Falun Gong Sues Cisco 312
schwit1 submitted a story from CNet. From the article: "Cisco Systems designed a surveillance system to help the Chinese government track and ultimately suppress members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, according to a lawsuit the group filed against the network equipment maker. The lawsuit, which was filed Thursday in Federal District Court for the Northern District of California in San Jose, alleges Cisco supplied and helped maintain a surveillance system known as the 'Golden Shield' that allowed the Chinese government to track and censor the group's Internet activities. As a result of Cisco's technology, Falun Gong members suffered false imprisonment, torture, and wrongful death, according the lawsuit, which was filed on behalf of the religious group by the Washington, D.C.-based Human Rights Law Foundation."
Cisco or China? (Score:3, Insightful)
The real issue here is how China is treating those it thinks are part of the Falun Gong movement. Cisco's equipment is one of the tools used to track the movement, but it doesn't seem that Cisco orchestrated the capture, detainment, torture, and deaths of innocent people. China did.
M
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This isn't much different than families of murder victims suing gun manufactors. People want to place the blame somewhere and in this case they think they stand a better chance suing Cisco instead of their own government. It would be safe to assume that if they sued the Chinese government instead, there would be no trial just jail and death sentences for those doing the suing.
Re:Cisco or China? (Score:5, Insightful)
It is pretty different. The suit alleges that Cisco was actively complicit in the persecution of the Falun Gong. It wasn't like the Chinese gov't bought a bunch of their product made for general use and Cisco had no idea what it was going to be used for.
Re:Cisco or China? (Score:5, Interesting)
Exactly this. A gun can be used for many things, as can a router. But if you are supplying a known assassin with tech support about how best to pick off preschoolers, you have crossed the line from supplying a product into aiding and abetting a crime. Almost all guns are NOT used for crimes, ever. The same is true of routers- but NOT of routers sold to China to help setup their oppressive firewall.
That's the big difference here.
Re:Cisco or China? (Score:4, Insightful)
The summary and the article both make it pretty clear that Cisco's complicity goes beyond just setting up a surveillance net.
"Cisco Systems designed a surveillance system to help the Chinese government track and ultimately suppress members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, according to a lawsuit the group filed against the network equipment maker.
"The lawsuit, which was filed Thursday in Federal District Court for the Northern District of California in San Jose, alleges Cisco supplied and helped maintain a surveillance system known as the 'Golden Shield' that allowed the Chinese government to track and censor the group's Internet activities.
"The lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, alleges that Golden Shield--described in Cisco marketing materials as Policenet--resulted in the arrest of as many as 5,000 Falun Gong members. Cisco "competed aggressively" for the contracts to design the Golden Shield system "with full knowledge that it was to be used for the suppression of the Falun Gong religion," according to the lawsuit."
This is not to say that the case has any merit, but just to point out that the lawsuit is not the same thing as "families of murder victims suing gun manufactors (sic)".
Re:Cisco or China? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, but Cisco also provides these services to businesses.
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps6712/index.html [cisco.com]
The extent at which Cisco helped them is not publicly known. Cisco does not admit to anything other than selling hardware and software services.
"Cisco does not operate networks in China or elsewhere, nor does Cisco customize our products in any way that would facilitate censorship or repression," the representative said in a statement, adding that the company sells the same equipment in China that it sells in other nations in compliance with U.S. government regulations."
Hard to say... but either way private multi-national corporations only operate for one thing: profit.
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Right, and you typically can't access any of that information without a court order. This will go through the discovery phase and maybe it will pan out and maybe it won't. But if they don't file suit they're almost certain not to get any information.
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The services described on the webpage you referenced do not come close to resembling the alleged activities quoted above. That undermines the argument that Cisco sells this sort of thing to just anybody without knowledge of what is done with it.
And of course Cisco is denying all allegations. Would anyone expect anyone less? I'm not saying Cisco is obviously guilty, I'm saying the case and the allegation is more than just "families of gun violence victims are suing gun manufacturers", because the allegation
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Do you really think that Cisco is stupid enough or greedy enough to willingly develop technology for and in partnership with the Chinese government specifically targeted at tracking down and persecuting and killing members of Falun Gong? Hey, you might be right, but I doubt it.
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Cisco knew with 100% certainty that its products would be used to suppress free speech, hunt dissidents, and enforce the great firewall. Whether they are legally obligated or have any culpability is up to the courts to decide.
