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Forget MTV, I Want My Internet!
shystershep writes "Teenagers in China are apparently pretty serious about getting internet access. This article on the English version of the online newspaper Xinhuanet details gang-type activity to get around China's ban on persons under 18 entering internet cafes. I may get a little cranky if I don't get my daily net fix, but I've never beat anyone with a fire extinguisher because of it (not that I remember, anyway)."
I really have to wonder to myself if the chinese govt has yet come to the realization that their constant drive to block/censor anti-govt internet content only leads to more anti-govt feelings of the people.
XI'AN, May 10 (Xinhuanet) -- Staff members of an Internet service chain in Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi Province in northwest China, resigned Saturday over retaliatory assaults they had suffered for barring minors.
Local police said Sunday they have stepped in to investigate an assault that happened Friday night at the Sanfuwan Outlet of the Hongshulin Internet Cafe Chain, which staff said was among a series of attacks by young people at the cafe.
One of the staff, surnamed Chen, said he stopped seven or eightteenagers about to enter on the morning of May 6 because some of them looked very young. Chen asked to see their identity cards to verify their age. The teenagers refused and threatened to beat anyone who "dared to check identity cards." They tried to force their way into the cafe but were stopped.
Amid recent campaigns to crack down on illegal Internet cafes and to ban people under 18 from entering, Internet cafes in China have been ordered to check identity cards of guests before they are allowed in. Otherwise Internet cafes themselves will face harsh punishment varying from a fine to closure.
According to Chen, a group of some 16 young people broke into the cafe on the night of May 7, two guarding the door and two taking over the reception desk and telephones to prevent reportingto the police. The rest began to beat and punch Chen, some striking him with aluminum rubbish bins and fire extinguishers. Security guards of the cafe were also beaten.
In an interview with a local newspaper, Chen showed the injuries to his back, head and face. His nose bridge bone was almost broken.
According to Chen's colleagues, it was not the first such retaliation assault at the outlet. In their resignation letter, they listed many beating cases because of stopping young people. Their bicycle tires were deliberately damaged many times. Some even launched an online assault to the cafe's server, cut the broadband line, input junk programs into computers and poured mineral water into displays.
To tighten security at the cafe, the local police station helped the cafe employ four security guards in April, but it proved not enough to prevent such assaults.
The police have started investigation into the case and vowed to track down those responsible, said Tian Yuming, a senior policeofficer.
China has shut down more than 8,600 unlicensed Internet cafes for admitting juveniles since February. To bar minors from Internet cafes, local governments across China have been ordered not to approve any Internet cafe operations in residential areas or within 200 meters of primary and high schools.
The Chinese government has launched a nationwide check on all Internet cafes from February to August to halt the entry of minorsand to prevent access to detrimental information through the Internet. Enditem
"Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
Most people i know don't bother with TV too much anymore, they sit on the net at home, chatting on MSN and IRC, etc. Most things that people want thesedays for entertainment (Movies, Games, Music, Literature etc) can all be found online.
Arbitrary age restrictions like these, especially over something as innocuous as information, are plainly bullshit.
;)
How would you old farts like it if we put an age cap on viagra?
Don't think we couldn't do it
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Please remember the source when discussing this; Xinhua is the state news agency, and will print whatever they are told. The last "cafes are evil" story they ran was about a couple of kids who used the internet for 48 hours straight, and then sat on railway tracks to recover. El Reg has a decent write-up on the subject. You don't close 8600 internet cafes for "safety reasons", you close them because the population is suddenly aware of their alternatives.
The Slashdot Paradox: "100% Overrated"
From the Headline: Net cafe staff quit over retaliation from barring miners
Those miners probably would've dirtied the keyboards anyways...
aLL tHe GreAt peOpLE aRe DEaD. i'M nOt feeLiNg tOO GoOD eiThEr..
an internet version of tiannamen square?
wtf would that be exactly? what is the equivalent to a tank running over a protestor on the internet?
Indeed..Read this story for instance. The thing is, I don't think the Government there really cares if teens are using it to look at porn or not, although the crackdown on cafes earlier was supposedly to stop this sort of activity.
