If you woke up tomorrow as the president of China, what would you do?

-Levy higher taxes on the rich to help fund better social programs for the poor and elderly. This will help reduce income inequality.

-Eliminate the whole ‘hukou’ system. Chinese people should be able to work whereever they choose.

-Encourage people to have whatever religion they choose

-Stop censoring nonsense like Winnie the pooh on social media because I can’t take a joke

-Remove the foreign movie restriction of 34 a year. Chinese should be able to choose whether they want to watch foreign movies or domestic movies.

-Remove the ban on foreign companies with uncensored content like Facebook and Youtube and Google. Chinese should be able to decide which platform they want instead of forcing them to choose Chinese platforms. Also, this will be beneficial to foreigners who currently have to use VPNs to even access their own email.

-Remove the censorship on sex/violence in entertainment and create a rating system so that Chinese have the choice to see those things in movies/video games or not

-Develop the entertainment industry more to compete with Korea and Hollywood. That means production of higher quality dramas and movies, training singers and dancers etc

-Develop the west side of China more so that it’s not East side heavy like it is. Create economic zones similar to Shanghai and Shenzhen in heavily underdeveloped areas like Guizhou, Guangxi, Gansu etc

-Create incentives for foreign women (maybe SE Asian women) to move to China to help balance out the gender ratio so that more Chinese men have a chance to marry

-remove the petty boycotting on Korean/Japanese goods. Again Chinese people should have the freedom to decide whether they want those goods or domestic brands

-Create a program for Chinese travelling abroad to help educate them in the do’s and do not’s so that they aren’t perceived as negatively in other countries

-Stop interfering in Hong Kong’s business and let them be autonomous – this will create more peace in that area

-Remove the visa restrictions for traveling foreigners. Canadians and Americans should be able to stay in China 3 months without a visa just like they can for Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and most other countries.

-Free political prisoners. They should be allowed to protest. Chinese people should be able to decide what kind of political priorities they want – if they have support from the majority

-Create a national food inspection program similar to the USDA so that all Chinese food can be tested and deemed safe before eating. We can avoid incidents like the Milk poisoning scandal and food poisoning from ‘fake’ chinese foods

-Break off the relationship with North Korea. Seriously, we don’t need North Korea. Have North Korea and South Korea reunite but under the condition that the US forces *must leave* the Korean peninsula.

Most of the things I would do would be to eliminate the restrictions on a lot of things so that Chinese people have more freedoms. I think this will be more beneficial for the people and the country.

There is one more thing I would like to eliminate which is ‘face culture’ which I think is one of the worst things of Chinese culture, but it will be difficult. I’m not sure the best way to do it but I think media campaigns about focusing on the quality of other people rather than judging them based on material worth, and creating more public holidays for couples to enjoy time with each other rather than ‘shopping days’ which is currently what Singles day stands for in China, would help.

And yes, I would do all this while keeping a one party system because I feel it would be the most efficient way to get these things done.


What are your views on gun control?

I’ve always been in favor of it, and part of this reason is because I grew up in Canada, not America. It seems that most of gun supporters come from America, no surprise there. I also lived in Korea before, where there is absolute gun control, no civilians are allowed to have guns (although every male has trained in it due to mandatory military service), despite this Korea has one of the lowest crime rates in the world despite being a ‘gun free zone’ across the entire country.

I’m not a liberal, but I don’t think gun control is a liberal or conservative viewpoint; its a common sense viewpoint, as much common sense as universal healthcare is to me. But again this is because i lived in Canada, and Korea, and the USA. Guess which one has the highest crime rate out of these three countries?

I’m going to go over all the gun supporter talking points, because they are all strawman arguments that are easy to refute. Disclaimer: there’s absolutely no point in banning guns in the United States because there’s 300 million firearms in the USA and it’s impossible to ban them. I’m talking about gun control if I had to start a new country on my own, hypothetically speaking.

-Criminals will always find a way to kill they don’t care about laws

The thing is, very few of the mass shootings that we have seen were done by career criminals. They were done by ordinary law abiding citizens – until they snapped. So it’s a mental health issue problem. But wait – how the heck do you screen 325 million people for mental health issues? You can’t! That’s why a total gun ban is necessary – because no one would have access to guns. Plus – just because criminals don’t obey the laws doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have laws. This isn’t the Wild West and there’s a consequence for breaking the law – it’s called going to jail.

But criminals will always find a way to get guns

I’m not convinced that the 20 year old or 24 year old mass shooters have access to an illegal black market or want to kill that badly that they would go to such lengths. Maybe some will, but it will definitely require more effort than just purchasing something from your local Wal-mart or at a gun show or taking it from their parent’s bedroom (who presumably bought it legally).