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They are absolutely greedy enough, their investors expect nothing less. As for stupid, this is just the opposite. The Chinese government is a huge, *huge* client, and Cisco stands to make massive amounts of money if it impresses the Chinese govt with their performance of this contract.
Unfortunately, business is just set up to be nearly completely amoral (not immoral, though that is often the result.) The idea that markets will always result in the best, and most moral results is a fantasy.
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Didn't know to whom to reply, so I replied to myself. So sue me.
specifically targeted at tracking down and persecuting and killing members of Falun Gong?
"Specifically targeted at... members of Falun Gong" is the nexus of this case. It may be morally wrong to sell arms. It may be morally wrong to sell censoring or 'net tracking equipment and technology. But this is not a case of moral law. It's one of law, as in court of law. If they can't prove they specifically targeted the plaintiffs, there is no case. Of course, this also addresses the voluminous holier-than-thou "arms dealer" express
Re:Cisco or China? (Score:4, Insightful)
It is pretty different. The suit alleges that Cisco was actively complicit in the persecution of the Falun Gong. It wasn't like the Chinese gov't bought a bunch of their product made for general use and Cisco had no idea what it was going to be used for.
Given the fact that Cisco consulted the Chinese government on this, the correct analogy is, suing a gun manufacturer that not only sold a gun to a known mass murderer but also found a crowded shopping centre, stored, maintained and loaded the weapon for him.
Re:Cisco or China? (Score:4, Insightful)
Compared to commercial gun manufacturers, Cisco probably had a much clearer idea of who they were dealing with and the consequences involved in being complicit -- unless we change the comparison to companies selling guns to known criminals.
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But did the gun manufacturers knowingly sell the guns directly to known murderers that were widely presumed to almost certainly be mu
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This isn't much different than families of murder victims suing gun manufactors. People want to place the blame somewhere...
Uh, wrong.
Families of murder victims don't sue gun manufacturers. Their lawyers do, going after the deepest pockets. Who the hell in their right mind would put fault on the fork for making someone fat? A lawyer would, not the victim, because they know how screwed up the legal system is.
Victims don't want to put the blame "somewhere", they want to put the blame and find justice where it SHOULD be, which is why so many victims end up finding their own justice, because they know how screwed up the legal sys
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Victims don't want to put the blame "somewhere", they want to put the blame and find justice where it SHOULD be, which is why so many victims end up finding their own justice, because they know how screwed up the legal system is.
No, no, no. Let me guess. The legal system is "screwed up" because it lets the person you simply think did it go free because nobody could actually prove that he did it?
People like you need to live through being falsely accused of something to knock you back down a few notches.
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"Yeah, around these parts felons can't buy guns."
Worth repeating...
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One might as well sue IBM for supplying tabulation equipment to the germans, so they could track "guests" at jewish concentration camps.
While I don't think this suit will succed for a variety of reasons, such as it happening under non-us jurisdiction as well as the plaintiff not having standing in the case.
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Cisco merely provided cost effective dissident detection solutions to global partners, for profit!
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Calling all police forces: need to catch your bad guy? We can detect all potential threats for you, so all you have to do is cuff 'em and let the legal system sort it out. PoliceNet, a Cisco Product.
M
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Publicity.
You can't sue China because it is a sovereign state (the lawsuit would be thrown out immediately).
Suing Cisco they get a lot of press coverage where they will center about the HR situation in China and were Cisco will be secondary. That's the primary aim, and they get it even if they lose the lawsuit.
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There is a particular difference though (puts on bullet-proof cape):
Guns serve only one purpose: to shoot people (or perhaps animals). Sure, you can shoot at tin cans, but that's not the intended purpose. Now, I don't care which moral faction is using the gun. Good guy or bad, they're gonna shoot someone, presumably to critically wound and/or kill them. No one at Smith & Wesson is oblivious to the fact that violent defense is the primary usage of their products.
Cisco, on the other hand, sells produc
Good luck. (Score:2)
I don't think it will work, but it is an interesting case. The implications would be staggering if they won. Of course, the 1% would never allow that.
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Why should it work? Shouldn't China be held liable, not Cisco?
Maybe Cisco can sue China in turn, but at the moment, this sounds like someone that got attacked with a kitchen knife suing the kitchen knife maker.
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How could China possibly be held liable? Everything the Chinese gov't does within their own borders is basically legal by definition. What can a US judge do to them? For all they care you might as well be suing Mother Nature. Cisco, on the other hand, is a US company and may be in violation of laws prohibiting certain activities overseas (if such laws exist, I've no idea) and more importantly, they can actually be tried and held liable here, unlike the Chinese.
