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20 Years After Tiananmen, China Stifles Online Dissent
alphadogg writes with this snippet from Network World: "The Internet has brought new hope to reformists in China since the country crushed pro-democracy protests in the capital 20 years ago. But as dissidents have gone high-tech, the government in turn has worked to restrict free speech on the Internet, stifling threats to its rule that could grow online. China has stepped up monitoring of dissidents and Internet censorship ahead of June 4, when hundreds were killed in 1989 after Beijing sent soldiers to its central Tiananmen Square to disperse protestors. The authoritarian government wants to ensure that date and other sensitive anniversaries this year pass without public disturbances, observers say. In recent months, China has blocked YouTube and closed two blog hosting sites, bullog.cn and fatianxia.com, known for their liberal content."
It's still inconvenient for the Chinese government that this not be seen by the public? Although not easy to pull off, perhaps there should be some plans to bring this issue up world wide when it's not around the anniversary. Catch the Chinese authorities off-guard.
Good. Cheap. Fast. Pick Two.
Not as epic as her book Shock Doctrine but it is a must read for any tech with a conscience.
http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2008/05/chinas-all-seeing-eye
http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine
secrecy.
It isn't ubiquitous surveillance that does the trick, it's ubiquitous potential surveillance. Likewise iron fisted rule is crude and inefficient. The true art is to rule without rules. China has high sounding and extremely vague legal principles. Put the two together and you are never (a) sure if you are not being watched nor (b) if what you are doing is legal.
When you've achieved this, you don't need Big Brother. Every citizen is his own Big Brother.
You almost have to admire this system. It is tyranny, perfected.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The scale of censorship is much smaller. The US has minor problems with censorship. The US has not, for example, blocked major news sites. Nor has it blocked Wikipedia and made its own version that the government likes. The comparison is simply not accurate.
Internet censorship is becoming more severe in much of the Western world. Great Britain and Australia are both engaging in serious, active censorship. However, even then the level is tiny compared to that of China.
Nobody here gets tortured in secret prisons for criticizing the government or practicing the wrong religion.
I am not convinced that an authoritarian government is so necessary to re-write the popular mythology of recent history. The US does not have a government which is strongly authoritarian, yet the re-writing of history is a prominent form of political speech in America.
I've come across several other examples: Japanese popular history of the nature of their involvement in WWII. Australian & American popular history of the treatment of Aboriginals / Native Americans. I am more familiar with American & Australian histories, so I could name many more... but I think that is beside the point. Someone with a solid knowledge of another country doubtless could list many other examples.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
http://www.networkworld.com/cgi-bin/mailto/x.cgi?pagetosend=/export/home/httpd/htdocs/news/2009/052909-20-years-after-tiananmen-china.html&pagename=/news/2009/052909-20-years-after-tiananmen-china.html&pageurl=http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/052909-20-years-after-tiananmen-china.html&site=datacenter
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
This is one of the countries that people want to let control DNS.
When the overwhelming majority of people in a nation truly want democracy and human rights, the nation quickly and peacefully transforms into a liberal Western democracy. Case in point is Eastern Europe. Once the Kremlin ceased suppressing Eastern Europe, the Eastern Europeans peacefully and quickly transformed into liberal Western democracies. Except for Romania (where the dictator was killed), there was no bloodshed. There was no violence.
In the late 1980s, what was the strength of desire for creating Western democracies in Eastern Europe? Consider Czechoslovakia. In one day of 1989 November, about 800,000 people gathered in Prague and rallied for the creation of a Western democracy. 800,000 people is about 5% of the population.
By contrast, in one day of 1989 June, about 1 million people gathered in Tiananmen Square to demand the creation of a Western democracy. 1 million people is only 0.1 % of the Chinese population.
In other words, in the late 1980s, the strength of support for democracy in Eastern Europe was 50 times the strength in China.
I admire the Eastern Europeans.
China is what it is due to how the Chinese people act and think. No foreign power is imposing the CCP on China. The Chinese people support the CCP.
how would you know?
Hi. You must be new here. Since when do people on Slashdot give the US government an easy time when it comes to censorship?
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
The scale of censorship is much smaller. The US has minor problems with censorship. The US has not, for example, blocked major news sites. Nor has it blocked Wikipedia and made its own version that the government likes. The comparison is simply not accurate.
