At 05:16 PM 4/25/03 -0600, Fred Bauder wrote:
I intend to speak truth. China (and the Catholic church, for another example) are authoritarian. \ It is not merely a matter of the opinion of vague critics. There are objective criteria which if met constitute an authoritarian government.
This concerns me, not because I disagree, but because I don't know what objective criteria Fred is using, and because almost anyone who promotes a point of view sincerely believes that he or she is speaking truth.
The determination to speak truth, while admirable, is not the same as NPOV, which is our policy.
Fred
From: Daniel Ehrenberg littledanehren@yahoo.com Reply-To: wikien-l@wikipedia.org Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2003 09:32:01 -0700 (PDT) To: wikien-l@wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Classification of China?
You can't just say "China is an evil totalitarian country" (I know that's not what you said) or even "China is a controlling country" because that's an opinion, not a fact. The communist party in China might think "We're not controlling or authoritarian, we just want the best for our citizens", which makes the comment POV. You could say (in a later paragraph), "China is critisized for being [[authoritarianism and totalitarianism|authoritarianist]].
--- Fred Bauder fredbaud@ctelco.net wrote:
I stirred up this hornet's nest by inserting a link to [[authoritarianism and totalitarianism|authoritarian]] into the first paragraph of the article. I think this is a fair characterization of the regime (regardless of what ever other adjective might describe it).