325
Man flees China by riding jet ski hundreds of miles to South Korea (www.nbcnews.com)
submitted 1 year ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world
33 comments fedilink hide all child comments

A jet ski rider who has been detained since he washed up on South Korea’s coast is believed to be a Chinese dissident who feared for his safety and fled by crossing hundreds of miles of sea, trailing barrels of fuel behind him.

The coast guard in the western South Korean port city of Incheon said in a statement Sunday that a Chinese man in his 30s tried to illegally enter the country Aug. 16 by riding a jet ski from the Shandong area of China, an eastern province around 200 miles away across the Yellow Sea.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] dublet@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

at least you can always get your passport go to the airport and leave

"The US State Department estimates that 37 per cent of the population has a valid passport" according to the Telegraph. There's also the question as to how many people can afford a flight anywhere. A theoretical freedom to have the ability to do something is great, but many Americans lack the ability to exercise those rights.

This is not a what-aboutism but rather a more fundamental conceptual separation between the negative liberty and positive liberty. The US and other Western countries like the UK are better at one than the other to varying degrees.

[-] wahming 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

"The US State Department estimates that 37 per cent of the population has a valid passport"

How is it the govt's fault that so many Americans are self absorbed to the point they have no interest in ever leaving their home country?

[-] over_clox@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Did you not read the comment you replied to?

Dude didn't mention much of anything about if people are interested in leaving. They mostly said we're too damn broke to afford a plane ticket even if we wanted one.

[-] wahming 0 points 1 year ago

There's 2 parts to that comment. Percentage of population with a passport, and number of people who can't afford it. I wasn't debating the 2nd one, though I probably have quite a few things I could say on that point.

The first point however, relates to the practically-a-meme about how many Americans have no interest in ever leaving the states even for a brief holiday, whether or not they can afford it.

[-] over_clox@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

There's no point in getting a passport when you know you're too broke to afford a plane ticket my dude. The two issues are heavily correlated.

[-] SmokesForBreakfast@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I’m genuinely curious about the part of how many can afford flights. If anybody out there have any stats on that I would greatly appreciate it.

[-] dublet@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

For a start:

One in 10 American households struggled to feed their families last year, with more than 5 million families missing meals and cutting portions due to poverty https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/07/us-food-insecure-families-poverty-study

My assumption would be that if you barely afford food, a flight would be out the window too.

As ever Wikipedia is a good resources to further information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States

This bit in particular sticks out:

Among married couple families: 5.8% lived in poverty.[89] This number varied by race and ethnicity as follows:

  • 5.4% of all white persons (which includes white Hispanics),[90]
  • 10.7% of all black persons (which includes black Hispanics),[91]
  • 14.9% of all Hispanic persons (of any race)[92] living in poverty.

Among single parent (male or female) families: 26.6% lived in poverty.[89] This number varied by race and ethnicity as follows:

  • 22.5% of all white persons (which includes white Hispanics),[90]
  • 44.0% of all black persons (which includes black Hispanics),[91]
  • 33.4% of all Hispanic persons (of any race)[93] living in poverty.

Among individuals living alone: 19.1% lived in poverty.[89] This number varied by race and ethnicity as follows:

  • 18% of white persons (which includes white Hispanics),[94]
  • 28.9% of black persons (which includes black Hispanics)[93]
  • 27% of Hispanic persons (of any race)[95] are living in poverty
this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023
325 points (96.6% liked)

News

23274 readers
1052 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.

2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.

5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.

6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.

7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.

8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.

9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.

10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
rjc@lemmy.world
Thekingoflorda@lemmy.world
dezmd@lemmy.world
Tenthrow@lemmy.world
JonsJava@lemmy.world
gedaliyah@lemmy.world
Blackbeard@lemmy.world
little_cow@lemmy.world
jeffw@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world