Comments by "Alan Friesen" (@alanfriesen9837) on "" video.

  1. My own view of patriotism is the flip side of the coin from nationalism. Patriotism, in my mind, is inclusive. It's a love of country with an invitation to others who do and could also love the country to work together to make the country as great as possible, and this could and should include criticism of things that are holding the country back. Nationalism, on the other hand, is exclusive. It ties some people together under a common tribe-like identity and then pushes out those who do not share the characteristics they define as belonging to that nation. In my opinion, any separatist movement is nationalistic rather than patriotic. Separatism is an act of rejection of one's countryman who do not share one's nationality, ethnically or ideologically. China's separatists take advantage of the fact that China was torn to pieces, some of which were temporarily governed by other entities and who promoted the idea that they were different—no longer Chinese. This messaging is highly exclusive and therefore, the very opposite of patriotic.
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  2. I think you'd find that strength of movement plays into it. If secession demands in the United States (my country) were substantial enough that it were a realistic ambition, I'm pretty sure it would be crushed. We have the benefit in the United States of not having been torn apart since 1864. China is still torn apart, their efforts to bring the country back together and to keep those parts recently repatriated are regularly under assault. Consequently, they are a lot more sensitive to calls of separatism.
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  3. I think you'd find that strength of movement plays into it. If secession demands in the United States (my country) were substantial enough that it were a realistic ambition, I'm pretty sure it would be crushed. We have the benefit in the United States of not having been torn apart since 1864. China is still torn apart, their efforts to bring the country back together and to keep those parts recently repatriated are regularly under assault. Consequently, they are a lot more sensitive to calls of separatism.
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  4.  @annoyedaussie3942  I think you're wrong. Not only that, I think we should crack down on separatism if its advocates are destroying government property, shutting down cities, and intentionally injuring and/or killing people. We do have separatists in Hawaii and Texas. Up to this point they haven't, to my knowledge, engaged in the kind of destructive behavior that would warrant a crackdown. Hopefully that won't change.
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  5.  @annoyedaussie3942  I don't think anyone is being shut down for asking for a vote. The response in Hong Kong, such that it was, was in response to violence and unauthorized gatherings. And really the response was pretty indulgent. Of course I'm referring to the police response. The legal response aimed at the organizers of the demonstrations were less forgiving. But here I think that if in my country things got out of hand to the degree that they did in Hong Kong over separatist advocacy, I think the leniency that you suggest above would dissipate pretty thoroughly. At this point this is just my opinion though. I sincerely hope we'll never know for sure. The Second Amendment is complicated. It was vaguely worded to begin with because at the time it was not universally approved of. The "well-regulated militia" clause is an argument but not a condition. And this ambiguous attachment was probably used differently to persuade people of different minds into approving the amendment in the first place. Because of this we all now disagree on what it means, and we can all back up our beliefs on that. So we don't really know whether or not it allows gun controls, we just know that its authority is absolute.
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