De-registering organ non-donor - crime?

[hullexile]

For the sake of debate, let’s carefully consider this again.

As an aside, it never ceases to amaze me how wide a spectrum of people ranging from “I’m not a China apologist”, add those who consider themselves apolitical, right up to liberals who see the defects of the current version of the Chinese system, who I’ll group as “moderates”, can seem occasionally susceptible to what is clearly heavy-handed messaging inviting them to judge the apparent reasonableness of issues the government chooses to highlight, while ignoring the context.

It is not in question, at least to me, whether in isolation the results of people’s choices can be a disbenefit to society, they clearly are. What boggles my mind is why anyone would weigh that more heavily than everything else. Looking at the facts as we know them, 2880 valid applications for deregistration were made out of a total of more than 357000 registered donors. If we examine their potential motivations I’ll broadly group them into three groups. 1. Unsure how the mechanism works (from just general nervousness of privacy issues to fears of nefarious purpose) 2. Disagree with the specific policy - wants to have a choice what happens to their organs 3. Disagrees with policy choices of the state and not having a say in general

To be clear, I don’t agree with the motivations of the subgroup of xenophobic nativists that may exist, but I suspect in reality are vanishingly small in practice. The very fact that nice, reasonable, and normal people are moved to agree with the government in condemning them even in spite of alleging criminality spurs me to think something has gone wrong, and think it would be logical to be more supportive of any other motivations. Why?

1. People seem to be forgetting that there isn’t exactly a socially responsible way of expressing their disapproval anymore (remember the similar criming of the “yellow economic circle” anyone?)
2. It’s obvious from the stats that only 5% of the population are donors. If 2880 donors withdrew, doesn’t a departure of 2-300k people imply the effects of policies have made 10-15k donors leave, (and probably more since it’s the young, healthy, socially conscious and less superstitious who are more likely to be potential donees) has been even more detrimental to society even when evaluated solely on this narrow aspect [but of course per the government, this never happened]. {Suggest a look at blood donation figures and see how much they have to lean on schoolchildren for blood stocks}
3. Fundamentally this is about autonomous choice, why would be condemning people that have chosen to stop participating for whatever reason, over people who never have. Are we now objecting to people making a choice just because it’s one we wouldn’t make and supposedly “harms society”, just like millions of other small actions do? [Imagine if it was mandatory (or prohibited) to keep working till 60, does the effect on society and maintaining the requisite workforce numbers mean if you’re delighted by the policy you are entitled to judge the choices of others if they could opt out? These are people that opted in in the first place, it seems there’s a pretty high threshold to be judging them for their choices.
4. This is yet another scenario where the unaccountable want to decide what’s best without accounting for the concerns of the public. If in a static environment, the public decided to create this change, I for one might have been more inclined to agree with the emphasis on the misguided actions which hurt society. Since ultimately it’s obvious what is driving this behaviour, the “beatings will continue until morale improves” part of this seems the appropriate focus of the topic.

Perhaps I missed something, or overcomplicated an “easy to judge” issue, but with respect to all sides, either this is so trivial it’s simple to ignore, or it creates governance difficulties that force the state to recognise it’s not a good thing to have a disaffected populace. I don’t see why in either case anyone truly not inclined to the unhealthy status quo would jump at the chance to colour our views of the disaffected. If it’s me that needs the rethinking I’ll keep checking back to see how I’ve failed to look at the big picture.

I think it should be clear that I am not "joining with the government in condemning these people".

"Seems wrong" is not condemnation in my book.

I am not in Hong Kong, I am not on any register of organ donors. People are free to do what they like with their bodies after death. I do not condemn any of the choices.

The action of withdrawing from the register just seems a wrong reaction to me. Does it not to you?

[moctapxe]

Is a nothing burger. A none issue turned into an end of the world issue. If one wants to stay, stay, delist, delist no need to justify or explain to anyone the reason why. Unless somewhere in small print in the agreement one must give full and valid reasons why the change of mind.

[HK_Katherine]

My issue is with Lee's - as well as his cronies - tone and suggestions that EVERYTHING is suspect of being a crime and police needs to investigate.

This. I agree. Mind you, to a hammer everything is a nail. To an ex Policeman... everything is a police matter.

[HK_Katherine]

And yet the western world continue to suck on China's titties.

Not so much these days.

[HK_Katherine]

I can't recall if I signed up or not - was it a tickbox on a driving licence or PR type form? If so, I did. If not, I didn't. I probably don't care if my organs go to China, as long as they go to a person who doesn't have to pay for them. I DO care that the Government is handling this issue like a complete bunch of twats. I think their approach is probably going to accelerate the delisting and strongly deter anyone on the fence from signing up in the first place.

I have no problem if people want to delist because they don't want to support further integration with China. And because there are no other forums to show their feelings, they are using the rights to their body after death as one way. We are all free to use our bodies how we like - whether in protest on the streets or in how we want them used after death. This Government has NO CLUE WHATSOEVER how to deal with people. Ordinary people. Why not? Well because they NEVER HAS TO GET ELECTED so they never had to poll opinions, or appeal to the masses, or figure out how to get elected. It really makes me see some of the value of elections (over and above just our right to choose) - they also help shape policy because policy needs to be grounded in some kind of popularity.

Without elections we just get threats. It's pretty sad.

[AsianXpat0]

The action of withdrawing from the register just seems a wrong reaction to me. Does it not to you?

As I tried to make clear in my previous post, that is I imagine the automatic response to withdrawals any reasonable person would have if considering the effects in isolation. That doesn’t seem problematic, unless I’m assumed to be unreasonable.

You are right in that condemnation may have been too strong a term to describe it (I was trying to encapsulate everyone who doesn’t reflexively support the state on every issue, but feels obliged to state the obvious part here).

In terms of the fundamentals, Kat and others have probably better covered why it’s arguable whether you can label it the “wrong reaction”. I also tried to thread together why autonomy, legitimacy, etc. matter if we insist on making the judgment vs looking askance at allegations of criminality with choices we don’t necessarily agree with, but they have done it better.

[JAherbert]

considering the small number, maybe it spiked a reminder for those that have already left to de-register, nothing sinister, except the over reaction