Smaller? Maybe, certainly softer. Instead of outright censorship, they engage in manipulation. Deny access to the battlefield for all but embedded reporters who see everything from the perspective of the soldiers in their unit but never get a chance to spend more than a few minutes talking to the "enemy" and then almost never in an open situation. Similarly control access to other sources of news like interviews with high ranking officials so that you only get the interview if you only pitch'em slowballs. There is also the hiring of private individuals to promote the government's point of view.
So no, technically its not censorship under the absolute strictest definition of the word, but the goals are exactly the same and the means are just as, if not even more, underhanded.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
An explosion of discontent is unlikely in China because the 20 years since Tiananmen have been dominated by incredible economic growth. It is hard to complain when your walette is getting fat. I realize the global economic downturn hit China somewhat, but it certainly didn't roll them back 20 years. (Not that this is specific to China; Americans never minded the Iraq war enough to do anything about it, even after they learned it was a sham, it was high gas prices and finally the economic collapse that made people revile the Bush presidency.) One implication of this is that the notion of political liberalization as a necessary byproduct of capitalism is not yet dead. The next time China's growth slows or reverses for a sustained period, then we will see if its new middle class has power to go with their wealth.
This is by far the most useful post, and needs to appear above the other rubbish about secret police, and government conspiracies.
Chinese culture dictates that personal freedoms are completely sacrificed, for the sake of social stability. Authoritarian government is the natural result, and the meta-stable bizarro world we see now is a result of sustained government meddling.
Also, before the cultural relativists come out to disagree, you already lost.
The universal nature of human rights and freedoms is beyond question
That will change.
There are many in America (and an astounding amount on Slashdot) who would love to have religion banned forever. I would go so far as to say they would advocate any and all means stamp it out. Granted, these are the same group of people whom would close down gitmo and release the prisoners because we shouldn't have gone to war in the first place. Oh the irony...
For the few open minded people left on Slashdot, I would recommend reading a book titled "Liberty and Tyranny" by Mark R. Levin. Quite an eye-opener.
Life is not for the lazy.
It does happen to an extent in the US, if the critic happens to be Islamic also.
But more commonly, it happens on behalf of Americans and American entites worldwide - one protester, essentially murdered by Shell, comes to mind from a recent trial; Ken Saro Wiwa.
No, it's not exactly what China is doing, but if your country is largely affected by powerful corporations, they have to be considered as part of your system of governance - and that doesn't make anybody look too pretty.
Hey mate, spare a sig?
How do you know if a country does or does not have SECRET prisons?
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
Here's my search: http://images.google.cn/images?gbv=2&hl=zh-CN&sa=1&q=Tiananmen+Square+(massacre+OR+killing+OR+event)
TO START
PRESS ANY KEY
Where's the 'ANY' key? I see Esk, Kitarl, and Pig-Up...
. . . never heard of that place. I'd better check the Internet . . .
Ah, here it is: http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Tiananmen_Square
It's worth a peek for Slashdotters just for the photo of Li Peng using his laser eyes . . . sharks are up next.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Insightful WTF?
Heard of extraordinary rendition? Waterboarding? Gitmo? Abu Grahib. Nearly all prisoner moslem, sounds just like China to me.
Just because you set up your secret prisons outside your country deos not mean you do not have them.
I realize that those unsavory practices happen, but they're torturing foreigners suspected of crime, not say, lawyers or journalists who disagree with the government or citizens who choose a particular religion. We're not perfect but we're freer than China.
Ah, I see, torturing foreigners SUSPECTED of crime is OK, (Just "Unsavory") sorry didnt realize that go about your business then.
Is it OK to torture all foreigners *suspected* by the US govt, or would you make some exceptions?
If Chinese law suspects these people are commiting crimes, and the then by your defintition it is OK to torture them. You cant have it both ways.
And herein lies the rub, by using torture we in the West have lost our moral authority to complain when others do.
But take note of my original statement. I didn't say "at least here people don't get tortured in secret prisons." I said "at least people here don't get tortured in secret prisons for criticizing the government or practicing the wrong religion." So really there's no argument here at all, I already explained everything you needed to know in the first post. My objection isn't to torture, it's to the sort of things that the Chinese think should be illegal.
