Cultures are different. Vietnamese culture and Iranian culture are different. The Iranians bear 100% of the blame for the existence of a tyrannical government in Iran. We should condemn Iranian culture and its people.
I don't think the Vietnamese government was elected, either democratically or through vote rigging. You are confusing economic progress with democratic progress. In terms of advancing democratic ideas, given what we've seen in the last weeks, Iran is far ahead of the pacified Vietnamese population.
Since you are assigning blame on a percentage basis and I don't know your lifestyle, so it'll have to be a self assessment, how much blame do you deserve for buying and using products that originated from places ruled by tyrannical government?
Free trade with nations that are not free is call exploitation. It's collusion between an authoritarian government exploiting its silenced population and the merchants exploiting the ignorance of their consumers. Authoritarian governments rule by force and it's naive to think that there will not be a corresponding rise in military prowess with every net inflow of economic dollar, yet we continues to feed countries like China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia as if freedom is indeed free. One day, we are all going to wake up and find ourselves jobless and in debt to some of the nastiest government in the world. What are we doing to do then? They've already caught up to us economically and technologically. Their citizens had all been taught, with help of modern censorship, to believe that we're all a bunch of lazy arrogant bums that deserves whatever is coming to us as deem necessary by their governments. But, that's way way down the line in an uncertain future so who cares right?
At the end, the executives are the only ones who benefits from trading with authoritarian regimes. The executives are the only ones making continuous withdraw from the company coffer via salaries and bonuses while the shareholders play the musical chairs in the stock market. It amazes me to see nationally known companies using chapter 11 filing as if it's part of a normal business plan, never mind that the stockholder's equity are wiped out in such reorganization. The executives don't cares because they know their salaries are guaranteed and there's an endless pool of suckers being drawn into the stock market everyday, either willingly through direct investment or unwillingly through retirement plans.
Come to think of it, is capitalism compatible with democracy? . . . i wonder. I think so. It's what I've been taught it's ingrained in my psyche. But. . . how come it doesn't seem as true anymore.
The analogy to censorship in China will be "What problem? There is no problem to sort out by anyone." Please stop comparing democratic societies to that of China. No government is perfect and even democratic countries can make some very lousy decisions, just take a look at the history of the US. However, the difference is that in democratic societies we can freely voice opposing views without censorship, and even that is not 100% true all the time. Time and time again we have to challenge our own government in the courts to protect free speech. These are the things are are missing with China's censorship. US and most of Europe will not be where they are today had our government imposed the type of censorship being practiced by the Chinese government. Unchecked censorship and economic/military growth produce complacent and content citizens who are ignorant of death camps in their own backyards.
Regardless of whether the "middle class" Chinese don't know, or don't know the details, or simply don't care is debatable. There really is nothing we can do about people's mentality. However, like I've mentioned before, if the Chinese government wants to indiscriminately censor all material related to the Tienanmen Square massacre, we use China's own censors to sent Chinese people a message.
Sure you can argue what kind of message will a blank screen send, probably not much but at least it will serve as an involuntary "net" holiday for the Chinese internet users on June 4th. Whether they want to ask "why" internet goes blank on June 4th is entire up to them but that's something we, on the outside, can do with very little cost.
I really don't have problem with any type of government or religion as long if dissenting views are allowed. Like you've mentioned, we all interpret "facts" differently, however, as we've seen in the last few year, a consensus on the "facts" leading up to the Iraq war is forming and no matter how Cheney spins his story, more and more people are starting to doubt his version of the "facts" and I consider myself to be a more hawkish Republican. None of this will be possible if people do not have the option of dissent and free press.
This may not be a bad thing. Every June 4th we mount an all out vigil for the Tienanmen Square massacre. We add it to our website, add it to every message and email we send out on that day. Maybe the "middle class" Chinese, the ones most likely to make a difference, the ones with the education and financial resources to access the web and interact with the rest of the world will notice something amiss within their "harmonious" society when every June 4th their Internet goes blank.
At least the American population can whine, bitch and argue about the legality of what was done. Furthermore, the Americans are able vote and change, though a bit too slowly for my taste, the system.