Any sort of information being freely disseminated by sources other than approved ones is seen there as a threat. I am simply stating a fact, not blindly bashing the Chinese government. They don't like news/information to come to the masses from sources they can't control.
Just think, if these stupid kids started beating the shit out of someone with actual power and authority, China might eventually have democracy. This is how revolutions are started, people. One small seed, one small desire to look at something that you can't look at, and eventually the opressors start feeling the heat.
ShortFormBlog: Writing a little. Saying a lot.
Execution for doing so may persist for a while though.
No internet for you unless you put in your ID number.
7 18 496&req=
http://www.interfax.com/com?item=Chin&pg=0&id=5
What was it you said about having nothing to hide?
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
So now the have gangs walking around trying to get their internet and assault security staff from checking their ID.
Probably not very intelligent to mess with the staff of an internet cafe.
I wonder how hard it is to get internet access by just dialing up or using wardriving/company internet access in China...
Xinhua (New China News Agency) is not necessarily a reliable source of independent reporting or information.
Since the tragic Internet cafe fire in Beijing in 2001, the central Government has been increasingly active in demonising the internet. This is just an extension of that on-going propaganda war.
A dream is good. A plan is better.
You're right, this is "not" a human rights issue. It is about the same as requiring people to be 18 to get a driver's license. Just because some 16 year olds want one, and beat up the vehicle licensing staff to get one, does not mean they should get them.
This is totally different from restricting access to information for adults, which China also does, and wrongly in my opinion. But please don't confuse a gang of hooligans' attempts to get what they want for a serious attempt at helping promote freedom of access to information.
These are not the kind of youth I want to take over. I think they are kind that grow into the people that ordered the Tiannamen square clampdown.
The fear of punishment keeps people from breaking some of the laws. But since the athorities don't have the resources to check up on everything, they have to let a lot slide.
When the central government makes a drice at some kind of crime all the regions have to show some results. However I don't always think that the local athorities put so much effort into it...
On example is the search for pirated DVD movies. Every year China have a big drive to shut down the pirates. They raid shops and warehouses and confiscate tons of pirated DVD's. The week after the same people are back in the same stores selling pirated DVDs again. And the police have nice numbers of how many pirate shops they have shut down. Making the government very pleased.
So sometimes the numbers of how many operations they have shut down, might not mean so much, since it's hart to tell if they mean permanently or just temporarely.
The spread of news seems to be a very sensetive area for the Chineese government though, so perhaps they do have as strict enforcement of the law as reported
Midori Linux - the world class general purpose embedded OS core (developed by Mr. Linux, the father of Linux)
Oh well. At least they attempted somehow to credit the developer...
In Soviet Russia, our new overlords are belong to all your base.
In India too, the government banned minors from entering Cyber Cafes, and asked owners to verify the users identities. Worse, people using cyber cafes had to give their address so that they can be verified in case of any problem.
:-) So, that law resides in the book only and I think it was made in the first place to appease certain left elements.
But like many other laws, people realised it was rubbish and thus no one took care to implement it
"In questions of science the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual."
In other countries the control and censorship is done by direct action and by preventing people to access the information that might be potentially harmful. I think that this is an culture issue, it's just without any extra twists out there. They just ban it, so they don't have to really manipulate or regulate it.
And other countries have governments that allow people to access all the information, but instead put their efforts on manipulating the media indirectly to counter/soften the effects of unpleasant information or to draw attention from real problems to other things. This includes everything from feeding falsified information to advertisement-like careful timing, repeating, double meanings and so on.
Same shit, different implementation. Close your TV and your Internet, there's nothing to see here.
-el
This is proof that the Internet is, nowadays, the most powerfull media to allow for Freedom of Speech. If it wasn't so, why would the Chinese government be so worried about the Internet's influence on their citizens. I recall that this issue does not only affect minors, as there is a nationwide content barring scheme in China.
But if there's on thing that History teaches us is that no matter how harsh laws and enforcement are, there's no stopping for Man's will to be free.