So what you're saying is you don't like the First Amendment? Bold speech on Slashdot ;-)
There are four boxes used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order.
You tend to know people who have just disappeared.
"My objection isn't to torture"
Yes I had noticed you dont object to torture.
Personally I would rather see torture illegal in both countries. Disembling about the reason for torture is to say the least amoral.
When you get your own house in order then you can criticize others.
Personally I condemn ALL torture, for ANY reason.
What a pity you dont.
There are many...who would love to have religion banned...these are the same group of people whom would close down gitmo and release the prisoners...Oh the irony...
What's so ironic about it? Were you trying to imply that the two are contradictory? I fail to see the hypocrisy in people who believe religion == bad idea && gitmo == bad idea since both can be used as tools of repression.
Then your not thinking!!!
These same people would rather deny me the right to warship freely while at the same time, give freedom to those that deserve none as they would just as quickly take it from you by force.
Life is not for the lazy.
The US gov't may not censor sites, but many US corporations certainly do. Post the wrong thing on Facebook (assuming your corporate proxy server will let you get to Facebook) or send an email from work with an F-bomb, and you might be told to clean out your desk. We're free - as long as it doesn't violate company policy.
On the other hand, at least China are only torturing their own citizens, they're not torturing foreigners.
As a non-American and a non-Chinese I much prefer the Chinese stance.
Oh, wait...
On a more serious note, you might be taken seriously if you wrote coherently.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Great Britain and Australia are both engaging in serious, active censorship. However, even then the level is tiny compared to that of China.
No. The Australian online censorship thing was only a proposal, supported by just a handful of senators. It never made it through Parliament and at this point, looks like it won't ever get through in anything like its current form. Really, it was never going to happen, being completely impractical and unworkable, not to mention despised by 90% of the voting public.
Slashdot hyped it up like crazy, but even a blind person could see that it was never going to happen. I'm sick of seeing people who vaguely remember some articles on Australia and internet censorship just flat out saying "Australia has serious active censorship". It simply isn't true. As of this moment, my internet connection here in Australia is exactly the same as yours in the US.
Not sure about the UK, but my guess is that the situation is similar. Some politicians have suggested some censorship measures, but any real world trial would show that it's just impossible (or highly impractical) to do. One VPN and it's entirely pointless.
And the vast majority of Chinese don't care.
And why should they? As long as you don't say inconvenient things, you can DO whatever you want in China. With freedom of action, and a growing economy, why would most Chinese care? If it weren't for the amazing economic growth presided over by the CCP, most Chinese wouldn't have access to computers to even make these websites.
Do many westerners know about those events as well?
Those events aren't as close to us - they're trivia questions whereas for Chinese it would be their history. How many people in the US know that the US liberated Kuwait from an Iraqi occupation in 1991, invaded Afghanistan after 9/11, and invaded Iraq in 2003? That is the equivalent question.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
Australia's internet censorship is extreme we are supposed to be a democracy yet undesirable content is to be blocked at the ISP level. Pornography and Political content have been found on the leaked blacklist and some brain dead Christian party is pushing for its say on what can be blocked.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
These same people would rather deny me the right to warship freely
Oh by the gods that gave me a fright. I thought immediately of the ability to deploy one's navy being a right enshrined in the first amendment.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
China will eventually become the most powerful nation on Earth economically, if not in total. best to just do right as your belief system indicates. me, i'm too old for this. i'll be long dead before their hegemony truly becomes fact, and frankly, you are all on your own!!
given my "Troll" moderation. IE, they do not want my voice to be heard.
A "troll" mod is a comment on the quality of what you post, not a deletion of what you've written. A /. moderator has no ability to control whether any other person reads it or not. We each individually decide whether we want to read at -1 or lower.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
From what I know from the similarly totalitarian communist regime that existed in eastern Europe in the past century (my parents lived there), these kind of government prefer to hand pick the people to whom they give authorizations to go abroad.
Either select people who genuinely believe so much in the government that there's no way they could get "corrupted" even when "exposed to the evil westerner capitalists".
Or select people who have enough allegiance to the government.
And then in addition to that perform regular checks, both open (interviews organized by the local embassy) and covert (have the abroad community member spy on each other to find if someone has dared to walk aside from the "golden rules set by the government").
