[schoen]

I've personally met Chinese people who were stopped by force or threat of force from saying what they wanted to say about domestic politics.

There are many selection biases in how I came to know the people that I do, and it's entirely possible that there are many, many more people who are quite happy with the government and/or its restrictions on speech. However, I can confirm that the Chinese government is, in fact, oppressing a non-zero number of political dissidents.

[derelicta]

If these people you know were publicly calling for the socialist system to be overthrown and replaced by a bourgeois liberal democracy, then I'm afraid to say I don't see anything wrong with this kind of oppression.

For example, I wish my country (Switzerland) were actively cracking down on Nazis, so oppression is okay for me. It really depends who's the target. Censorship is just a tool. One can yield it for good, or for bad purposes.

[schoen]

Can you see how this makes it look like the "socialist system" only survives by force, by physically preventing people from thinking and talking about its flaws? That it can't actually withstand criticism at all?

(That's exactly what I've personally believed for a long time, and your position tends to confirm that impression for me.)

Is it possible that you're not concerned about this issue because you follow a school of Marxist thought in which it's considered literally impossible for people to persuade each other about important political questions, because all people are constrained to believe particular things based on their situations?

[derelicta]

Your bourgeois liberalism is a lot more violent than my Marxism. All of Africa and Asia can attest of that. After all, liberals are known to spread "civilisation" and "freedom" by force, whilst lying to themselves about how lucrative those spoils were. This is why throughout the 20th and 21st century, it's ideology and now obselete mode of production has been fought against so vehemently. This is your liberalism that made Libya, Irak and Afghanistan what they are today. And when liberalism is resisted and vanquished, prosperous and solid democracies emerge out of its womb. Whole sciences and philosophies have even emerged through anti capitalist struggles, so maybe in a way I should be thankful ahah

Edit: if you are curious, historical and dialectical materialism are the sciences and philosophies I was refering to.

[schoen]

Are you somehow committed to the idea that it's not useful or morally valid to debate about whether those ideas are right or wrong? From your discussion of the Chinese political speech issues, it seems like you actually think that -- if there were a way to enforce that -- I should not be able to try to persuade people that you're mistaken, because that's just how transparently evil my anticommunism is, or because people don't actually possess a faculty of reason, or something.

[erxam]

> Are you somehow committed to the idea that it's not useful or morally valid to debate about whether those ideas are right or wrong?

Well, it really isn't.

At the end of the day, ideologies are just fronts for material interests. You argue for your material interests, and they might be at odds with the material interests of the masses.

If a revolutionary movement wants to achieve its goals, it must take care that such deviations don't take root, especially if they use naïve liberal humanism and appeals to human emotion as Trojan horses.

Honestly, this applies to movements in general. You can see this in the USA. Trump's dictatorship was nurtured and empowered by naïve liberal humanist moderates who thought they could debate and 'when they go low, we go high' their way into power and stability.

Decry censorship and ideological rigidity all you want, your enemies won't think twice about using everything in their power to crush you.