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Also, you missed the critical part of the summary that was even helpfully underlined and hyperlinked for you. They plaintiffs allege that Cisco was contracted for the specific purpose of committing the persecutions, it even had a name. So no, it isn't like a kitchen knife maker being sued, it's more like the guy driving the getaway car being prosecuted, even though he never even stepped in the bank that was robbed.
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Point conceded. Where's the "retract comment" button...
Re:Good luck. (Score:4, Interesting)
If a guy walks into a store and says "hey I need to cut my neighbors head off, which knife do you have that would be best for the job?" You then go, "yes sir, this one right here should work nice, the serrated edge should cut right through the neck without the blade turning on the bone!" Well then you might could sue the guy who sold him the knife. I think they are alleging that this is essentially what Cisco did.
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huh? I think you've got it backwards. I'm saying that if Cisco actively participated knowing in helping provide equipment, services and knowledge that they were helping to catch political dissidents for the chinese government.....they might could be sued. If they just thought that some chinese civil service IT guys wanted to build a network then probably not. Suing a government is a little more problematic. I am sure that if say, General Dynamics sold some kind of guided bomb to Libya and the Libyan go
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The results of Discovery will be *awesome*.
If you are breaking the law... (Score:3)
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Not that I side with just another sect, but a government can impose an unlawful imprisonement. This goes like that:
Oh boy... (Score:5, Interesting)
Awkward. Hopefully publicly so....
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Whatever the Chinese gov't does in China is legal. By definition, considering the type of government they have. Does the US even have any laws that prohibit US companies from participating in such oppression?
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Not necessarily, under International Law.
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Whatever the Chinese gov't does in China is legal. By definition, considering the type of government they have. Does the US even have any laws that prohibit US companies from participating in such oppression?
Richard Nixon said something similar once...
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I think it is more likely to be decided on whether there is a law that covers this sort of cooperation.
It's a fact that Cisco did something legal in China. The Chinese government was their customer.
However, a company can still face trial for indulging in certain sorts of business practices. It doesn't matter if it happened in China and was sold in China only. You can still be in violation of US law. The US may not be able to reach out and take you from your country of origin, but it's technically not il
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Actually the US govt. exempts itself from legal suits and all kinds of laws many, many times. In at least one case a US president (Jackson I think) actually just ignored a Supreme Court ruling. He completely blew it off.
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How far do you go back with this, anyway? If such a suit were to succeed then the followup would be Jews vs. IBM.
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There are plenty of people alive with standing to sue Cisco for actual damages, including wrongful death of family members they personally lost.
Those Jews still alive with that same standing in damages by IBM's work for the Nazis have a case. Dead people are arguable.
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How far do you go back with this, anyway? If such a suit were to succeed then the followup would be Jews vs. IBM.
IIRC, they've sued Damiler-Benz and VW. If they didn't sue Dehomag, I'm pretty sure they have sued IBM.
Woosh! There goes to the point you are missing! (Score:3, Insightful)
Falung Gong is sueing cisco not because it's right, but it's because it's sensationalism.They want to bring attention to their presecution in china. You can't sue china in china, you can't sue china in the US. So you sue Cisco for providing the equipment to China.
Of course they will lose, but it gets the point across. People in China are being persecuted because of their religion and Cisco is an accomplice. It's not about holding cisco liable for anything lawfully wrong, it's about pointing the morality spotlight towards cisco and china.
Should Falung Gong do this? Hell yes! At most some lawyers get rich, but it is a shot at getting the discussion of religious freedom started.
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Falung Gong is sueing cisco...
No, Human Rights Law Foundation Inc. of Washington, D.C. is suing Cisco Inc. on behalf of some people half way around the world who have never heard of the Human Rights Law Foundation Inc. of Washington D.C.
Its a handful of lawyers who pretend they are helping people who have never heard of them by suing some company.
Only a lawyer could believe in such a farce.
This is one reason I've never incorporated (Score:2)
I don't for a second believe that "Cisco" did anything. I can easily believe someone in Cisco's employ did something stupid and/or evil.
When you have people working "for" you, they're going to fuck you over eventually, either deliberately or negligently.
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If that is the case then when can any behavior ever be attributed to a corporation rather than its employees? Since all corporations are comprised of people, this argument can be used to absolve every corporation of everything ever.
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1. Never. Corporations are not entities in fact. They are artificial aggregations of entities to serve a collective purpose. The way we treat them as individuals is stupid.
