[WikiEN-l] Tearing down the Chinese Firewall

[Ray Saintonge]

Rob wrote:

>On 5/13/06, Prasad J <prasad59 at 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