I'm ready to bet that the same is happening with modern China.
There are people who don't believe in the current government. But those aren't the one who'll obtain an authorization to go study abroad. To much risks of defection or getting corrupted and converted by the evil westerners.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
China are only torturing their own citizens
The Tibetans aren't Chinese citizens, they're people living under a foreign occupation.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Here is how Google kowtowed to their Communist masters. Peace and love to the Chinese, the truth about the massacre to everyone else.
"Don't be evil"? Fuck you, Google.
I know people who disappeared. What can you do beyond filing a missing person report?
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
Unless your religion involves polygamy. Than it somehow becomes wrong for several adults to decide how to organize their family, somehow the government thinks it's their business to get involved.
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
there has always been censorship
and there will always be censorship
the question is: how vicious? (warnings versus imprisonment)
and of what? (child porn versus simple political opinion)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
that their support might evolve and decrease over time
the power of democracy is that it creates legitimacy: "i speak for the people's will, because the people actually got together and said that i did." this is extremely powerful
nondemocracies have the problem that, inevitably, over time, the distance between the government's agenda and the people's agenda shifts and grows. without democracy, there is no way to naturally reconcile the two agendas, such that the longer time goes on, the less legitimacy nondemocracies have in the eyes of their people. its an inevitable decay. eventually, revolution occurs in the nondemocracy, or some sort of other governmental implosion, and a new system emerges, once again having addressed the will of the people (in an unfortunate and tragic way, rather than an honest and straightforward way)
without voting by the average man, the nondemocractic government begins to speak only for the agenda of a ruling elite class. while in democratic countries, there are no unheard voices that grow in malcontent and revolution underground, because they can always plug in and express their grievances via democracy, become a voting bloc people have to pay attention to
of course there are people in democracies who don't believe in the legitimacy of their government. but there are always faithless, hopeless people, they don't represent any valid political opinion, just a psychological problem. likewise, in nondemocracies there are people who support their government. there always spineless types who apparently enjoy being slaves. but no majority of people, anywhere, in any time in human history, enjoys being a voiceless slave who has no voice in their own government
no matter what propaganda tricks the chinese government uses, you either have a voice in your own government, or you don't, and no set of tricks can paint over this gap forever. there will be another tiananmen square in china someday if the grumpy old technocrats in beijing don't prove to be as wise as they are supposed to be and begin to chart a course to democracy
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Torturing the very people who are expected to perpetuate your social system doesn't seem like a good survival strategy for the system.
Which is pretty silly. But are the polygamists tortured in secret prisons?
I'll even predict when the big war will occur. As soon as they develop good enough tech (in part from all their science and engineering student and businessmen spies over here) to geolocate and take out the boomers. They have to be able to do that, ground based can be taken care of already, and developing carrier killers is already well established in their arsenal. Then they will hit the US with a devastating first strike, which will be both preceded and followed by intense asymmetrical warfare on the ground with sabotage and perhaps even biological weapons that have been tailored to be race specific, and it will be effective enough that the US will be forced to capitulate, to sue for peace, and then they will come as occupiers.
Everything great except for this part. I still have faith in mutual destruction keeping us both safe...
They're not going to unload their Tbonds either, they could never get any money out.
China has enough of its own problems, first and foremost their own government. Totalitarian governments lead to corruption on all levels and the masses are fed up with it. It's estimated they must maintain 8-10% growth each year for the populace fast growing restless over corruption (gov't officials using their powers to seize private land for pennies on the dollar, and then turning around and selling it to multi-national corps for millions more and pocketing a hefty profit)...which is unlikely to happen. They have an ever growing pollution problem...there are several protests per day across China over government seizing land...no...China still has a lot of problems, too. They are not gods.
I admit that the argument of discontinuing torture due to the chances of it being misapplied is a good one. And yeah, the war is a joke. But really by bringing up the torture of Chinese citizens at all I've detracted from the main point of this thread ... that the Chinese government oppresses it's own citizens through censorship. It's a classic groupthink situation over there. At least over here we can't agree on anything, which is the natural state of things.