2. "comprise", not "are comprised of".
3. Absolve the corporation, but only if you can identify the individuals responsible, and if you can't then the one responsible is the CEO, the board, and the shareholders. As things are now, the corporation shields these people against the consequences of their decisions.
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Well, but they were obeying whose orders? And who was not checking the stupid ones?
An intelligent boss won't tell you to do something illegal. He will tell you "I want more deals with China, you work out the details". Then he'll go golfing, not because he likes to but because when thing begin to get hotter, he can then show his horror at your misbehaviour and lament that "if I only had known about that, I would not have never approved of it."
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And that is why I won't put myself in that situation. Because in reality you don't control people even if you employ them, and by the time you can fire them they've fucked you on your own dime.
I wonder if Westerners can join it? (Score:2)
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Seriously. Cisco has helped Chinese leaders and their minions attack loads of western computers and steal money,info from them. Perhaps, if a group lawsuit is done, this could be taken on in a large way. Ideally, it would lead Cisco to pull out of China.
I think I'd sooner hit Cisco, where it counts, the wallet. There are now viable open source alternatives to Cisco routers: OpenBSD's OSPF/BGP implementation and Vyatta. Both can do VLANs, VRF, VRRP, and MPLS. Both can effectively be drop in replacements. I run a small business on the side and all of my infrastructure is OpenBSD-based.
Anyone can sue anyone, merit is not required (Score:3)
Whatever the Chinese gov't does in China is legal. By definition, considering the type of government they have. Does the US even have any laws that prohibit US companies from participating in such oppression? I think that would determine whether this case has any merit to begin with.
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Whatever the Chinese gov't does in China is legal. By definition, considering the type of government they have...
Uhhh...so what is the excuse of the US Government? They certainly seem to have the same cavalier attitude about doing whatever, regardless of some pesky documents that SHOULD be getting in their way (cough, Constitution, cough)...
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No, even in China their mafia government official has laws that limit and prohibit many actions by the mafia government. They're often ignored. But those acts are still illegal. The problem is getting the Chinese government to officially recognize that they're illegal, and punish them according to the law.
Hence suing in US court, which has laws against US corporations violating foreign laws, international laws, US laws, and all kinds of other laws. And where people suing still have some chance of seeing eve
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If Cisco were a Chinese company that maybe sent the odd salesman to the US or maybe had a subsidiary division in the US, this would not be an issue.
Whatever the Chinese gov't does in China is legal. By definition, considering the type of government they have.
Yes. If they do it in China. The real legal question will be whether they did any of it in the US. Were the US executives aware of the sale? Engineers? Did they know or should they have known how the equipment would be used? What did they do when their knowledge was undeniable?
Does the US even have any laws that prohibit US companies from participating in such oppression?
The better question is whether they have laws that shield companies in ways tha
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"Whatever X gov't does in X is legal."
So... The Nazis were right after all?
had they won, they would've been. "international" law is whatever stronger countries impose on weaker ones.
Jurisdiction? (Score:3)
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Yeah this was my first question. Exactly who has legal standing to bring the case?
Re:Jurisdiction? (Score:4, Interesting)
Companies (Score:2)
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OK, but what do you think should be done about architectural firms that design US prisons? Clearly these buildings were not designed to be safe or else there wouldn't be such problems in prisons.
How about cell phone manufacturers? Any idiot could have foreseen that if "texting" is possible in a moving vehicle there will be drivers that recklessly endanger others by driving while distracted. The cell phone manufacturers didn't listen to their idiots and released phones that enabled this kind of behavior w
Scientologists in Germany (Score:2)
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How? China isn't being sued, so Germany wouldn't fit this model. And how have German Scientologists been systematically sureveilled, suppressed, falsely imprisoned, beaten and jailed?
Your guess is supported by neither facts nor logic.
all hail capital whores (Score:2)
whores have integrity at least. they conduct their trade.
Open source firewalls? (Score:2)
Couldn't a similar suit be brought against the developers iptables or squid if those applications are used by an oppressive government? Just answering a question from a user with .cn email address could be turned into "assisting the censorship of dissidents" by an enterprising lawyer..
It's a really nice idea... but, (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem with this sort of thing is the fact that laws are actually different in different places.
See, Falun Gong is an illegal organization in China. The members are breaking the law by simply being members. After that, the punishment for being a member is perhaps severe, but nonetheless, it is punishment for being a member of an outlawed group.
