Rob wrote:
On 5/13/06, Prasad J prasad59@gmail.com wrote:
Actually I believe it was you who brought this up on the mailing list Anthony,although I do agree that this is not a matter which is within the scope of this list. I must however mention here that you claim the Chinese citizens are being *oppressed* by their Governemnt. I, personally, also feel the same way, but then let us not forget that these policies are put in place by an elected Government-perhaps for legitimate reasons- and the said laws are a part of China's internal affairs. So for us to pass judgement on this matter would not be entirely fair-since we are both citizens of other countries.
Were the US government to put into place certain policies "protecting" its citizens from certain information on the Internet, no doubt you'd start complaining about jackbooted thugs and the like. I don't particularly care what you think about the US government, but I don't think the Chinese government should escape similar condemnation because of an accident of geography.
Some factions in the US government would be very keen to "protect" citizens. You begin with obvious topics like suppressing kiddie-porn, and lever things up from there. There's a big fat middle ground of the population who are willing to allow responsibility to be dictated by fear just to make sure that any criminality is suppressed; they feel no obligations to protect other minorities from friendly fire.
Ec