Regardless of who benefited more from the land lease deal, both the US and UK were and are democratic countries where their citizens can freely speak their mind, voice oppositions, and vote. The whole reason for the land lease was to resist the other industrial heavy weight with little political freedom. It's scary that China of today looks a lot like the fascist states of the 1930s than a flawed democratic country like the US and UK of the same era.
You know for the longest time I thought the same. I thought after centuries of dynasty changes and political purges the rebellious gene within the Chinese population has been wiped out. However, I rewatched the Tankman episode on PBS frontline and I am reminded just how resilient that rebellious gene is. One lone guy probably just got back from buying groceries facing down a column of tanks. This was a couple days after the massacre, after the tanks has ran over and shot up a bunch of people, yet he persisted and for a few brief minutes stopped that long column of tanks all by himself.
We, the people living and enjoying our freedom finance by cheap chinese made products support the CCP and its continued domination over its people. Our cold hard currency allows the CCP to stay in power and pacify its people. If you want to blame the Chinese people for supporting the CCP, you are just as guilty.
American's don't mind the Iraq war? I guess you don't watch the news much. There were plenty of anti-war demonstration and GOP got voted out of both chamber of congress and then the presidency. Democracy is not the panacea to stupidity or mass hysteria, but so far it's the best option we got. Certainly a lot better than waiting to the Chinese government o apologize for the Tienanmen Square Massacre. After 20 years and seeing the rise of blinded nationalism orchestrated by the Chinese government through censorships and media manipulation, I am afraid I don't have that much confidence in the political liberalization as a necessary by product of capitalism. Sad to day, capitalism itself was never about democracy. It's a economic model based on maximizing profit, not freedom.
Yes, just like the Germans under the Nazi rule with the Tibetan. Everything is well for the blond hair blue eye Germans, or in today's China, the han Chinese.
There is a small but important distinction. Those American has every opportunity to learn but decided not to. The Chinese on the other hand do not have the opportunity to learn whether they want to learn or not.
That's the Big Brother mentality. Why don't China give Tibetans autonomy and fault them on human rights grounds if the Tibetan government abuses it own people. Kind of like how China likes its arrangement with the rest of the world. What the Chinese are doing to the Tibetans is in essence cultural genocide. Given China a few more decades and there won't be a Tibet left. Just a mass of people living under the rules of Han Chinese for the sake of the greater Han Chinese society without their own cultural or religious roots.
We can speculate all we want on the future of Tibetan self rule but to deny Tibetan their right to self determination because we deem them to be "backward" or "regressive" is hypocrisy and highlights our own regression for basic human rights.
Or why help the Chinese government pacify it people by continuing to support its authoritarian capitalistic system of oppression where the opposition is routinely suppresses and if necessary eliminated. Whatever faults is inherent in our democratic system, be it greed, apathy, or laziness, it's still the best system we have.
By enriching the citizens of authoritarian capitalistic countries, we are placing our collective freedom and liberty at risk. Imagine Slasdhdot with no "reply" button.
For what it's worth, we are handing Iraq back to the Iraqis with the pieces sort of bandaged together and a big "oops" for apology. When is China handing Tibet back to the Tibetans? BTW, Iraqi has the freedom to shoot and curse at the Americans and exercise their political muscles in between street mayhem. Is the same true in Tibet?
I think you are forgetting one major difference between the more democratic part of the world and the more authoritarian part of the the world. True, both sides make mistakes and inflict costly pain and suffering in the past, in the present, and will most likely do so again in the future. But in the more democratic part of the world, we can discuss our mistakes and do something about it. The same can not be said for the Beijing government.
We have to be a little careful here. Judging people's age on their physical characteristics lone is inherently racist and distasteful. A friend who works for a non-profit once related a story to me where she overheard the flight attendants talking among themselves wondering if she is old enough to sit at the emergency exit row. At that time she has already graduated from law school.
Let's just stick to the purged public record contradicting government issue ids regarding the age of the Chinese gymnasts and leave derogatory remarks about their physical attributes, ie scawny out of the argument.
You should give Sid another try. I've been running it on my laptop since Woody release and and I'm no where near the level of a developer. I run stable on all my servers but Sid is the only way to go for laptops. Etch is a lot better than Woody, but for personal machines, Sid is even better.