Similarly, it is illegal in modern-day Germany to belong to the Nazi party. This group is outlawed and membership in it is illegal. While you might not rate much torture or death, such membership is going to be frowned upon severely by the German government. Up to and including imprisonment.
In the US it is difficult to point to an organization that is illegal to belong to, but I suspect openly disclosing that you are a member of Hamas or Hizbollah could rate you at least a swift deportation and might cause problems in gaining entry to the US if you went about it in the conventional manner. Currently in the US it is not illegal to belong to a group that is exclusively formed for the purposes of committing crimes, such as street gangs, motorcycle gangs, or the Mafia.
While it might be all noble and such to say that China should just let groups that violently disagree with their government exist in peace, it isn't happening. China seems to be highly motivated to make the lives of people that want to change (forcibly, if not violently) the government a living hell. Sort of discourages revolution when the potential leaders are imprisoned. While we may disagree with this policy, they are being nothing if not consistent in their treatment of members of illegal organizations. Cisco has very little to do with the policy and its implementation. Had they simply refused to be part of the implementation someone else would have stepped up. When we make individuals and companies liable for such downstream actions I am all for going after Cisco but first I think we better start thinking about architectural firms that design prisons. Then we can talk about cell phone manufacturers making driving-while-distracted possible.
Maybe in 50 years or so after we deal with all of the other problems, we can get around to Cisco.
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It's simple. American companies need to keep their fingers out of controversial foreign politics. Especially when the policies they are helping to enforce are counter to the US Constitution.
I would like to see broader enforcement of American standards on American companies that operate abroad. Policies on pay, discrimination, child labor, workplace safety, disposal, right to privacy, etc. They need to meet or exceed many of the same standards that American works enjoy here in America. If you want to outsour
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Re:Religions (Score:5, Insightful)
Blame the victims, always a good side to take.
Actually, religion had an important role in the ancient world, establishment of moral codes that were conductive to building a community and society. The Ten Commandments for example really aren't about control without valid reason, but a good basis for society.
The first few are about there being only one religion, that keeps sectarian violence to a minimum, then a break/worship day - even for slaves. Honor your elders, no murder - leads to revenge killing, takes valuable members of the community away, no adultery - those lead to honor killings, outcasts and revenge killings, no theft, no lying about your neighbors.
Really how are those guidelines bad things?
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What's bad is that you have to make up cockamamie stories about gods and burning bushes to push a moral code on people, and here, thousands of years later and after the development of academic philosophies, instead of just adopting these codes because they make for better societies, we have to keep trying to get people to believe in myths and fairy tales.
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It depends on your perspective.
I find having people make shit up as they go along to be a very poor method of creating laws. Having one guy in a black robe thinking he(she) knows better than everyone else to be just as offensive. We all believe in myths an fairy tales. You just happen to believe that man can rule over other men, even as man has proven he cannot even rule himself.
Re:Religions (Score:4, Insightful)
Having one guy in a black robe thinking he(she) knows better than everyone else to be just as offensive.
Right. That's why laws are made by legislatures in most civilized places, and have been for many hundreds of years (how long as England had a Parliament?). Legislatures consist of a large group of people who represent the people, not just one guy in a black robe. Thus this group of people can argue and come to a consensus before any new law is enacted.
You just happen to believe that man can rule over other men, even as man has proven he cannot even rule himself.
Who else is going to rule over men? Aliens from another planet? Or a god? Where is this god? I haven't seen any, nor any credible evidence of any. I have read stories about some god or gods (it's hard to tell which because they don't seem to have the same personality in all stories) that appeared about 2000 years ago, but then disappeared and haven't been seen since except by a few crackpots. I certainly haven't seen any stone tablets with any laws that we're supposed to follow, only a crazy-sounding story (involving a parting of a sea, clearly an impossible phenomenon) about some stone tablets which are now conveniently missing. Believing that story makes about as much sense as believing that all humans' mental problems come from "body thetans" which are disembodied souls brought here by Xeno on a space-faring 737 airplane and blown up in a volcano by an atomic bomb.
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So they can't be voted out?
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There is the small detail of delivering these people from slavery, you know, the plagues, parting the Red Sea, blah blah blah.
And the whole point of "keep trying to get people to believe in myths and fairy tales.", such as government programs that will solve the problems of healthcare financing and of course security against terrorism that threatens our Constitutional protections.
You see, it's all a matter of which side you're on...
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With the advent of cities and societies following the end of the Ice Age there had to be moral codes, now how do you establish those? With stories of how and why the God(s) everyone believes in gave us these laws, or through dictatorship.