They will find other ways to kill. They will use knives or home made bombs.

Sure. Knives will definitely kill at a slower rate than guns will. You have time to actually create distance between you and the killer. Home made bombs are possible but again they need to put a bit of effort into assembling them.

If we ban guns, why don’t we ban cars and alcohol too? Those kill a lot more people a year!

Guns primary purpose is to kill. Cars are for driving. Alcohol is for social interaction. This is false equivalence.

But gun laws don’t work! Just look at Chicago or California! They have high gun murder rates! Gun free zones don’t work!

Of course it doesn’t work in the US. Because all states have to have the same laws. If some states have more flexible laws than others, then banning them in one city or state does absolutely nothing. You have to ban them totally in every state in order to work. A person could otherwise just exploit a loophole where they can go to neighboring Indiana to buy a gun to shoot up a school in Illinois.

But guns actually prevent more deaths than kill! Self defense laws and discouragement

Maybe. But you could also use knives and tasers for self defense and it would work just as well, with much less chance of accidental discharge and accidental deaths.

But we need guns for hunting animals, too

Do you? I think we invented supermarkets like 60 years ago didn’t we?

-But 99% of citizens are law abiding. Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.

Sure, but everyone is law abiding until the time they are not. Then they become criminals. Tanks don’t kill people. Nukes don’t kill people. Rocket launchers don’t kill people. And 99% of people use them responsibly. Why aren’t those legal? Oh right, because the 1% that does misuse them means very very bad news for the 99%.

But the 2nd amendment is an American right! Liberals just want to take our rights and freedoms away!

The 2nd amendment also called for a well-regulated militia. Well regulated being the key word here, and this being a 1700s era rule well at the time it meant the average person, but in the 21st century more than likely it means the military. I’m all for the military and police force having weapons. Ordinary citizens? Not so much. Also – you know amendments can be repealed right? The 2nd amendment was an amendment – it was part of the Bill of Rights and not the original Constitution.

Why not? Ordinary citizens can help prevent crime too!

Because I don’t trust Joe the Plumber not to kill me when we have a shooting like the Aurora Colorado movie theater shooting or Orlando Pulse Nightclub shooting. Or even the Las Vegas shooting. Very very bad conditions, many people around you, low light environment, even a trained professional would have a hard time distinguishing who the shooter is amongst the chaos, let alone average Joe who I don’t even trust to drive his car safely.

But guns protect us from possibly tyranny from the government? Didn’t you know what happened with Nazi Germany or Russia or China?

Yeah, the majority of people actually supported Hitler, Stalin and Mao. That’s the thing. It wouldn’t matter if they had guns or not because they were brainwashed by the propaganda. Also – highly unlikely if you had a pistol or semi-auto you would be able to beat the government’s tanks or copters or bazookas – and this is the US Military we are talking about. Stealth fighters, Nukes, Airplane carriers. And all of them are trained. Joe the Plumber + his buddies don’t really stand a chance.

Is there any talking point I missed? I have not heard any reasonable argument despite the 100+ answers to this topic about gun control, that owning guns will lead to lower crime. The facts are the UK/Canada/Europe/Japan/Korea even China with their 1+ billion population have less shootings than USA does. Hmm I wonder why that is? But then you might say, well their rates of other violent crime goes up. It’s the lethal aspect we need to think about here. Guns are incredibly lethal and kill at an incredibly fast rate compared to anything else. Not only that but its also pretty accurate – try driving a car into a specific person in a crowd. You can’t. But you can definitely shoot them and kill them.


Is Trump petty and small for rejecting plans for the White House staff plans for a statement praising John McCain?

John McCain is one of the few Republicans I respected.

McCain appears to criticize Trump in farewell message to the nation

He was willing to break with his own party, and attack Trump for his policies. He also served his country whereas Trump dodged the draft.

John McCain was a true American hero, and respected by both liberals and conservatives. Trump is a man who feels that anyone who has wronged him in the past (Hillary, Obama, George W Bush, McCain etc) deserves to be thrown under the bus. He is deeply insecure about himself.

FYI: Trump’s refusal to honor John McCain eerily reminds me of how Mao Zedong refused to honor Zhou Enlai after he died a few months before Mao did, due to Mao’s similar pettiness and insecurity.

Trump is a deeply insecure man who cannot tolerate anyone who’s better than him at anything. Jeff Bezos – richer than Trump so Trump has a feud with Amazon. Obama – more respected than Trump, so Trump has to undo everything Obama did. John McCain – a true war hero whereas Trump dodged the draft, so Trump has to make fun of his PoW status and not honor him. How Trump continues to have such high support amongst Republicans is beyond me when he treats other members of his party with such disrespect.