Wow, another post justifying the actions of an authoritarian government base on mistakes of a democratic government. US government is not perfect and it's far from perfect. However, we have the freedom to criticize it through free press and we have the freedom to change it through free elections. I don't think you can say that about China. There's a lot of knee jerk reactions after 911 but the amount of criticism toward on the War on Terror post 911 is not possible in China.
Free speech in China after the quake is still a long way from the "less free speach" in USA after 911.
I know quite a bit about the Chinese history especially the humiliating fall from a world economic power house to a third world country divided, raped, and plundered by foreign nations. Though, ultimately the responsibility for the welfare of the Chinese people rests solely with the corrupt and ineffective Beijing government.
Just because China was victim of foreign aggression does not justify it's own aggression against its own people or neighbors. Controlling the internet map publishing is just another attempt by an oppressive Beijing government to exercise total mind control over it's populace. With no dissenting voice in China, it's a nation without the ability for self reflection.
If you think the Nazis were bad, wait till you have 1.3 billion Chinese screaming "Hail motherland" and out for revenge for all the perceived injustice they have suffered for the last two centuries. Without free press and free speech, the current Chinese antipathy toward the plight of the Tibetans is just the tip of the ice burg.
Think cultural revolution and few tens of million screaming mad red guards waving their little red book out destroying everything and anything that Mao dislikes whether they are millennium old Chinese artifacts or little red guards' own parents. That was when China was only slightly evolved from the stone ages militarily speaking and closed off from the rest of the world happily living in their state of abject poverty. What do you think will happen when the next cultural revolution boils over.
I think the increase in hardware performance has made it possible for people to use less efficient but higher abstraction programming language or application frame works without learning more fundamental languages like C. Currently I'm setting up a simple database interface system with RoR and I don't think I will be able to accomplish the same task under the same time frame if I had to learn C from scratch. However, decrease in hardware cost also means I am also heading in the opposite directing exploring microcontroller. With AVR, C and assembly are the only two available options. As long if there are tinkers around I don't think C will be gone.
Try saying something like Tibetans should be allow to practice their religion and see if that welcome mat gets pulled from under you. China, unlike Japan is not a democratic country and the Chinese government acts to benefit the CCP and benefits to its citizens are incidental at best. Of course, there's military threats toward Taiwan, a democratic nation. Are the Chinese people friendly? Of course. Is the Chinese government friendly? No. Does the Chinese government represents its own populace? No. You can't compare China's ambition with Japan, Germany, or the US. Not unless the Chinese government is elected by its own citizens.
"Conservative Republican" Hahaha. What a joke. There are no Ronald Reagon conservatives in the Republican rank, only those that think they are conservatives. Ronald Reagan, whatever his accomplishments or faults, one thing is for certain. He does not embody hate, nor does he uses hatred as a political tool against anyone, including the USSR. Today, the so called "conservatives" lead by hypocrites like Limbaugh(a drug addict) and Gingrich(an adulterer) are nothing more than fundamentalists who shun science and logic, and want literal interpretation of the Bible as bases of our law.
If these "conservatives" are as patriotic as they claim they are, maybe they should devote some of their Sundays teaching time to teach the assorted personalities of our founding fathers. Perhaps, they will then realized that American is not about the Bible, but about democracy and forward thinking. Some of our founding fathers cut and paste the bible as they see fit, and some choose to bypass it.
As a registered Republican my view of the Republican Candidates are,
Huckabee - For a person who believes in the literal translation of the bible, I find him quite likable. Of all the candidates he seems to be the one able to best understand middle class America. I like his pragmatic approach toward tax and health care. However, there are some ethical lapses in his past that are not being scrutinized and again, he is more willing to trust blind faith over science and logic. . . I'm neutral on Huckabee.
McCain - Served our country and proven his integrity as a POW. S&L tainted him, but later pushes for political finance reform. I support his position on maintaining our obligation to the Iraqi people to at least try to help establish a semi functioning government, but I do not support the invasion of Iraq. Strong will and at principled enough to maintain his believes no matter how unpopular they are within the Republican party, ie the immigration issue. I am more willing to vote for him despite the fact that I don't support many of his positions.