But how many Americans have known from their text books and TV news of the following history and facts:
Oversea Chinese's attitude is more like reactions to stuck-up American ideal and opinion as well as to the feeling of second class citizen (see all the Chinese-phobia comments on this page.) Back home, they complain about their government as much as or even more than average Americans complain about the US government; and they do not feel the oppressiveness as labeled.by the Western media. There are of course people being oppressed in China, just like there are prisoners being beaten up in the US; but it is not so widespread that it occurs to average people.
> I fail to see the hypocrisy in people who believe religion == bad idea && gitmo == bad idea since both can be used as tools of repression.
You're distorting what he said. He didn't say that they merely think that religion is a bad idea, he spoke of people who wanted to ban it. That goes far beyond merely calling religion a "bad idea." A ban on religion is also a tool of repression (and therein lies the hypocrisy).
Yes, I have seen people seriously express a desire to outlaw religion in the same ways that China does. And they don't technically even ban religion entirely (like some wish to), they "merely" regulate what you can believe and require a license from the government for your church. Even though that's somewhat less than the ban he was mentioning which I have also witnessed people calling for, jackbooted thugs will crash any unlicensed private prayer meetings you're holding.
If you've never met that kind of atheist, I can only say that you must get out even less than I do.
I'm not sure if the original poster was aware that the mandatory internet filtering proposal in Australia appears to be going down in flames, but even factoring that out, we still have much more restrictive internet censorship laws than the U.S - it's just that they only currently apply to material hosted in Australia.
For instance, anything that would be rated R18+ or higher (that's not just explicit pornography, movies like Pulp Fiction fall under that rating) cannot be hosted in Australia unless they can confirm the user's age with a credit card or equivalent. Any video game that is found to be unsuitable for a 15-year-old is also banned outright. Many of the other controversial sites on the blacklist (e.g. euthanasia advocacy) have been forcibly removed from Australian servers, and if you even link to one of those sites (e.g. wikileaks), you will be threatened with fines of $11,000 per day until it the link is removed.
That's pretty damn serious censorship, if you ask me.
Actually that is not true. Tibet has a strong historic relation with China and both sites are manipulating history in order to use it as a propaganda weapon. Tibet has been part of China throughout history but ties were not always clear. At times there was a lot of autonomy but at important events in history it acted like a part of China. Anyway, it would be a good idea to read what the Chinese think about it.
It depends on what you call free. The US has the highest number of prisoners per 100.000 residents in the world.
Anyway, it would be a good idea to read what the Chinese think about it.
I know what the Chinese think about it. I also know what the Turks think about the Armenian genocide. Tibet is an occupied country, and the claims of the occupiers are hardly an objective perspective.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
So you would agree that it is okay to torture suspected U.S citizens in for example Irak? I mean they are foreigners there and suspected of crime.
> since the country crushed pro-democracy protests in the capital 20 years ago
Dripping with bias, as usual.
IINM, the protest went on for a long time before they 'ended', and the way they ended sounded to me a lot more like panic amongst the soldiers because the protesters were burning them alive and/or shooting them, rather than any sort of 'ordered-from-on-high crush' that people in the west seem to think happened.
Max.
- or rather, about those who always seem to have a lot of lofty words about freedom, democracy and what people in other countries want.
First of all what do you actually know about what people in other cultures want or need? This is not just about China; one of the things that always strike is how little Americans and Europeans understand each other, despite the fact that American culture historically is mostly a concoction of elements of European culture. When Americans and Europeans can't even agree on basic terms like the word "freedom" and what it means, how can you be so smug about what people living in even less familiar cultures think and want? To the Chinese the concept of freedom is not as important as it is for Americans - hell, even the Europenas don't make such a fuss about it - and even when the Chinese talk about freedom as a concept, it is clear that it isn't identical to the American concept of freedom.
Secondly, what do you know about Tiananmen? I'll tell you: you know only what you have been told by mostly American media - so you only know the Western side of the story. You haven't heard the Chinese side of it, and even if you had, you wouldn't have listened, let alone looked for clues that might tell you whether what they have to say rings true. I don't claim to know the whole truth about what happened; from my Chinese friends I hear things that seem to indicate that there were persons - foreign agents - that did their best to stir up discontent and who distributed weapons, among other things. These are only rumours, AFAIK, not something from the official news; but even the possibility of something like is unpleasant to contemplate, in my view. And it is unfortunately all too easy to imagine CIA involved in this kind of thing.
