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Alaa Has Been Detained
ahmed saad writes "Alaa (read the slashdot interview) was detained yesterday for activism while in a protest to support Egyptian judges . He's one of the most well known Egyptian activists in human rights, free software (leading Egypt LUG) and free speech in Egypt and worldwide. The Egyptian regime is currently trying to suffocate any movements that are active against it's highly inhuman and dirty practices to keep holding power in Egypt yet are trying to fool the world about their support for democracy and free speech.
Please don't let that happen! Contact to the Egyptian embassy in your country and/or your country's embassy here in egypt, tell your congressmen and thanks in advance for your support!"
The Egyptian regime is currently trying to suffocate any movements that are active against it's highly inhuman and dirty practices to keep holding power in Egypt yet are trying to fool the world about their support for democracy and free speech.
Just replace 'Egyptian' with 'Bush' and 'Egypt' with 'America'.
Kinda creepy, how well it fits.
I expect by 'all other big government' you meant Market Liberalism / Capitalism? Because the government sector in the US can compete with pretty much anything when it comes to size. How's your military? NSA/CIA/FBI etc? NASA? Research programs at universities? Medicare? Public Infrastructure... etc
Where do you think the US would be today without its socialist(ie government-funded) support of research through the universities? Or the space-program? Small-state advocates never give the government credit for what it does, and have done. I mean, seriously, barring Bell Labs (which basically was goverment anyways) have the all-glory no-guts private industry ever made any usefull discoveries in any way whatsover without goverment involvment? No?
So, my point is, how(who) you elect/choose your government (or not) is important when it comes to personal freedom. How you run your economy is not. All hyper-capatilistic projects so far have failed (see the world-bank, South America, Africa) (but still Americans advocate that other countries should use systems themselves refuse to adapt).
"" How about taking the safety labels off everything, and let the stupidity-problem solve itself? """
The idea that each country can just gaze at it's own navel and ignore what happens in other countries is a persistent one, but there are so many historical examples of why it's a very bad idea that it's hard to know where to begin.
I'll skip the obvious one by just saying "Godwin's Law", you know what I mean. In the case of Iraq, for the first war when one country invades another and threatent others you can nolonger say it's an internal matter. As for the second Iraq war, you know the first war never realy ended. We were still sending planes over Iraq, still occasionaly attacking their SAM batteries and enforcing UN sanctions. People were still dying, and that situation couldn't go on forever. Again, it wasn't an internal issue regardless of what you might think about how things turned out doing nothing wasn't an option and don't believe those who say otherwise. At least if you disagree with what was done (it was completely screwed up after all), say what you think should have been done instead and don't dodge the issue.
Opression within a country inevitably has knock-on effects beyond the borders of that country. How to treat refugees? Do you extradite people who are criminals in their own country even though their 'crimes' aren't punishable in your own? What about your own companies doing business over there? What about the freedoms of your own reporters in that country? Toes are going to be stepped on, whatever you do and if the situation does spill over into violence who do you side with? Perhaps the 'terrorists' in that country have at least some legitimate complaints.
Saying "It's just their culture" also doesn't wash, the Egyptian government is highly un-islamic. They aren't even operating uder their own normal 'laws of the land'. The government has been operating using emergency laws for decades. What emergency? It's one of the government's own making!
It is our business. That doesn't mean we should invade now, or any such rubbish. It means we (I'm British) do have freedoms and rights. We can make our views known to the Egyptian Embassy. We can write letters to our democratic representatives. We can even write to the newspapers in our country, or just blog about our opinions and write about them here. Expressing our opinions can and does make a difference. Egypt in particular is highly dependent on wester tourism (I've been there for buisness and on holiday myself), and can't afford too much negative press especialy in the wake of the bombings. We can make a difference.