I'm not trying to defend communism here, but the ideology behind communism does not imply totalitarian governing methods.
;)
The fact that most communistic governments has resolved to said measures is a sad fact that just proves that communism doesn't work
The only places communism truly works, are in anthills and termite nests.
I'm an American in China ATM (college student, school trip) and they offer i-net access in the hotel. I'm posting here (and am surprised) and can check my mail on AOL but I can't get to my university's website (www.muohio.edu) or contact that mail server at all. (or get on my VPN at the universtiy) Why would that be blocked? Bah. So my point is that they're fighting this hard and they're still not going to get the Internet proper - they're stuck behing the great firewall of China.
I haven't posted in so long, my sig is out of date.
In my travels through China I've used a lot of Internet Cafes. Often it was hard to find a seat because, they're so popular.
When I did, I often found that I was the only one 'using' the Internet. Everyone else was immersed in on line games (ok, they probably played over the Internet as well). Apart from the occasional chatter I was the only one using a browser.
Regards,
X.
I think Sony entertainment China should change their tagline to: "EverQuest, so good you'll maim and kill in order to maim & kill online!". Seriously though, isn't it time the chinese people did something about their draconian government enforcing such strange laws? I can understand some laws they have enforced (such as the laws preventing overpopulation (whether these laws work i don't know) this is nothing more than trying to keep the population dumb and uninformed. What the chinese youth should do is rebel against the government, and NOT the innocent internetcafe owners who are even more fearful of the government than they are. If only they could get organised (if only they had internet, heh) better.
Will wank off Linus Torvalds for fame.
I'm sorry but I have to disagree with you. This is a human rights issue. If the government can control the information that flows to the youth they can control everything. The Chinese government is denying the right to access information to the youth of China so that the only information those youth will have is government propoganda. Yes, youth are more impressionable than adults so you could argue that they need to be protected...but the only the that the Chinese government wants to "protect" them from are ideas that are unflattering to the Chinese governemnt. If thats not a human rights abuse, what is?
--HC
So I'm jump'n up and down screaming show me the money.
What Marxist theory advocates is a 'dictatorship of the proletariat'. This does not mean a 'dictatorship' in the sense of a small group of people telling everyone what to do; it comes from Marxist theory of the state, and is counterposed to the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, and before that the dictatorship of the aristocracy (in feudalism) and before that the dictatorship of the slave-owners (in ancient society).
The point is that in Marxist theory the state itself is by its very nature a class dictatorship; it is the instrument of one class against another, or several others. In a theoretical dictatorship of the proletariat, because the vast majority of the population will have become proletarians as a result of capitalism (peasants gradually becoming rural proletariat as well), the dictatorship of the proletariat represents almost the entire population, i.e. like the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, it is democratic *within* *itself*, representing the interests of those who run it. So a dictatorship of the proletariat would be a democracy representing everyone except the leftovers--the bourgeoisie, and possibly the peasantry, although in practice, an alliance with the peasantry was made out of necessity if nothing else.
This then leads to the withering away of the state as such; if we see the state as being a representative of class interests, and the state now represents the only class, and is a weapon of repression against the tiny minority (Rupert Murdoch, Bill Gates, etc.) who would like to restore the old system, then once the new society is consolidated the state as a class dictatorship is no longer necessary, and withers away. This doesn't mean government withers away, just class dictatorship.
Don't criticise something you don't know anything about.
It's about a band of teenage criminals who'll pound the shit out of anyone not bowing down to their requests, whatever it would be.
Internet access is just a coincidal background of this story.
The dictatorship was supposed to be carried out by the working class , not by the state.
go read for yourself
did you get Marx confused with Lenin?
Do people honestly think revolution anywhere is going to come without violence? I mean yeah an internet cafe' is not exactly the type of place to inspire rage, at least not in me, but anything can become symbolic to the oppressed.
I've spent the last 4 months traveling throughout Asia and am currently in Shanghai, China.
China is the only place I've ever been, which inludes about 100 countries and 6 continents, where I've actually been physically assaulted by a street vagrant. The kid was about 14 and begging for money. He saw that I gave his much younger brother some Yuan coins and approached me.
