should open up.
But apparently topicseed hasn't updated her/his thesis since 2005.
As for Tesla in China, I dimly recall that it's in partnership. SOP for BRICS economies. Quick search... Nope. I was wrong. This 2018 article states Tesla is the first foreign company allowed to operate in China without a domestic partner. https://money.cnn.com/2018/07/10/news/companies/tesla-china-...
Now I'm almost curious if there have been others since.
No, unless and until there is a domestic chinese Luxury Car maker of note. This is the exception which proves the rule. They don't make directly competing products; so these come in. Watch what happens when they do.
> Military officers are held accountable in ways that politicians and bureaucrats (almost) never are.
"On Monday, President Trump pardoned the convicted war criminal Michael Behenna, who had murdered Ali Mansur, an unarmed, naked Iraqi, by shooting him in the head and chest."
You've been using HN primarily for ideological battle. We ban accounts that do that, regardless of their ideology. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for.
Sure, then how about these paragons of military justice:
1. In 1998, a US maring navigator flew - against US regulations - his fighter aircraft at low altitude over the Cavalese ski resort in Italy.
The muppets managed to cut the wires of crowded cable car - killing 20 allied civilians. Captain Ashby and Captain Schweitzer were put on trial … and found not guilty of involuntary manslaughter and negligent homicide.
2. In 2001 the Navy Los Angeles-class submarine USS Greeneville (SSN-772) submarine deliberately breached the surface to impress some politicians onboard. The muppets managed to sink a Japanese teaching ship - killing 9 allied civilians, including 4 children.
After Commander Waddle had faced the Naval Board of Inquiry, it was decided that a full court-martial would be unnecessary and he was given an honorable discharge.
1. The pilot (Ashby) and NFO (Schweitzer) were subsequently convicted of conduct unbecoming for destroying evidence; each was dismissed from the Marine Corps (the officer equivalent of a dishonorable discharge, which in turn is the equivalent of a felony conviction, which stays with you for life), and Ashby was imprisoned for six months. [0]
2. The USS Greeneville incident was a career-ender for pretty much everyone who was even remotely involved; that's small comfort to the families of the people who died, but the problem seems to have been one of failing do one last precautionary check after doing others, and Murphy's Law worked its magic. I wasn't a sub sailor so I can't really opine as to whether or not that was grossly negligent or simply one of those stupid mistakes that humans sometimes make. [1]
So the civilian contractor who set on fire a submarine with no casualties (linked elsewhere in this thread) got 17 years of jail, but the military pilot who killed 20 innocent civilians (in an allied country, while not even being at war) got 6 months. Not a blazing example of military accountability.
Well, let's see: On the one hand, the Marine pilot did something that in different circumstances he would have been required to do (low-level flight, e.g., in combat and/or in training for combat). Moreover, there was considerable doubt whether they had been provided with up-to-date maps showing what areas were off-limits. They were acquitted of the manslaughter charges — but they were later cashiered for destroying evidence, i.e., a videotape of the accident [2], because for military officers, integrity is supposed to be at the top of the list of required personal qualities.
Oh, and let's not forget that the pilot and NFO had previously had good records (AFAIK) and for many years had been putting their asses on the line for their country every single time they took off in a plane. (There's an old joke that when you join the U.S. military, you sign a blank check made out to the People of the United States of America, payable in any amount up to and including your life.)
On the other hand, we have the civilian "yardbird" who, wanting to go home, intentionally started a fire that led to the essentially-total loss [3] of a major national military asset. "Rear Adm. Richard Breckenridge, a submarine group commander, said the ship's extensive damage had ripple effects around the Navy, delaying repairs on other vessels and leading to longer deployments for thousands of sailors." [4]
If you don't see why that might lead to very-different sentences for the two cases, I'm afraid we don't have much else to discuss on that point.
They destroyed the evidence that would have proved if they were intentionally trying to sneak below the cable car or not... and they got away with a grand total of 6 months of detention. This is beyond ridiculous, no civilian would have had it so easy.
But I agree, I don't think we have much else to discuss, indeed.
Behenna for example was held accountable. Your prior insult was quite unwarranted.
Behenna served five years in prison for killing a suspected al-Qaeda terrorist (Mansur) that was linked by an intel report to a roadside bomb (that killed two of Behenna's friends). Behenna was convicted of "unpremeditated murder in a combat zone" and was released from prison in 2014.
