Your opinion about Tibet?

[holy king]

And the Allied and Comintern troops who died to free Europe didn't achieve anything?

of course. it's just moot to them.

 

[Tycoon101]

of course. it's just moot to them.

Live free or die trying. Maybe that can be altered to accommodate the despotic tendencies of the Dali Lama, but the point stands.

If an ideal isn't worth dying for, then what point is there in trying every method one has to accomplish said ideal?

 

[holy king]

Live free or die trying. Maybe that can be altered to accommodate the despotic tendencies of the Dali Lama, but the point stands.

If an ideal isn't worth dying for, then what point is there in trying every method one has to accomplish said ideal?

i do not understand what my willingness to die for an ideal has to do with its quality?

 

[Tycoon101]

i do not understand what my willingness to die for an ideal has to do with its quality?

Quality is irrelevant. If I want to die to fight for free pancakes from IHOP every tuesday then so be it.

My point is that a deeply held conviction that one wishes to live by and help one's children and such live by must be backed by one's life or it isn't such a deeply held conviction after all.

 

[holy king]

Quality is irrelevant. If I want to die to fight for free pancakes from IHOP every tuesday then so be it.

My point is that a deeply held conviction that one wishes to live by and help one's children and such live by must be backed by one's life or it isn't such a deeply held conviction after all.

yeah. but holding convictions that deeply hasnt turned out that well over the course of history...

 

[Tycoon101]

yeah. but holding convictions that deeply hasnt turned out that well over the course of history...

American Revolution
French Revolution
Italian Unification
Gandhi's efforts to free India
Martin Luther King Jr.'s efforts to bring equality to blacks in America

Must I go on?

 

[holy king]

American Revolution
French Revolution
Italian Unification
Gandhi's efforts to free India
Martin Luther King Jr.'s efforts to bring equality to blacks in America

Must I go on?

no. and i wont start with listing opposite examples. i could additionally say that all those fights killed people that were NOT eager to die for the respective ideal.

but in the end it all comes down to this anyway: one's death renders everything moot including whatever high cause you died for.

 

[Tycoon101]

no. and i wont start with listing opposite examples. i could additionally say that all those fights killed people that were NOT eager to die for the respective ideal.

but in the end it all comes down to this anyway: one's death renders everything moot including whatever high cause you died for.

Not if you believe in an afterlife...

But that's an argument for another thread and another time.

 

[holy king]

Not if you believe in an afterlife...

But that's an argument for another thread and another time.

even if you believe in an afterlife it would have to be an afterlife in which you consciously care about what happens to those living on after your death, which would be a quite naive view...

 

[demokratickid]

Tibet deserves to exist as a free state. Any major ethnic group should be allowed to have their own enclave. (Look at the Balkans!)

 

[cybrxkhan]

hmm, i think even if the Tibetans would want independence, the CHinese outnumber them so much a large independence movement would pretty cause all of the TIbetans to die, so then there would be no one to be freed left. hmm. (could work for the Chinese in the long run... i wonder why don't they try that)

 

[demokratickid]

(could work for the Chinese in the long run... i wonder why don't they try that)

I think thay're doing that right now, minus the whole "independent Tibet" thing.

 

[JohnRM]

If overwhelming majority of the people who live there want independence, then they should have it, but it looks as though they are going to have to be willing to die for it, too.

 

[Narz]

If they want their freedom so much, why don't they all rise up in the manner that the Americans did in 1775? If out Forefathers could have risen up to defeat the most powerful nation on planet Earth, why can't Tibet rise up to defeat the second most powerful?

In the 18th century it took British reinforcements weeks to arrive. The British were largely outnumbered and training and technology was about equal on both sides (you could say Americans were better trained since the Brits only were trained for classical battelfield warfare).

Besides, the Tibetans already tried to fight back (though not in an organized manner). They were crushed. Might doesn't make right.

 

[Archbob]

The deserve to be independent. That's what it's citizens want so I don't get how so many people think they deserve subjugation? Don't you remember your own history Americans? And the British weren't half as bad to us and the Chinese were to the Tibetans.

