Lauren Southern explained in two pictures:

https://i.imgur.com/20vNQUe.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/2Z7aJNS.png

https://i.imgur.com/xDlbDOR.jpg

ALL POLITICS, NO EXCEPTIONS

I see your point, but when you're exposed to the sheer amount of hypocrisy/violence and reality-denial of white westerners, it becomes hard to suppress the amygdala. That's just how humans work. Not reacting emotionally takes energy.

Eventually that energy budget is surpassed and "China good no matter what" because fuck it, 99% of the world is shitting putrid diarrhea out of their mouths anyway. They go low, you eventually go low as well, or else you will be driven insane. For the record, that's where I stand, both on a rational level and when I feel outburst-y.

Otherwise it’s too close for comfort to the “shut up and vote for the lesser evil” rhetoric that stifles any analysis and debate.

this is a false equivalence, it assumes every lesser evil is lesser by the same amount.

Biden is barely better than trump. The only way he's better is he says less overt dogwhistle racist shit. Harris is just as bad. Biden would be as bad if not worse globally.

China on the other hand, is leagues and leagues and leagues better than the west. And no, the US is not the analogy to China, but rather the entire west. The US is just a small fraction of the west, which population-wise is equivalent to China.

The west administered a continental-scale genocide on hundreds of millions of Americans. They emitted 90% of our current CO2 burden. They committed 95% of animal extinctions/declines of the last century. They starved 100,000,000+ across Africa and India and SEAsia, and are responsible for the early deaths of billions of people suffering the effects of colonialism to this day. The west owns 60% of world GDP, China owns 15%.

Now contrast with China's crimes, which are...they might be putting 1,000s of Uyghurs in reeducation camps, at least if you believe the nazi cryptofascist Zenz who is the sole source of this entire rumor. So we have thousands as opposed to BILLIONS, being reeducated as opposed to EXTERMINATED, and even this comparatively benign accusation comes from a literal fascist nazi who unironically believes that white Jesus will magically pop out of Krakatoa and smite the CCP--meaning it's probably bullshit.

China is MULTIPLE orders of magnitude preferable to and more blameless than the west. It's the same as comparing Jeff Bezos+BillGates+Musk to an office worker who makes $50k. Sure, you can be critical of the office worker because he lives in a nice-ish house, or eats steak, but this issue literally could not fucking matter in any conceivable way whatsoever when compared to the scale of what's happening above it.

Honestly...why shouldn't they?

What's the point in being critical of China when the entire apparatus and society around you is quadrupling down on that effort?

You can be neutral if you want. Just remember that if 95% of the population has an opinion value of -50, and you have a neutral "I'm so enlightened and criticize everything" value of 0, the average isn't 0. Instead it ends up being -49. (and that's generous, since way less than 5% of the population actually has fair views on China)

But what I’d ask is this: Is using intelligence based insults (and other ableist language as you mentioned) productive? Does it allow for uniquely powerful rhetorical uses?

Yes, it releases stress (which allows for clearer thinking) and insults chuds in a language they understand
so fuck off, stupid