Paul - Wacky position on the economy, wacky view of world politics, and wacky view of government. However, surprisingly he's more of straight talker than McCain. Maybe it's time to test our check and balance system with Ron Paul being the President and hopefully with his extreme fiscal conservative views, we can rein in our out of control tax and spend, or just spend spend spend government. Do I feel lucky tomorrow? Maybe I'll vote for him.
Romney - Running the company big corporate CEO style? Um, I am pro business, but I have to admit, Corporate American has out sourced American jobs and competitiveness in its drive for ever bigger profit. I have less of a concern if the outsourcing occurs between free nations, but Corporate American continues to exhibit a weakness toward cheap labor in authoritarian countries. Another CEO president? No Thanks.
Finally, if Obama win the Democratic nomination I think I'm voting Obama.
Plenty of people are speaking out against the US policy everywhere in the world, US included. Try doing that in China. That's the difference. The is no civil right issues in China. The term "civil rights" doesn't even exist yet in China. US is not perfect but US is way ahead in the democratic evolutionary ladder than China.
Hypocrisy is when people using free speech to defend authoritarian governments.
Um, what's the consensus? I'm still using my "Made in Mexico" T23 and I need a replacement. . . . Lenovo and anything "assembled in China" is not an option. I'm realist and I do my best to void things made or assembled in China. Some interior parts may be made in China, but that's something I will have to live with.
What can I buy these days with SXGA or better screen and a trackpoint that runs Linux?
BTW, ASUS is great in that quite a few of them are still being made in Taiwan but none of them have trackpoints. Regardless of whatever crap the Chinese government wants to say about Taiwan, unless they can fly their five star flag over Taiwan and install a puppet government like Hong Kong, Taiwan is still a democratic country and is NOT a part of China. C'mon people. USA is not exactly the model democracy under GW Bush, but is is still a long way to becoming a single party government where people can't vote, can't voice their oppositions, government regulates reincarnation, and government banned the voting part of American Idol because it may give its audience the wrong ideas. . . . I'm a registered Republican, but I want to see GW Bush impeached and I never thought I will miss President Clinton.
. . enough politics. . . What's the consensus on non-assembled in China, non-Lenovo Thinkpad replacement?
Slashdot Mirror
Cultures are different. Vietnamese culture and Iranian culture are different. The Iranians bear 100% of the blame for the existence of a tyrannical government in Iran. We should condemn Iranian culture and its people.
I don't think the Vietnamese government was elected, either democratically or through vote rigging. You are confusing economic progress with democratic progress. In terms of advancing democratic ideas, given what we've seen in the last weeks, Iran is far ahead of the pacified Vietnamese population.
Since you are assigning blame on a percentage basis and I don't know your lifestyle, so it'll have to be a self assessment, how much blame do you deserve for buying and using products that originated from places ruled by tyrannical government?
Free trade with nations that are not free is call exploitation. It's collusion between an authoritarian government exploiting its silenced population and the merchants exploiting the ignorance of their consumers. Authoritarian governments rule by force and it's naive to think that there will not be a corresponding rise in military prowess with every net inflow of economic dollar, yet we continues to feed countries like China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia as if freedom is indeed free. One day, we are all going to wake up and find ourselves jobless and in debt to some of the nastiest government in the world. What are we doing to do then? They've already caught up to us economically and technologically. Their citizens had all been taught, with help of modern censorship, to believe that we're all a bunch of lazy arrogant bums that deserves whatever is coming to us as deem necessary by their governments. But, that's way way down the line in an uncertain future so who cares right?
At the end, the executives are the only ones who benefits from trading with authoritarian regimes. The executives are the only ones making continuous withdraw from the company coffer via salaries and bonuses while the shareholders play the musical chairs in the stock market. It amazes me to see nationally known companies using chapter 11 filing as if it's part of a normal business plan, never mind that the stockholder's equity are wiped out in such reorganization. The executives don't cares because they know their salaries are guaranteed and there's an endless pool of suckers being drawn into the stock market everyday, either willingly through direct investment or unwillingly through retirement plans.
Come to think of it, is capitalism compatible with democracy? . . . i wonder. I think so. It's what I've been taught it's ingrained in my psyche. But. . . how come it doesn't seem as true anymore.