Simon Hibbs
Quoting BlackRookSix's post: "I'd like to say that you may not completely understand the Chinese context. Not all of us have the same concept of "personal freedoms" that you do. We understand that we must sacrifice some of our personal freedoms for the greater good of the society as a whole. I can only speak for my friends, family and myself, but we give these freedoms happily and in the knowledge that we know that the government that we elected works for the benefit of all in China. Not all of us agree, we all know there are plenty of dissidents who openly voice their opinions, but you must recognise that these can be dangerous people."
You and your Chinese friend may make all of the sacrifices you want, but don't make them for me. Only through your own arrogance can you force others to make the same sacrifices when they do not wish to. What makes a practice "inhuman and dirty" is the assumption that some elses viewpoint is not valid -- notice that in this forum, you're allowed to espouse your view without censorship, whereas, in BlackRookSix's homeland, you can't.
States and societies don't have rights, individuals do. Each Egyption has a right to his or her culture, and respecting that right is the foundation for classical liberal "Western" views. Ignoring or suppressing dissent because "its not our culture" is making the stupid mistake that "our culture is fundamentally right" -- human beings are imperfect and so is anything, including the state, composed of them. American's also make this mistake, but the ability of the government to force it upon anyone is limited by the Constitution (when it is obeyed). Whether or not classical liberal views should be spread by force, thats debatable -- were we to successfully invade Egypt or China or many other nations, there are definitely some people -- specifically their large numbers of political prisonsers -- that should be freed. Of course, for the US government to take such a stance given policies like the Gitmo Concentration Camp* and extraordinary rendition would be quite hypocritical.
Legitimate government exists to allow each individual to act as morally as possible while minimizing the limitation on any else's ability to make moral choices. No government succeeds at this (they're imperfect) and governments like China and Egypt do not even make the attempt. Egyptian and Chinese cultures could thrive just as well in a ideal, western style democracy because the people would be allowed to adopt whatever culture they choose, just not force it on their neighbor.
"Dangerous people." *Shudder* I don't know that, you don't know that and BlackRookSix doesn't know that, either. The only way to know someone is dangerous is if they attempt to materially harm someone. Voicing your dissent is the exact opposite, its an attempt to change people's minds without harming them.
--sabre86
*Yes, it is a concentration camp.
Man, a great post lingering at 1, and me with no mod points.
Since I agree on all your points, I'll just reiterate my support for your main one: "States and societies don't have rights, individuals do". A state without people does not exist. A society without people does not exist. As a result, it is ludicrous to argue that actions designed to save the state while sacrificing individuals is anything but tyranny designed to satisfy a small subgroup of people.
I've had a number of discussion with various chinese on this (including an ex-girlfriend of mine) and tried to follow the background story on this as much as possible. There are two points that invariably come up among those who support the Chinese police state: China as an idea supercedes individual rights, and there are some people who do not know what's right for them, which means that like stray children, they need to be brought back onto the right path. Quite often, the family analogy is brought up to support the second idea: "If my children to something bad, I punish them. This is no different."
Both concepts I find highly disturbing. The first one for reasons already laid out. The second because the analogy is flawed: being in a family does not give the parents the right to abuse the children. Furthermore, it assumes that one adult has some intrinsic right to control another adult's life. Maybe it's just the individualist in me talking, or maybe it's just that I got tired of learning about atrocities committed in the name of the state ever since states were created. But I cannot see through what process you can decide who is actually suited to play the role of parent, and who is to play the role of the children. In the vast majority of the cases, not only are people with control issues the ones who are attracted to these types of positions (and are therefore fundamentally the wrong people for the job), but I fail to see what the point of such a position is - unless you buy into the first argument, namely that the state is more important than individuals. In this case, it is fairly easy to determine what the role of such a parental position would be.
In short, my disagreements with people like BlackRookSix is not merely a cultural disagreement. It's one that comes from disagreements on fundamental matters of the nature of the state and the individual. I sincerely hope that they stay away from me as much as possible - because I know how they would deal with me if they ever get to design laws by which I would have to abide. And the only option I would have at that point for preserving my way of life would be to remove the state monopoly on violence.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.