Explaining to Stone and Bronze Age man that he shouldn't kill his neighbor, steal the neighbor's wife and sell the neighbor's children into slavery for the good of the society isn't going to get much traction. Telling SaBA man that God forbids the killing of his neighbor, l
Comment removed (Score:4)
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Choosing one means having to argue about which one is better for building a better society. Obviously, everyone's going to have a different opinion on that, but a discussion on that is a whole lot better than arguing about which god is more powerful or which god really exists (when none of them have left any real evidence, and certainly aren't appearing in person saying "here I am!!").
When you go shopping for a car, do you compare the different features and performance attributes of the different models av
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Choosing one means having to argue about which one is better for building a better society. Obviously, everyone's going to have a different opinion on that
And there's the problem. Everyone has a different opinion about how best to make society work. Absent an absolute authority figure, who is to say that one moral code or theory is better than any other? Ultimately everyone's personal moral code would boil down to: "get everything that I can for me and screw everyone else". Because anything less is begging to be taken advantage of by people with more sociopathic tendencies.
Now if you introduce the concept of an absolute authority (God) and eternal punish
Maybe (Score:2, Insightful)
Honor your elders, no murder - leads to revenge killing, takes valuable members of the community away, no adultery - those lead to honor killings, outcasts and revenge killings, no theft, no lying about your neighbors.
....which very few people followed because maybe, just maybe, they saw them as just capricious rules with set to control them? On the other hand, if there was a leader-philosopher that explained in a reasoned way why those things - like revenge killings - were not a good idea, people would follow them more often?
I don't know about you, but when the reasoning behind a rule or law is explained, I have a much greater chance of accepting it and following it.
God says NO! Is a shitty and superstitious reason to m
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On the other hand, if there was a leader-philosopher that explained in a reasoned way why those things - like revenge killings - were not a good idea, people would follow them more often?
You mean, like Jesus? I mean, he was a great moral teacher (this apart from whether you believe in Christian doctrine or not) and a lot of what he said made great sense and would lead to people living harmoniously in society. But then again, most of the great philosophers like Socrates, Plato, or Aristotle, espoused great moral teaching that would have lead to harmonious societies. No one will follow them for their own sake except for a handful of rationalists who are quickly overrun by the rest of huma
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No, it is the Chinese government that is the cause of problems in China.
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FTFY.
If some duche bag wants to drag religion into this, then it is fair game to point out that officially, China is Atheist (No God but the State). They don't like any religion, but tolerate some more than others.
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It is not the Chinese government's atheism that leads them to do horrible things. Most ardent atheists do not agree with the suppression of religious ideas by force.
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suppression of religious ideas by force
True. The prefer to do it with mod points.
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via forced violence like Christianity
The 12th century called. They'd like their Crusades back, please.
In defense of Religions (Score:2)
In defense of Religions, they seem like an effective structure to stand up to governments and corporations.
Leads to a nice balance-of-power.
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ftfPICK
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I think that one misses the mark by a sight more than the cisco one. Cisco deliberately built systems to aid in the hunting down of dissidents while ford just sold cars and trucks for Officials to ride around in. I'm not buying this one at all, the first was iffy enough.
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Except that Ford accepted a special order from China to design, manufacture, and operate vehicles specifically for the persecution of Falun Gong members. So yeah, in that way the analogy would work.
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Corporations, by design, do not recognize "human rights".
As long as we're all going to go along with the fiction that the corporate structure is still useful in the 21st century, we're going to continue down this destructive road.
The notions that corporations have any "rights" is just ridiculous.
As long as the attention is on Cisco selling police state technology to China and not on Apple building iPhones in murderous sweatshops, everything's g
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If Cisco employees did it, then Cisco did it. It'll be up to Cisco to prove that their employees did it of their own volition and not at the direction of the company. Your analogy is false, however.
This is a case of suing a car battery company because they specially designed a battery at the request of an organization known to torture people with car batteries, to make it easier for them to torture people with car batteries.
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That actually sounds like an excellent idea. In fact, I'd love to see that lawsuit's penalty phase confiscate the land that your great-grandpappy stole from a tribe of people he helped genocide. Anonymous Whitey Coward.
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Maybe because you did it wrong.
Try "site:msnbc.msn.com", instead.
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No doubt. But still, Western companies should not be involved in suppressing people in other countries in this way. I could care less about Falun Gong, I care about a Western company aiding the Chinese regime in pursuing them. That may be legal in China, but I think we should make it unlawful for our companies to take part in the suppression.