• UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      assigns them a score if a citizen walks on the sidewalk correctly

      Funny story about Jaywalking

      The automobile lobby in the US took up the cause of labeling and scorning jaywalkers in the 1910s and early 1920s. In 1912, for instance, Popular Mechanics magazine reported that the term was current in Kansas City: “The city pedestrian who cares not for traffic regulations at street corners, but strays all over the street, crossing in the middle of the block, or attempting to save time by choosing a diagonal route across a street intersection instead of adhering to the regular crossing, is designated as a ‘jay walker,’ in Kansas City.”

      In 1915, when New York City’s police commissioner Arthur Woods sought to apply the word “jaywalker” to anyone who crossed the street at mid-block, the New York Times protested, calling it “highly opprobrious” and “a truly shocking name.”

      Originally in the US, the legal rule was that “all persons have an equal right in the highway, and that in exercising the right each shall take due care not to injure other users of the way”. In time, however, streets became the province of vehicular traffic, both practically and legally.

      Anyway, enjoy your hyper-criminalized car culture hellscape while making spooky fingers about Evil Foreign Country.

    • Eheran@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      Yea, China monitors a billion people in their country

      Correct, and those abroad too.

      • davel@lemmy.ml
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        5 hours ago

        You know the stories of secret overseas Chinese police stations were fake news, right?

            • astro@leminal.space
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              3 hours ago

              Anything that deals more directly with the issue than the past of the founder of one associated organization? “One of the guys saying it is bad, so it isn’t true” doesn’t work well on the people I argue with.

              • davel@lemmy.ml
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                3 hours ago

                It’s very hard to prove a negative, especially to people who want to believe, thanks to over a century of anticommunist propaganda. The burden of proof ought to be on those making claims of secret foreign police stations on their soil, an extraordinary claim. All those articles are trash and have no real evidence. And they don’t need any, because almost no Westerners demand any, because the narrative aligns with their preconception of communist states as cartoonishly evil.

                Masses, Elites, and Rebels: The Theory of “Brainwashing”

                • astro@leminal.space
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                  17 minutes ago

                  It was my understanding that the existence of police stations in foreign countries is not debated, they have them. The allegation that they are used for repressive purposes beyond their stated aim of providing administrative services to citizens living abroad is what is controversial. It really seems like, when you cut all the baggage away, all we have is testimonials from expats claiming harassment and assurances from the MFA that it never happened, so I struggle to land firmly on one side of belief considering both parties have historically been loose with the truth.

                  • davel@lemmy.ml
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                    8 minutes ago

                    It was my understanding that the existence of police stations in foreign countries is not debated, they have them.

                    No, that’s not a thing. What country allows another country to have police stations on its sovereign territory, where it has sovereign jurisdiction and the foreign country has none? That makes no sense.