Do you mean the people of Han ancestry on the island of Taiwan that claim sovereignity over parts of India, Russia, Bhutan, Pakistan, Japan, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Tajikistan; and all of Tibet, Mongolia and the People’s Republic of China.

Those people that imposed forty years of martial law on the population of the Island (commonly known as the White Terror) so as to commit Politicide, executing over three thousand, imprisoning over one hundred and forty thousand, not to mention killing between eighteen and twenty eight thousand to thwart a popular uprising. Those people that after two generations of crushing repression felt secure enough, in their possession over the Island’s levers of power and capacity to generate income, to allow elections.

Is it those people that you want me to speak to? Or are you trying to push this in some kind of ‘All Lives Matter’ direction?

I’ve been cycling for 45 years and have only ever retired one bike. Theft or catastrophic damage took care of the rest.

That particular bike had a steel frame and an aluminum seat post that became permanently fused and much of the the bottom bracket barrel was rusted out so I had to let it go. A couple of salty winters in Calgary killed it.

I have a single speed that is almost twenty years old. I’ve easily spent six times the original price in replacement parts. It’s such a low-key ridiculously good bike. If the frame geometry is good for you then keep it ticking over.

Who, the indigenous Taiwanese, or the cancerous ancestors of brutal monarchists from the mainland?

They would certainly struggle to do so but that doesn’t stop the ROC wishing it would.

Their hopes probably made more geopolitical sense many decades ago.

Or, maybe, as they have long hoped, the US will put these children of a brutal aristocracy in ‘charge’ again.

Exactly. They have no authority in that jurisdiction.

Yeah, I think most people underestimate how vicious hungry wild animals can be.

Centrist managerial organisation says, be afraid of the far away enemy, ignore the web of class war we are waging on you with our allies.

Centrist organizations like this ascribe to the Western hegemonic information warfare paradigm.

Liberals don’t want truth or justice, they want a self serving narrative that disguises their contempt for people they feel are beneath them.

That’s a design feature.

Ding-a-ling a-ling-a-ling

I also did a handful of longer tours about europe back then too. Much of the tips I picked up related to travelling about in a world without mobile phones.

These days I can’t cycle for long periods since I damaged my shoulder. The discomfort just takes all the pleasure out of it.

I’m sure you’ll make many fond memories on your own journeys.

I used to tour Ireland in the 90’s and I found that it’s best to wear whatever dries the fastest and covers your body.

To that end I found trekking sandles the best footwear for preventing trench foot. And covering up for the sun (Long sleeves, fingerless gloves, shorts that go below the knee) as the rain and sweating will reduce the effectiveness of your sunblock.

I got the worst sunburn of my life cycling from Belfast to Rosslaire over three days yet it was raining most of the time.

I was brought up wearing shorts all year round so you may feel the cold more than I did. I can only remember one autumnal evening where I especially felt bitterly cold cycling into a chilling northerly wind coming off the Atlantic.

That’s a perspective issue though.

If you’re not a white middle-class American and have had a much tougher experience over this time period and say that was largely down to the parasitic hubris of many white middle-class Americans. Then you might be entitled to a much dimmer view at an attempt at brevity that ignores your viscerally darker cultural history.

The way that most propaganda works is by repeating it’s message whenever/whereever it can and silencing alternative messages. At a certain stage the message is self sustaining (becomes cultural) and the duped populace will police it themselves.

Yes the meme is a wry look at a truism that will resonate with plenty of us on here, and that is fine. But it is also OK for other people to stand up and give their cultural perspective. Otherwise it just comes off as you’re just replicating that toxic behaviour of policing your cultural propaganda.

All of that is true, especially for white middle-class Americans. But, and I think this is what the previous poster is getting at, he further you get from the imperial core the greater the chance of an alternate experience.

It’s Tuesday, not Friday.

One of the things that helped with the relative prosperity of Belfast is that George Chichester, 2nd Marquess of Donegall, had amassed huge gambling debts so the family had to sell off their extensive property holdings. This was about the mid nineteenth century. There was something of an industrial boom up until the partition of Ireland.

At least

The economist has ever been part of the machinery of the ratchet effect.