If only there was oil under Tibet. Then EcoFarm and MobBoss would demand we "bring them democracy"!

Yeah, and the British just handed independence to us on a silver platter because we asked nicely, right?

 

[Narz]

Yeah, and the British just handed independence to us on a silver platter because we asked nicely, right?

No I never said they did. My point here is that no one is questioning that the 13 colonies was wrong to revolt and yet the Chinese have a far more brutal history with Tibet than the British ever did with their American colonies.

 

[cybrxkhan]

in fact, i find it amusing that many Americans view the British in the 1700s as something of the Nazi Empire or Japan of World War II. No, no, no. The British were arguably the most liberal and prosperous of the colonizers of the time.

 

[Sidhe]

I recognize that Tibet exists. Beyond that nothing, they need China. Or India. Point being they can't go it alone.

They can, it's just if they did everyone would expect them to immediately resort back to their agrarian lifestyle and die or whatever other bilge gets circulated these days.

A question of popular sovereignty? I have no doubt that if you were to take a fair election of all who reside in the TAR, the vast majority would favor the People's Republic of China. But you protest- the Tibetans were there first, and it is only because of the immigrant Han Chinese that the polls came that way! Yet should we kick all the whites out of America because the Amerindians would have kicked them out if they could in the 17th century?

I have no doubt that fair elections will never happen so it's irrelevant. And your second point is from the days of anachronistic colonialism, countries wandering into other countries is not tolerated any more. Look at Russia. Comparing the situation to the distant past is missing the point.

No and no. The Chinese have exerted their influence over Tibet, and soon will bring their empire and cultural clout over Asia, as the Europeans have done to the Americas.

No, no they wont. China will become more enamoured with Western culture until eventually it becomes some sort of democracy. It will not impress it's culture in any fashion on Asia except in a benign way, and that will be impeded by the nature of its government.

Tibet used to survive on its own before 1950, so why not now?
The Kingdom of Bhutan next door is what my best bet on what Tibet would look like and how it would operate and they have cope extremely well, i remember reading they were one of the happeist countries in the world Bhutan and yet they consist of mostly farmers. So this they won't survive on it's own is BS

No in a decade Tibet would have collapsed back into a terrible horrendous agrarian economy, where it's people would have to plant crops and I don't know exist as a sort of backward kingdom, the horror! I don't see that happening, and I doubt it would cause much hardship if it did. Not like they didn't do perfectly well for thousands of years, if not by our standards.

Tibet to all appearance seems to be part of China, I see no reason why it is its own country. It would be like asking if Hawaii is its own country.

Or perhaps if Poland was it's own country in the cold war, since that's more in keeping with the time of the invasion into Tibet.

If they want their freedom so much, why don't they all rise up in the manner that the Americans did in 1775? If out Forefathers could have risen up to defeat the most powerful nation on planet Earth, why can't Tibet rise up to defeat the second most powerful?

Should they fail, the terrible deaths that they would receive would further turn the world against China and cause terrible repercussions if exploited by shrewd politicians.

Could you rise up and overthrow your government now? No, then please people think before you make stupid comments that have no bearing on reality. How far do you think an uprising is going to get against the might of the Chinese military? I don't think a geurrilla seperatist force is what people want to see in Tibet.

Basically there are going to be more violent protests, and I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't become more frequent. It's the way it works, human beings are territorial animals.

 

[Oruc]

If they want their freedom so much, why don't they all rise up in the manner that the Americans did in 1775? If out Forefathers could have risen up to defeat the most powerful nation on planet Earth, why can't Tibet rise up to defeat the second most powerful?

Should they fail, the terrible deaths that they would receive would further turn the world against China and cause terrible repercussions if exploited by shrewd politicians.

Well you guys had the help of France and Spain, who's gonna help Tibet?

 

[philippe]

Well you guys had the help of France and Spain, who's gonna help Tibet?

yup, besides Tycoons argument is invalid on so many levels.

Tibet got conquered. The USA was a colony, colonies have a clear advantage of getting independance.

There isn't this thing called an "ocean" between Tibet and China.

Tibet only has minimal support from India and they are too scared poopless to do something against China.