The analogy to censorship in China will be "What problem? There is no problem to sort out by anyone." Please stop comparing democratic societies to that of China. No government is perfect and even democratic countries can make some very lousy decisions, just take a look at the history of the US. However, the difference is that in democratic societies we can freely voice opposing views without censorship, and even that is not 100% true all the time. Time and time again we have to challenge our own government in the courts to protect free speech. These are the things are are missing with China's censorship. US and most of Europe will not be where they are today had our government imposed the type of censorship being practiced by the Chinese government. Unchecked censorship and economic/military growth produce complacent and content citizens who are ignorant of death camps in their own backyards.
We went from Thurgood Marshall to Clarence Thomas. This is what happens when we nominate people on the basis of their skin color.
Regardless of whether the "middle class" Chinese don't know, or don't know the details, or simply don't care is debatable. There really is nothing we can do about people's mentality. However, like I've mentioned before, if the Chinese government wants to indiscriminately censor all material related to the Tienanmen Square massacre, we use China's own censors to sent Chinese people a message.
Sure you can argue what kind of message will a blank screen send, probably not much but at least it will serve as an involuntary "net" holiday for the Chinese internet users on June 4th. Whether they want to ask "why" internet goes blank on June 4th is entire up to them but that's something we, on the outside, can do with very little cost.
I really don't have problem with any type of government or religion as long if dissenting views are allowed. Like you've mentioned, we all interpret "facts" differently, however, as we've seen in the last few year, a consensus on the "facts" leading up to the Iraq war is forming and no matter how Cheney spins his story, more and more people are starting to doubt his version of the "facts" and I consider myself to be a more hawkish Republican. None of this will be possible if people do not have the option of dissent and free press.
This may not be a bad thing. Every June 4th we mount an all out vigil for the Tienanmen Square massacre. We add it to our website, add it to every message and email we send out on that day. Maybe the "middle class" Chinese, the ones most likely to make a difference, the ones with the education and financial resources to access the web and interact with the rest of the world will notice something amiss within their "harmonious" society when every June 4th their Internet goes blank.
At least the American population can whine, bitch and argue about the legality of what was done. Furthermore, the Americans are able vote and change, though a bit too slowly for my taste, the system.
Regardless of who benefited more from the land lease deal, both the US and UK were and are democratic countries where their citizens can freely speak their mind, voice oppositions, and vote. The whole reason for the land lease was to resist the other industrial heavy weight with little political freedom. It's scary that China of today looks a lot like the fascist states of the 1930s than a flawed democratic country like the US and UK of the same era.
You know for the longest time I thought the same. I thought after centuries of dynasty changes and political purges the rebellious gene within the Chinese population has been wiped out. However, I rewatched the Tankman episode on PBS frontline and I am reminded just how resilient that rebellious gene is. One lone guy probably just got back from buying groceries facing down a column of tanks. This was a couple days after the massacre, after the tanks has ran over and shot up a bunch of people, yet he persisted and for a few brief minutes stopped that long column of tanks all by himself. We, the people living and enjoying our freedom finance by cheap chinese made products support the CCP and its continued domination over its people. Our cold hard currency allows the CCP to stay in power and pacify its people. If you want to blame the Chinese people for supporting the CCP, you are just as guilty.
American's don't mind the Iraq war? I guess you don't watch the news much. There were plenty of anti-war demonstration and GOP got voted out of both chamber of congress and then the presidency. Democracy is not the panacea to stupidity or mass hysteria, but so far it's the best option we got. Certainly a lot better than waiting to the Chinese government o apologize for the Tienanmen Square Massacre. After 20 years and seeing the rise of blinded nationalism orchestrated by the Chinese government through censorships and media manipulation, I am afraid I don't have that much confidence in the political liberalization as a necessary by product of capitalism. Sad to day, capitalism itself was never about democracy. It's a economic model based on maximizing profit, not freedom.
Yes, just like the Germans under the Nazi rule with the Tibetan. Everything is well for the blond hair blue eye Germans, or in today's China, the han Chinese.
There is a small but important distinction. Those American has every opportunity to learn but decided not to. The Chinese on the other hand do not have the opportunity to learn whether they want to learn or not.