He stuck his hand out, and I pointed to his little brother as if to say, "I already gave your little brother some money." He then starts punching me in the stomach. Not hard enough to hurt, but not soft enough to not be annoying, either. He kept this up for 3 minutes while I was waiting to cross the street, then he followed me across the street, punching me the entire time.
A fast, well-placed elbow to his temple made him stop, but the Chinese in general are quite aggressive.
Now, people who have never been to China and have no idea what it's really like but who don't like what I just said, this is when you mod me down. Wouldn't want you to miss an opportunity to flout your ignorant righteousness.
"Study your math, kids. Key to the universe." -The Archangel Gabriel
I think there is lots of things that these teenagers could do to gain wider access to the information they desire without attacking the poor souls who work at these cafes.
"Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man."
Mohandas K. Gandhi on nonviolence
Pragmatism as an ideology is not particularly pragmatic in the long term. Keep it in mind when you dismiss Free Software
Karzan's explanation is on-the-spot. If only those criticising Marx would read Marx every once in a while, such explanations would be superfluous, but unfortunately, even the /. audience seems to consist of people who are happy to parrot their high school history teachers, their parents or other 'authorities' when it comes to politics.
In China, a socialist revolution never took place. Mao's army, upon seizing a city, proceeded to ban unions and strikes, and left the police force that defended the old regime firmly in place. To call China a communist country is to show a complete lack of understanding of socialist politics.
Study Trotsky's work if you want to fine-tune your understanding of the travesties of socialism that were found in the Soviet Union, and elsewhere, after, say, 1925.
Whenever there's an article about China on Slashdot I always see so much clueless information being tossed about...
Here's some information from someone (a Westerner) who's lived here for around 3 years.
First of all, I guarantee you the children that did this did it because they're fucked up little shits. They certainly weren't doing it because of some freedom of information ideals. They were probably just pissed off cause they couldn't get on to play their MMORPGs and chat online. No matter if China's internet regulations are right or wrong, beating a guy over the head who's just trying to keep the store in business is not the way to change government policy. If anything, it just reinforces the opinion of the public that internet cafes are a bad influence on the young. Even my father-in-law, who is quite educated and a well respected school principal, thinks net cafes are evil places. Once when I told him I wanted to go check my email, he took my wife and I walking around town until we came upon a net cafe that didn't look too evil. It's a good thing I never told him I used to stay up all night in net cafes playing Starcraft with my friends while studying in Beijing!
Another thing people are forgetting is that this stuff is all dealing with internet cafes. It has nothing to do with what people do in their homes. Families are still free to have high speed internet in their homes no matter what age their children are. And anyone who is going to risk looking at censored information is probably going to do it from their own home. Almost all of the internet cafes are locked down to prevent users from messing with any internet settings, so it's not likely they'll be able to use proxies in the cafes anyway. In your home it's quite simple to go through a proxy. The people who really want outside information can get it easily enough. It's just the masses, who don't really care anyway, who can't get censored information.
Another thing, I always see people talking about how China's got so many laws against things such as pirated software, movies, music, and brand names but doesn't do anything about it. There's fake brand names everywhere, even in official franchise stores. And I can only recall one time that I saw official copies of movies and music for sale. Official software is easy enough to find, but nobody actually buys it. Anyway, my brother-in-law is the Secretary (not secretary) of the Consumer Affairs division of the Public Security Bureau in a large city, and I've asked him about this. They all know they could walk into any store and confiscate at least 95% of their goods, but they don't. If they did, stores would be going bankrupt all the time. If they tried selling official products most of them would go bankrupt too since nobody can afford to buy their products. So, should China protect the income of rich foreigners and bankrupt it's citizens, or should they protect their own and look the other way? It's a pretty easy decision, and most people forget the US did the same thing to England regarding copyrights not too long ago.
Sure, every once in a while there will be big crackdowns, and their real purpose is just to show investors. "Hey look, we're protecting copyrights! Come do business here!" More business investments in the country helps the economy, obviously. But everyone here knows the busts are for show. And most stores will be warned ahead of time so they can hide their products.
