[dmurray]

Fireworks on holidays were also a huge part of Chinese culture, but they've been banned now in cities and the ban seems to be mostly effective.

China even has the same issue as the US, where they aren't banned at the national level so you can still drive two hours and buy them legally. And whatever your stereotypes, China has plenty of scofflaws who aren't going to give something up just because the government tells them to, and its police are, very broadly, less heavy-handed as the US

I suspect banning firework sales in the US would have a significant impact.

[seanmcdirmid]

China goes up and down on this. In Beijing in 2002, fireworks were pretty muted, there were some but not many. In 2008, completely different, they even burned the facade off of that CCTV cultural center.

Note that Beijing is where the central government is the strongest, although Beijingers aren’t as law abiding as residents of south Chinese cities are. Still, they were selling fireworks (when they were allowed) inside the third ring, you didn’t have to go out to Hebei to get them.

As for what the policy is now, I couldnt tell you, and wouldn’t assume it was one way or the other.

[logicchains]

China's a police state where the government has absolute power and isn't limited even slightly by the constitution, with a disarmed population, it's completely incomparable.

[inigyou]

So is the USA. It's comparable.

[_heimdall]

Our government has absolute power without a constitution binding it and our population is disarmed?

[rbanffy]

We have seen the “checks and balances” were held together by decorum alone. We are now seeing what happens if decorum is absent and government officials regularly lie and mislead the public and other government officials without facing any consequences.

[_heimdall]

I absolutely agree that things in the US seem to be going in a bad direction, but we haven't yet lost our constitution or system of checks and balances.

There's a big difference between the Constitution, law, and doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine, for example, was little more than policy and had nothing to do with law or constitutional rights.

Our checks and balances are still there, the problem we have today is the lack of willingness for those with the power to actually use them. Congress can stop Trump on many of the things he's doing, for example, they just don't want to and have instead continued a decades long pattern of Congress ceding power to executive. The judicial branch has at least stepped in at times, they really don't have to as the Supreme Court can choose to simply not hear a case.

The issue of lying politicians is as old as governments. If we want to focus on Trump as the issue here, and he's a big one, you only have to go back to the pandemic to find politicians on the other side of the aisle blatantly lying to the public without consequence.

[rbanffy]

> but we haven't yet lost our constitution or system of checks and balances.

> the problem we have today is the lack of willingness for those with the power to actually use them.

What they do is illegal, sure, but, unless they face consequences for that, they'll continue doing it. There are trillions of dollars to be made, and nothing to stand between them and the money.

> The issue of lying politicians is as old as governments.

It could be solved by making it a criminal offense (with attached loss of political rights and hefty prison time) to materially mislead the public while holding office (elected or nominated).

[inigyou]

Yes.