That's the Big Brother mentality. Why don't China give Tibetans autonomy and fault them on human rights grounds if the Tibetan government abuses it own people. Kind of like how China likes its arrangement with the rest of the world. What the Chinese are doing to the Tibetans is in essence cultural genocide. Given China a few more decades and there won't be a Tibet left. Just a mass of people living under the rules of Han Chinese for the sake of the greater Han Chinese society without their own cultural or religious roots. We can speculate all we want on the future of Tibetan self rule but to deny Tibetan their right to self determination because we deem them to be "backward" or "regressive" is hypocrisy and highlights our own regression for basic human rights.
Or why help the Chinese government pacify it people by continuing to support its authoritarian capitalistic system of oppression where the opposition is routinely suppresses and if necessary eliminated. Whatever faults is inherent in our democratic system, be it greed, apathy, or laziness, it's still the best system we have. By enriching the citizens of authoritarian capitalistic countries, we are placing our collective freedom and liberty at risk. Imagine Slasdhdot with no "reply" button.
For what it's worth, we are handing Iraq back to the Iraqis with the pieces sort of bandaged together and a big "oops" for apology. When is China handing Tibet back to the Tibetans? BTW, Iraqi has the freedom to shoot and curse at the Americans and exercise their political muscles in between street mayhem. Is the same true in Tibet? I think you are forgetting one major difference between the more democratic part of the world and the more authoritarian part of the the world. True, both sides make mistakes and inflict costly pain and suffering in the past, in the present, and will most likely do so again in the future. But in the more democratic part of the world, we can discuss our mistakes and do something about it. The same can not be said for the Beijing government.
We have to be a little careful here. Judging people's age on their physical characteristics lone is inherently racist and distasteful. A friend who works for a non-profit once related a story to me where she overheard the flight attendants talking among themselves wondering if she is old enough to sit at the emergency exit row. At that time she has already graduated from law school. Let's just stick to the purged public record contradicting government issue ids regarding the age of the Chinese gymnasts and leave derogatory remarks about their physical attributes, ie scawny out of the argument.
You should give Sid another try. I've been running it on my laptop since Woody release and and I'm no where near the level of a developer. I run stable on all my servers but Sid is the only way to go for laptops. Etch is a lot better than Woody, but for personal machines, Sid is even better.
No point talking about 2004. Just make sure you get yourself to the voting booth this November and every November for the rest of your life.
Wow, another post justifying the actions of an authoritarian government base on mistakes of a democratic government. US government is not perfect and it's far from perfect. However, we have the freedom to criticize it through free press and we have the freedom to change it through free elections. I don't think you can say that about China. There's a lot of knee jerk reactions after 911 but the amount of criticism toward on the War on Terror post 911 is not possible in China. Free speech in China after the quake is still a long way from the "less free speach" in USA after 911.
I know quite a bit about the Chinese history especially the humiliating fall from a world economic power house to a third world country divided, raped, and plundered by foreign nations. Though, ultimately the responsibility for the welfare of the Chinese people rests solely with the corrupt and ineffective Beijing government. Just because China was victim of foreign aggression does not justify it's own aggression against its own people or neighbors. Controlling the internet map publishing is just another attempt by an oppressive Beijing government to exercise total mind control over it's populace. With no dissenting voice in China, it's a nation without the ability for self reflection. If you think the Nazis were bad, wait till you have 1.3 billion Chinese screaming "Hail motherland" and out for revenge for all the perceived injustice they have suffered for the last two centuries. Without free press and free speech, the current Chinese antipathy toward the plight of the Tibetans is just the tip of the ice burg. Think cultural revolution and few tens of million screaming mad red guards waving their little red book out destroying everything and anything that Mao dislikes whether they are millennium old Chinese artifacts or little red guards' own parents. That was when China was only slightly evolved from the stone ages militarily speaking and closed off from the rest of the world happily living in their state of abject poverty. What do you think will happen when the next cultural revolution boils over.
I think the increase in hardware performance has made it possible for people to use less efficient but higher abstraction programming language or application frame works without learning more fundamental languages like C. Currently I'm setting up a simple database interface system with RoR and I don't think I will be able to accomplish the same task under the same time frame if I had to learn C from scratch. However, decrease in hardware cost also means I am also heading in the opposite directing exploring microcontroller. With AVR, C and assembly are the only two available options. As long if there are tinkers around I don't think C will be gone.