And finally, what do you know about the Chinese government's motives? Not a single thing, I bet. All you guys know, as far as I can see from comments here, is how to repeat what the American media tell you; which amounts to no more than smug ignorance. They sure as hell don't care about the truth about this, they just want to sell minced woodland to you. Step back a little bit an ask yourself what a govenment can reasonably be expected to want? The Chinese aren't idiots and their govenment officials aren't GWBs - they know that what people want more than anything else is stability and predictability, and that the best way of holding on to power is by providing what the people craves. The Chinese is not interested in oppressing people or freedom - they know very well that democracy and freedom of speech are more or less illusory and can be easily manipulated; they can see clearly how their American colleagues do it. But the Chinese people don't want American style "freedom", they don't want lack of regulations and they don't want to be flooded with odious, American "McJesus" Christianity.
As I said, I don't know what happened, I just know that there are many more sides to the story than we hear about, especially on /. But if I should hazard guess, I would say that the situation was a whole lot more serious than what we have heard; that there was some foreign involvement in stirring up the sentiments, and that the government felt the situation was desperate and required immediate and decisive action. Maybe they panicked, and perhaps, looking back, they wish they hadn't. The only thing I feel entirely certain about is that they didn't just lean back and say "Freedom? Hah! We'll give freedom - let's massacre the lot".
You "know" or you have read what they write themselves ? There exists no thing as objective perspective. Looking only trough one eye gives an image without perspective. You should read both versions of the truth. Simply claiming that Tibet is an occupied country is the propaganda version of history that the Daila Lama spreads with the help of the CIA and western idols. Notice that he has little support from the Tibetan population for his vision.
Regardless of of whether or not you consider the Chinese foreign occupiers, Tibetans are Chinese citizens. They carry Chinese passports, idenfication cards, go to government schools, etc. In fact, Tibetans (and Tibet) receive large transfers from the central gov't- this is actually one of the incentives for Chinese to move to Tibet, as Tibetans receive preferential treatment for applying to college and whatnot (think of it like the SAT bonus for minorities in the US- if you're Tibetan, you don't have to do as well to get into a good school).
Whether Palestinians are more analogous to Israeli Arabs or to Native Americans is up to you; but they are full citizens, and are most likely tortured no more nor less than any other person who agitates against the government.
In recent months, China has blocked YouTube and closed two blog hosting sites, bullog.cn and fatianxia.com, known for their liberal content.
Funny how here in America, it is "liberals" who support suppression of free speech. See: Fairness Doctrine
Western idols? What Kool Aid have you been drinking?
I Completely agree that China is not a communist country, rather a semi Facist/capitalist (worst of both worlds
China has never been a Communist country, neither has Russia, Cuba Norkland, etc.
All these examples tried to go directly to communism from Feudal societies - none of them had gone through the vital stage of capitalism
It's kind of the Bolshevik's fault, they thought they could skip the stage - in fact that was one of the main difference with their 'rival' Marxist party the Mencheviks
$ sed 's/Tibet/Ireland/g' 's/China/England/g'
Ireland always had a "historic" connection to England. At times a very close connection. But that does not mean that it was inherently a part of some grater "British Empire", or that it was necessarily better off in one.
Sure, there were some benefits from being subsumed into a larger empire. But there were also drawbacks, and they outweighed the pros significantly enough for the Irish people, or most of them at least, to want to leave. And while it's true that the fortunes of the Irish state have not always been great since gaining independence, you would be hard pressed to find a significant body of people who regard independence as a net negative.
We already know what they think about it. The great empire, strong and united. All it's people grateful and proud to be a part of such a magnificent society, with freedom, prosperity and justice for all. And they'll think that even as they occupy, persecute, terrorise and loot all the peoples under their boot.
Empires are schizophrenic entities. Everyone living under them knows this. Though people in the prime nation will never awknowladge it. The English fancied themselves as ruling a great and happy British empire too, yet one by one every nation in it decided to leave. The same will happen for the Chinese empire too; that is, if those nations still exist by the time the Beijing is done with them.
May the Maths Be with you!
>There are many in America (and an astounding amount on Slashdot) who would love to have religion banned forever.
