I just listened the Mikhaila Peterson podcast featuring Yeonmi Park, in which they talk about North Korea.
In the first part they said that people don't understand how lucky people in the West are, they are fighting for animal rights, and against racism but in North Korea people don't have minimum rights.
Yeonmi said that people infected with corona virus are left to die in concentration camps.
At the end they "revolted" against the US government who fines people who don't wear masks and against South Korean government that can send you in prison for not wearing masks.
I don't understand why they are complaining, in North Korea you got shot for not respecting prevention measures against corona infection.
Stop whining, join the herd, obey your leaders and wear masks. :)
But I am biased for being in favour of wearing masks. I was in an hospital for respiratory diseases before pandemic and everybody used masks.
Maybe they were in something.
Maybe they knew it before and didn't say anything.
Where are the conspiracy theoreticians when you need them ?
Why nobody speaks about this ?
Why media doesn't report that before pandemic medics,nurses and other care taker wear mask in infection diseases sections?
Who wants to hide the truth ?
Sorry I got carried away.
Now I am reading The Six Secrets of Intelligence by Craig Adams, which is an manual of Aristotelian logic applied to our world.
I just finished the chapter of analogy or comparation on plain english. The analogy analysis can be applied to this episode.
The secret is to compare the right characteristics.
An example of bad analogy is this:
Nord Korea and US armies have uniforms and ranks, hence the US army is the same as NK.
South Korea has US troops on its soil and because US army and NK army are the same. South Korea has NK troops on its soil.
The same is with masks, Chinese and US governments demand wearing the masks, so US government is like the Chinese government and wants to restrict your rights.
Why we don't use this to number plates ?
Both government require cars to have number plates, so both want to track you and limits your civil rights.
How we differentiate between measures applied for general good and measures made to limit your rights ?
Car number plates, masks are measures that applied to all. Xi Jinping and Joe Biden have number plates and wear masks, and their rights are restricted as everybody else.
Xi Jinping can criticize anyone in China but not everybody can criticize him.
Joe Biden can criticize anyone and everyone can criticize him.
This a characteristic that separates neatly China from US.
In an authoritarian regime rules are not applied to all, they are applied discretionary. Some are more equal than others to quote my favourite author George Orwell.
The real threat for your rights comes from discretionary measures applied to some. Because people advantaged by the discretionary measures might have a leverage on you.
Discriminatory racist measures in US are the best example of authoritarian measures in an democratic law system. White administration, and business people had a leverage over the black people.
Another good example is when a company is in bed with government and wins all kind of contract for infrastructure, water and energy supply. The company has a leverage over you if you are in competition with it, or if you are its customer.
In some countries leverage cause by discretionary measured increased, see Sicilian mafia, and Russian mafia.
In other leverage decreased see US who gave up racist policies in '60 and France who gave women rights after war. Switzerland gave women rights to vote in '74.
In conclusion:
- Not every measure taken by an authoritarian government is authoritarian and against your rights
- Not every measure taken by an democratic government is for common good or for your own good
- The way to determine if a measure is for common good or not is to check if it applies to all ranks of society. If it doesn't then it is not for your common good. Of course some politicians ignored the laws that they requested from plebs, they didn't wear masks, they shook hands with covid patients, but they paid with their health. Corona is egalitarian.
- I am disappointed by Mikhaila Peterson, I thought that some of her father critical thinking have percolated to her, but it percolated only resistance to authority. I hope that her wrong opinions are sincere and not only a political stance. Political cynicism would destroy her father work. I think both Jordan and Mikaila Peterson should read and analyse Aristotel logic.