Try saying something like Tibetans should be allow to practice their religion and see if that welcome mat gets pulled from under you. China, unlike Japan is not a democratic country and the Chinese government acts to benefit the CCP and benefits to its citizens are incidental at best. Of course, there's military threats toward Taiwan, a democratic nation. Are the Chinese people friendly? Of course. Is the Chinese government friendly? No. Does the Chinese government represents its own populace? No. You can't compare China's ambition with Japan, Germany, or the US. Not unless the Chinese government is elected by its own citizens.
"Conservative Republican" Hahaha. What a joke. There are no Ronald Reagon conservatives in the Republican rank, only those that think they are conservatives. Ronald Reagan, whatever his accomplishments or faults, one thing is for certain. He does not embody hate, nor does he uses hatred as a political tool against anyone, including the USSR. Today, the so called "conservatives" lead by hypocrites like Limbaugh(a drug addict) and Gingrich(an adulterer) are nothing more than fundamentalists who shun science and logic, and want literal interpretation of the Bible as bases of our law.
If these "conservatives" are as patriotic as they claim they are, maybe they should devote some of their Sundays teaching time to teach the assorted personalities of our founding fathers. Perhaps, they will then realized that American is not about the Bible, but about democracy and forward thinking. Some of our founding fathers cut and paste the bible as they see fit, and some choose to bypass it.
As a registered Republican my view of the Republican Candidates are,
Huckabee - For a person who believes in the literal translation of the bible, I find him quite likable. Of all the candidates he seems to be the one able to best understand middle class America. I like his pragmatic approach toward tax and health care. However, there are some ethical lapses in his past that are not being scrutinized and again, he is more willing to trust blind faith over science and logic. . . I'm neutral on Huckabee.
McCain - Served our country and proven his integrity as a POW. S&L tainted him, but later pushes for political finance reform. I support his position on maintaining our obligation to the Iraqi people to at least try to help establish a semi functioning government, but I do not support the invasion of Iraq. Strong will and at principled enough to maintain his believes no matter how unpopular they are within the Republican party, ie the immigration issue. I am more willing to vote for him despite the fact that I don't support many of his positions.
Paul - Wacky position on the economy, wacky view of world politics, and wacky view of government. However, surprisingly he's more of straight talker than McCain. Maybe it's time to test our check and balance system with Ron Paul being the President and hopefully with his extreme fiscal conservative views, we can rein in our out of control tax and spend, or just spend spend spend government. Do I feel lucky tomorrow? Maybe I'll vote for him.
Romney - Running the company big corporate CEO style? Um, I am pro business, but I have to admit, Corporate American has out sourced American jobs and competitiveness in its drive for ever bigger profit. I have less of a concern if the outsourcing occurs between free nations, but Corporate American continues to exhibit a weakness toward cheap labor in authoritarian countries. Another CEO president? No Thanks.
Finally, if Obama win the Democratic nomination I think I'm voting Obama.
Plenty of people are speaking out against the US policy everywhere in the world, US included. Try doing that in China. That's the difference. The is no civil right issues in China. The term "civil rights" doesn't even exist yet in China. US is not perfect but US is way ahead in the democratic evolutionary ladder than China.
Hypocrisy is when people using free speech to defend authoritarian governments.
Um, what's the consensus? I'm still using my "Made in Mexico" T23 and I need a replacement. . . . Lenovo and anything "assembled in China" is not an option. I'm realist and I do my best to void things made or assembled in China. Some interior parts may be made in China, but that's something I will have to live with. What can I buy these days with SXGA or better screen and a trackpoint that runs Linux? BTW, ASUS is great in that quite a few of them are still being made in Taiwan but none of them have trackpoints. Regardless of whatever crap the Chinese government wants to say about Taiwan, unless they can fly their five star flag over Taiwan and install a puppet government like Hong Kong, Taiwan is still a democratic country and is NOT a part of China. C'mon people. USA is not exactly the model democracy under GW Bush, but is is still a long way to becoming a single party government where people can't vote, can't voice their oppositions, government regulates reincarnation, and government banned the voting part of American Idol because it may give its audience the wrong ideas. . . . I'm a registered Republican, but I want to see GW Bush impeached and I never thought I will miss President Clinton. . . enough politics. . . What's the consensus on non-assembled in China, non-Lenovo Thinkpad replacement?