Bah I already wrote more than I thought I would...
If anyone actually read that whole message, congrats.
Do not anger the worm.
I think the poster you reacted to is right. These are exactly the kind of people who grow up to be dictators or the tools of dictators. What after all is a dictator? Someone who supresses others with violence and intimidation to get what they want. Exactly what these criminals did.
China has a law. It is a law not many others would agree with but then the US, so called bastion of freedom, has laws many others would not agree with. The previously mentioned ban on cannabis, somewhat legal in say holland and tolerated in most western nations, can get you a long time in jail in america. Would a gang rading a goverment run canabis plantation (for medicinal use) have the same kind of sympathy?
The only things these criminals have achieved is play exactly into the chinese goverment hand. They claim kids can't handle the internet and they have been proven right. After all throwing a fit and beating everyone up is hardly a sign that one is a responsible adult right?
Think of it in the same way as the "keep canabis illegal" crowd who uses every canabis related death as a sign of its evil (while totally forgetting that these deaths pale when compared to say alcohol related deaths).
I am not trying to defend the ban on internet access for minors (despite the bad joke that this would make online games a lot more enjoyable) but these kids are not protesting it. They are no more then any criminal who with violence breaks the law. No serious human rights defender would want to be associated with them.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Xiahua may not be the most reliable info source... On the other hand, I want to point out some interesting cultural difference to fellow ./ers.
First, the teenagers are not necessary "seeking information" in internet cafe. They are not likely to be the politcal dissent kind that most are thinking about. Or else, they will try to be as low key as possible. The "illegal" info can also be porn, mp3 etc. The most usual activity is PC gaming.
Second, video arcade (internet cafe nowadays) can be a real trouble spot for the teens who don't want to go home at midnight. Car is not that accessible in most Asian countries. Flats are small. Teens need to find a place to have their first cigarette, need to have a place to get together with their in-group...
Quite naturally, fist fights and gangster problems are quite common in this sort of environment... The nature is a bit similar to a bar without alcohol. Even Hongkong under the UK colonial control (before 1997) need to impose similar rule for the video arcade, ie no children under 16 are allowed to enter standard video arcade. Quite a few secondary friends had got beaten up/ money taken by the gangsters in the video arcades when they were young (sneaked into of course)...
Curb the free internet access is of course one of the communist party's agenda. But, the very real teenage problem should not be overlooked either.
These kids are more closely related to the looters and other proviteers that turn up in times of trouble.
America has got gangs who "protest" the laws on drugs in the US and they use violence too. Are these your revolutionaries? Or just simple criminals?
Don't mistake someone breaking a law for someone protesting a law. I know the world likes to romantize everything but the mafia was not defending the freedom of americans to drink for instance. They were just criminals breaking the law.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Try freenet for a while. The anonymous P2P network. Very much a tool for freespeech. Allows anyone to post material without fear of being found out. Now try looking at what is actually there. Child porn and copyright infringement and frankly a whole lot of perfectly legal stuff.
Not exactly the kind of stuff Amnesty International is fighting for eh?
If you see the internet as simply a tool for playing games or accesing porn (as china would like to do) then putting an age restriction on it is not that insane. No more insane then an age limit on driving, drinking, smoking or indeed riding a rollercoaster. Kids who raid liquour stores are not freedom fighters.
If the story is true then this plays right into the chinese goverment hands. See the evil internet turns kids into thugs. We must restrict access more!
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Most of you Westerners just don't get what it is like to be Chinese. I am one. I may not exactly live in China, or speak Chinese well enough, but I guess it's always an inescapable part of Chinese culture.
Chinese culture emphasises filial piety, almost blind faith of authority, etc. I don't know if Confucianism came because of the influence by the Warring periods (where, due to pure greed, Chinese armies attempted to seize control of all the states and unify them); or something else.
Don't ever forget that Chinese culture, as NatGeo once put it, looks to the future with one foot firmly in the past. It's something that we are sort of proud of. (I also remember the various Dynasties variably as periods of plunder, unrest, and corruption.)
