Commentator: “Prioritize fraternity, love the American citizen and the Chinese citizen, hate the government and the government alone, so that we may thus have a better humanity.”
William: Hmm... that calls for some caveats.
It's the same old story.
Many people have this illusion that you have the government on one side and the people on the other.
As far as I know, Obama, Biden, Trump... were democratically elected; the will of the people was carried out.
The communist majority won, and the non-communists took refuge in Taiwan.
The Chinese people live how they want to live in mainland China, and they live how they want to live on the island.
Peoples make choices, and their leaders are the result of those choices.
Dissociating government decisions from the will of the people... I haven't had that illusion in a long time.
Take Russia, for example. Now that the war has bogged down, many Russians are questioning Putin's decision to invade.
But in the first year, it was mass support.
Especially after he had already invaded Georgia and Crimea.
Hating Putin and loving the Russian people... it just doesn't make sense.
Note: Hate is a very strong feeling; I just used the same expression as the commentator.
“I” don't hate Chinese and Russians, but I prefer Americans—I know quite a bit of history, and their actions (overall) are more “defensible.”
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