After prison, Behenna completed five years of parole and Trump pardoned the remaining five years. I don't agree with the pardon, however you of course made it sound like Behenna avoided prison time and there was zero accountability.
Both dishonorably discharged, which has consequences in later life not unakin to a felony conviction, and also renders post-separation benefits null and void. One also served a few months prison time. If you want to argue it's not enough, fine. But to claim they faced no consequences whatsoever is substantively false to fact.
> Both dishonorably discharged, which has consequences in later life not unakin to a felony conviction, and also renders post-separation benefits null and void
Those sound like penalties due to their negligence, not due to the manslaughter.
If you design a building negligently, it collapses and nobody dies: You lose your job, never work in the industry again, and face civil lawsuits for damages (there goes your pension).
If you design a building negligently, it collapses and people die: All of the above, plus a severe criminal conviction.
If you fly a plane negligently and damage public infrastructure, I sincerely hope you would be dishonorably discharged.
So, one could argue they faced little consequence for the deaths they caused, despite having a higher level of responsibility.
(Whether the actual consequences of an action vs the possible consequences of an action should decide the punishment is a whoooole other topic)
> Both dishonorably discharged, which has consequences in later life not unakin to a felony conviction
A DD has consequences more akin to a previous for-cause termination than a felony conviction. It does remove the advantages being a veteran gives you over everyone else, at the same time, which together might be similar in magnitude to a felony conviction, though.
I never claimed they faced no consequences, but the OP's claim that the US military are held to much higher standards of accountability that the civil service is not justified.
Not at all. I mean hear as in really listen and take in what the other is saying. That's harder than it sounds. It's painful and frightening and almost no one is willing to do it, but I think it's the only way forward. Otherwise we're just going to get more violence and justification of violence, because no matter how deeply we try to suppress them, the grievances of the past will just keep reexploding.
Interesting that you seem to be assuming a particular result from "hearing", excluding the reaction of "I hear you, and I just don't care." which is surely a possibility?
I'm talking about hearing from the heart and not just in the technical sense that might say "Ok, you said your piece and I heard it, now can we just move on". I believe that most people won't respond dismissively to the suffering of others, if the conditions for hearing each other, really listening and acknowledging, are in place. But it's painful and we avoid those conditions as much as possible. For example,
I heard a story about a little girl at one of the residential schools in Canada where the teacher would stick a pin through her tongue when she was caught speaking her native language. It's really hard to hear something like that. Much easier to say "I don't care", although we normally put it that in more self-serving language. And underlying "I don't care" is something more like, "I can't bear this".
I don't like the word "allowed", as if there's some authority here, but if you want my opinion, certainly there is no obligation to agree about anything at all. However, that doesn't mean that listening from the heart is easy. Really hearing what other humans have gone through is not easy. There is a strong temptation to react with denial, because otherwise it's too painful. There is an obligation, I believe, to acknowledge what actually happened, on all sides.
First off, thanks for continuing to engage despite our clear difficulties understanding one another.
When I say, allowed, I mean under the moral and social system you are advancing. You propose that there is an obligation to acknowledge and "hear" what has happened. The problem for me is that you seem to believe that it is impossible to acknowledge and hear without caring, or care without suffering. It seems that you believe people have a moral obligation to share another's suffering.
My first problem is that you claim to be in a position to judge if this obligation has been met.
My second problem is that being heard is not sufficient for the speakers to turn the page on the grievances of the past.
The concepts of empathy and active listening are well defined. Calling those concepts "undefined, non-falsifiable, linguistic drivel" is completely unsubstantiated.
I think the problem is when the speaker gets to be the sole determinant of sufficient empathy and listening. It leaves no room for disagreement.
>If you truly empathize with me and understood my position, surely you would agree with me. If you disagree, then you have not listened with sufficient empathy.
It's harder to do over a text forum than in person, but it's not strictly impossible. The low hanging fruit is checking to see if a person is responding specifically to the arguments in your post, or just arguing against a strawman. You can take that a step further and try to determine if their response indicates they understood your argument. This is more error prone, but still a possible method of determining good faith.
I think it's reasonable to infer that "hearing" in this context doesn't literally mean only the act of perceiving sound. It's clearly referring to listening in good faith.