Why does China insist on the one-China policy with the Republic of China? It's not because, I believe, of evil people; it's an almost blind faith to the belief that all Chinese belong in one nation. In Mandarin, Chinese is called Zhongguo - Zhong being "central" or "most significant", or something along those lines. Is there a United States of Besterica? They'd probably be trying to take Singapore - where I live - too, if there weren't such a large proportion of other races.
They were so eager to claim HK from the British, and have been generally not-so-militant about it (there is still incredible press freedom in HK). Why? Because authoritarianism isn't as important as housing all Chinese into one China.
My Chinese teacher once said - these types of people are a rarity in Singapore - that if you're Chinese and have nowhere to go, guess which country will welcome you with open arms.
What am I trying to say? That authoritarian control that you Americans resist, yes, that is not a good thing, but it has come about due to the influence of Chinese culture, not because of evil people. You people do not exactly understand *why* authoritarianism exists, choosing to see it in only a romantic, black-and-white, good-and-evil thing.
George Bush junior - not the best example of a good man, I guess - once said "there ought to be limits to freedom"; indeed, that's one of the most insightful things a man can say.
"This article on the English version of the online newspaper Xinhuanet (...) but I've never beat anyone with a fire extinguisher because of it (not that I remember, anyway)."
What we have here is a state-run newspaper talking about kids trying to do what the state doesn't want them to do. Do you think the state will paint a rosy picture of them?
You'd have better luck getting the RIAA to admit that P2P really isn't all that bad.
In Orwell's Animal Farm the pigs at publically denounce alchohol, before they themselves become corrupted by it - but they still forbid other animals to drink. Perhaps the same is true of China - at first denouncing the internet, clearly the government must use it for administration / communication between departments - but they still control access to their citizens. Just a thought.
In the future if broadband could be provided at low cost from Low Earth Orbiting Satalites it would be nearly impossible for governments to control their citizens use of the Internet (unless they controlled the satalites). If the chineese teenagers were capable of acquiring the correct hardware it would be very difficult to restrict or censor their Internet usage in anyway.
It could even be possible for such a teenage to make money on the Internet and pay for his Internet service (with a service like PayPal) without the government ever having any knowledge of the financial transactions.
Grrrrr... don't bother me, I'm thinking.
I think the problem with much of the USA-related rhetoric that's thrown around is it's mostly hyperbole -- too severe.
The States absolutely have a huge problem with its foreign policy. Too much mucking with foreign government's leading to terrorism, leading to yet again more mucking with foreign goverments.
The size of the domestic government has grown too much. The pendulum has swung too far with the advent of legislation like Patriot and DMCA. There sits a severely mentally impaired justice secretary. The President has the leadership qualities of a piece of cardboard.
But to say the US is Authoritarian is just too severe. You cannot compare the Chinese government and the US. By comparison to communist China, the USA is certainly the Land of the Free.
Do they block internet content? Have pro-choice folks been shot protesting in front of the white house and Supreme Court? Do you register with the government before going on vacation? Will the secret police come to get you in the night because your neighbor told the authorities about your anti-Bush discussion at the block party?
Authority certainly *does not* equal Authoritarianism. Nowhere in the West do we see the kind of tyranny that exists in Korea.
And yes, the voting/party system is screwed up and manipulative in America. But again -- that makes freedom an illusion? If the people of the USA got their collective heads out of their asses and elected a qualified, effective, third party to a major office, would the incumbant demo-plican stage a military uprising to stop the election results? Have the police ever visited your home for voting for another party, including the socialist party? I don't think Mary Cal Hollis has ever been imprisoned for what she believed.
I think all pleads/"Wake up America!" arguments I hear fall on deaf ears because of their extremity. You will not convince people to change their government by saying that it's just as bad as al-Qaeda. You will not convince people to change their government if you try to say that they're liberties are as restricted as the Chinese. It's not an apt comparison, and it turns most people off. Identify the problems for what they are, don't label them with such exaggerated terms.
In my humble opinion, the Chinese are prisoners of their government -- the Americans are prisoners of their own c complacency. But that does not disqualify them as free people, and it does not make their government Authoritarian.
