It was probably a terrible mistake to try to seek answers on a forum regarding political matters. Apologies.
I would argue there are real, important differences in the points you called out as equivalent (or near-equivalent).
Which points did I say were equivalent? I said no such thing. I was saying, "I have no clue what I'm talking about, and I have no clue what life in China is like, so please correct me."
But since I've said that multiple times and it's still not getting across, I think it's better for HN if everyone would just ignore my chain of comments.
I think the problem is partly that your question reads and functions a lot like trolling. Asking the difference between a democratic power and China is pretty strange in itself (the Chinese government famously drew this distinction pretty clearly when it killed hundreds of people for advocating democracy in Tiananmen Square in 1989) — and then in the last sentence of your question, you seem to acknowledge that you do know the difference, but that you are ignoring it because you think they are just "flags to fight under." I don't know what your real intention is, but the comment is pretty weird and comes across as either trolling or a Glenn Beck-style "I'm just asking questions" argument.
Thanks for the feedback. It's extremely frustrating to try to ask innocent questions on HN, especially with the influx of people who enjoy lording themselves and their own personal expertise over people who have admitted ignorance and are here to seek knowledge. Given my lack of knowledge, the only way I can hope to try to formulate a precise question is to "throw myself out there" and attempt to do so. That, of course, results in stupid questions and statements, but that was the entire point: to correct the stupidity and not live with it.
> It was probably a terrible mistake to try to seek answers on a forum regarding political matters.
Well, that's probably true, since politics is a mindkiller. :)
If you want to understand current foreign policy of the US, I recommend reading history, rather than politically aimed books or essays. History books and essays will often have political aims as well, but the slight remove from the present day introduces somewhat more consensus, and understanding how the world got to the current situation will inform your political understanding more evenly than reading a lot of posturing for one political position or another, in my opinion.
I don't have specific recommendations, since most of my history reading, sadly, was in the twentieth century, and I don't remember titles that had a strong foreign policy element. However, one suggestion would be to go through college course listings, such as http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/history/ , and drill down to the readings for a strong list of books.
I would argue there are real, important differences in the points you called out as equivalent (or near-equivalent).
Which points did I say were equivalent? I said no such thing. I was saying, "I have no clue what I'm talking about, and I have no clue what life in China is like, so please correct me."
But since I've said that multiple times and it's still not getting across, I think it's better for HN if everyone would just ignore my chain of comments.