If by 'many', you mean a statistically insignificant number, you would be correct. As it is, there are very, very few people making that argument here or anywhere else for that matter. A lot of us may think you are dumb because of your religious beliefs, and a lot of us might enjoy pointing out the factual errors and contradictions in whatever your religion is, but even attempting to ban religion is idiotic. If you're free, you're free to believe in falsehoods.
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
I've always liked when people use statements that are just thrown out, like truth. Like "Tibet has been a part of China throughout history" as if saying it makes it a fact. Here's one: "The US has been a part of Great Brittain throughout History". History's a pretty big frame of time.
You're free to think that Tibetans are living under foreign occupation. That doesn't change the fact that ethnic Tibetans born in the Tibetan Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China are by law Chinese citizens.
Australia has censorship of internet content. It just applies primarily to internet content hosted in Australia. The blacklist proposal would have been much farther ranging. But its failure doesn't change the fact that Australia censors material now. (For that matter, Australia also engages in a lot of non-internet censorship especially of television, movies and videos).
Personally I condemn ALL torture, for ANY reason.
What a pity you dont.
using such absolutes in statements like that are usually, just wrong.
You have a bomb that's going to explode in 10 minutes killing your family and 100 people. you have a guy who could tell you how to disable it. He won't. WTF would you do? sit there and try to coax him?
I personally would try to get it out of him, then if that didn't work, well.. i'd start beatin gthe shit out of him and tell him i'd kill him if this bomb went off. ANd i'd use whatever weapons i had.
Obviously that's an unlikely scenario, but not impossible. And although i might have nightmares about it for the rest of my life, i would never feel like i did anything wrong, or immoral.
Well ok, yes we don't allow the HOSTING of certain material on servers within Australia. But you are perfectly free to host it elsewhere, and we aren't restricted from accessing anything on the net. I wouldn't really call that censorship (unless you happen to be in the content-hosting business, I suppose).
As for censoring TV/movies etc, from what I've seen of US TV (which is a fair bit - I lived there for 3 years), they censor it far more than in Australia. Australian TV is quite happy to have heaps of swearing and full nudity after a certain time of night. But you rarely see that on US free-to-air stations.
Also, the US, Australia, EU etc. ALL have a rating system for TV, movies, books etc (G, PG, R etc) which are substantially similar to each other. This is a form of censorship and perhaps Australia is slightly more harsh in its rating system than other countries. But I still wouldn't call that 'serious active censorship' that is substantially more than in other countries. As stated above, things ~seem~ a LOT more censored in the US (when I started living there I couldn't believe that you bleeped out even mild obscenities on the radio and TV, and when my American wife moved to Australia with me, she was astonished at how much nudity we can show on our terrestrial TV stations).
Anyway, not trying to provoke an argument here since I agree with the gist of your original post. Just seems odd that you singled Australia out for having serious censorship when at most, it's only ~slightly~ more strict than the US IMO. Half of Europe and virtually all of Asia and the middle east are far worse than both countries, in that regard.
Yes, all fair points. Calling out Australia in this regard was less than accurate. The US in many respects has much more severe censorship than Australia (although I would point out that the movie rating system in the US is voluntary and not required by law which makes it pretty different than the Australian system). The primary point that Chinese censorship is much more severe than almost any Western culture was the real point I was trying to make initially and I seem to have gotten tripped in up the details of which other countries are censoring less.
that's not true. tommy chong is in prison. what is torture if not taking weed away from him?
yes, yes, we westerners always know what's best for others. our grasp of the complex issues of a billion-plus person country are perfectly reflected by cartoonish summaries spawning countless cartoonish comments.
BAD GOVERNMENT! No Tibet for you!
INTERNET could FREE PEOPLE OF CHINA, because the truth will set you freeeeeeee!!!!
CHINESE likey censorship, if car come too
now that i think about it, it's perfect. this government vs the people narrative is just like star wars! now if only the bad guys would dress up in white plastic suits so the rest of the world could tell who they are, we could send in chewie. i hope the real emperor's head isn't as pale as it was in the movie...the camera beaming images back to a free west might crack a lens.
Prohibition is fucked up. It's especially sad that the government has turned to prosecuting peaceful businessmen like Chong who pose no threat to anybody. They ought to target gangsters, not bong sellers. Furthermore, if we just legalized, then those gangs wouldn't have their revenues and would cease to exist (or at least cease to traffic drugs). Prohibition breeds crime and lawlessness.