Yes, the Chinese gov't did give its permission to publish this article as it's in the government run newspaper. Xinhua is the press arm of your favorite local despotic ruling party. As to their motives, I will never presume to know what irrational men (or women) are thinking.
I will say this, when I was in Beijing there was a huge complex of internet cafes just outside the South gate of Beijing University. We called them the flying fish (feiyu) because as students we could only read the pinyin and not the characters. Anyway, for 4 months I went almost everyday. I skipped a week while traveling. When I got back, they were all gone. We are talking about two blocks of cafes (it was massive). The reason? A communist party official touring the area thought the cafes were too Western. Granted, this was about the time that the U.S. spy plane landed on Hainan (sp) Island. The Commies are terribly conflicted. They want economic growth so they can skim off the top, but they have no desire to be responsible to the people. I give them 10, 15 years, tops.
...even if it is an inflammatory statement.
There should be one qualificatino though. A "disarmed society" would be ideal IF EVERYBODY was disarmed. Infortunately the world is far from an ideal place so long as someone, somewhere makes weapons.
In the American case I'd say most law-abiding gun owners are either hunters or those concerned about their personal safety, being US criminals tend to be quite a bit more armed in realation to those in other countries (that's a feedback loop of a different sort).
In the case of China, you have a population that is completely disarmed and a government (a REPRESSIVE one) that is VERY armed. The Chinese police force is not independent from the government ether, so it is not just there to enforce the law it is used as another weapon to protect government power. When a government cannot be voted out after all, the only possibility of regime change is a revolt so force is the most effective way to maintain power.
I'd say that in this case it is a relevant point. Teenagers are emulating their government because they see it gets what it wants through force and intimidation. This aggression is directed at regular citizens (the internet cafe owners) because the govenrment is much too powerful (and armed) to overpower when your weapons happen to be rocks, bats, fire extiguishers or whatever. The shop owner can't defend himself, but the policeman can shoot them on site.
Business owners/operators in China won't pressure the governmet to change the law because they value their new-found economic freedom too much to risk losing it. Government won't accomodate their every concern and if they put up too much of a fuss they'll lose their business at least, or at worst be imprisoned for subversion.
So what is the best solution? How do we cut off that "feedback loop"? I could not live in a society that is completeyl disarmed while its government is armed to the teeth. I'd also be a bit nervous living in parts of the US where it seems any old nut can get himself a gun.
It'd be really nice if all the weapons in the world cold e destroyed, but that isn't going to happen...if all gons were destroyed, people will make use of other items as weapons. So Of the two "evils" I'll take the US one thank you very much. I'd probably temper that with laws that do not restrict ownership but instead govern BEHAVIOUR in the intrests of public safety--and those laws should be enforced effectively. Deer hunting with automatic weapons? I think not! Loaded, concealed weapons on posession in public, urban areas? Not the best idea. Hunters, target shooters, security and police personnel, any personal firearm safely stored in the owner's home? The cost of messing with those situations for outweighs the potential safety concerns.
How are two forms of forcibly-imposed collectivist statism "on totally opposite ends of the political spectrum"?
Granted, their methods did differ a bit: Communists attempted to eliminate private business and put everything under the direct control of the state while Fascists just usurped private enteprise and turned it into a de facto agency of the state, but the underlying goal -- establishing a centralised, totalitarian society -- was the same.
The ideological differences can largely be seen as methodological accomodations needed to implement totalitarianism in different cultures. In countries like Germany and Italy, with well-developed civil societies, it would have been impossible to simply destroy the traditional institutions, so they were usurped and their symbols applied toward the totalitarian agenda instead. In Russia and other impoverished feudal cultures, where there was already little in the way of a civil society outside of the state, the totalitarians advanced an agenda of material advancement to be obtained by overthrowing the existing state's power.
The ultimate result was the same -- Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia were ruled very similarly. In fact, Hitler and Stalin's original non-aggression pact made explicit note of the similarity of their worldviews.
There were some minor differences, of course, but to claim that they're polar opposites is ridiculous.