Adopt a [Chinese] Blog

malorkus writes "Here's a great way for bloggers and others with decent web hosting to help fight internet censorship in China and other restrictive countries. Adopt a Chinese Blog aims to match up censored bloggers with volunteer hosts."

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[turtled]

Wouldn't their government then just block access to certain servers / sites / blogs?

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[Crimson Dragon]

Yes, but the point of this seems to lie in the fact that enough people doing this will hassle the powers that be and bring attention on a larger scale to the rights violations going on there.

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[wrf3]

And therein lies the tale of moral relativism. Freedom isn't better than tyranny; life isn't better than death; bravery isn't better than cowardice; and truth isn't better than lies. So let's stand for nothing, since we have nothing on which to stand.

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[Crimson Dragon]

What is morally relative about a government denying its citizens rights they purport to give their citizens in their very constitution, as was insightfully stated?

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[tomhudson]

What is morally relative about a government denying its citizens rights they purport to give their citizens in their very constitution, as was insightfully stated?

... in which case there isn't a single government that isn't guilty. So we're back to moral relativism. You have to make a judgment call at *some* point. Some things are more evil than others, from a human perspective.

Besides, these chinese bloggers ... an hour after you've eaten one, you're hungry again ... (there. someone had to say it. sat

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[Crimson Dragon]

Which is precisely why we don't lay down and die here, and why drawing a line in the sand is the only sensible thing to do. The recession of rights across the globe is something we need not give up on.... we need to take a stand when it comes to the denial of rights.

We need to stand for the rights of developers to engage in reverse engineering proof-of-concept without being prosecuted.

We need to stand for so many things that our apathy has allowed undue recession into darker times. We wonder why our rig

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[Intron]

Nobody gives you rights. You have rights. There are only people trying to take them away.

If all people exercise their right of free speech, free press and free association then those rights will persevere. If you back down, then you will cede your rights. Its easy to promote a popular cause. Its the unpopular ones that define your character.

Anyway, I'd like to help, but my ISP won't let me host a blog on my server. And I have to wash my cat this weekend.

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[NamShubCMX]

And I have to wash my cat this weekend.

Seems like a very good idea for a blog!

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[Rakishi]

Why not, answer me. You claim that because they're value system is different we cannot interfere. However, by saying that you're forcing YOUR value system onto me since there is no universal right or law preventing me from interfering with someone else's value system. Why can't I condemn them? Why can't I interfere? What are you basing my actions as being "bad" on? They have no inherent universal right to anything as you claim, which also includes the right to keep me from interfering.

You're a hypocrite,

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[rednip]

And therein lies the tale of moral relativism.

Freedom isn't better than tyranny;

Anyone care to put up a ticket for a permanant visit to N. Korea and the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy of needs [wikipedia.org]? (btwjftaf [BTW, just for the anticiated flamewar) I do not like Bush and I am working within the electoral processs to free us from his relatively mild form of tyranny)

life isn't better than death;

Dead men can't type, surely you have choosen a one point to live rather than death.

bravery isn't better

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[AKAImBatman]

There are no rights violations. It is Chinese law that is, in our opinions, flawed, but what gives you or I the right to say so?

I thought the same thing, but several very intelligent posters pointed out that there *are* rights being violated. Article 35 of the Chinese Constitution [usconstitution.net] states:

Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration.

Now I realize that the Chinese Constitution may not be worth the paper its printed on (I know of many violations of the constitution, including friends who fled China due to religious persecution - read: arrest/jail - directly in contradiction to article 36), but that shouldn't stop the Chinese from fighting for rights they've been explicitly granted.

A good writeup on the situation from a Chinese Law Professor is here [typepad.com], with a well reasoned rebuttal here [listlesslawyer.com].

Let's hope the Chinese people are able to fight for their constitution. If only it was as easy as taking the case before the Chinese Supreme Court. :-/

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[Khuffie]

And the US constitution isn't being violated by the Patriot Act?

Re:MOD Training example

[Khuffie]

Why did you post this as AC? Scared? Oh well. I'm not grinding a personal axe but stating something most people either ignore, or don't see. People always talk about China/Saudi Arabia/*insert country US doesnt like* lack of human rights/free speech and so on, and are totally oblivious to the fact that they are being completely hypocritical. What about Guantanamo Bay, where people have been held for years without trial? What about the Patriot Act, that gives the government the right to arrest and spy on peo

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[LWATCDR]

The problem is that no freedom of speech is absolute so their several legal ways to get around it.
1. Libel. Just as their are laws in the US about lying about someone I am sure that their are laws in China about lying about the government. An example might be someone claiming that Red Army attacked people protesting for democratic reform. While the "truth" is they where trying to over throw the government since China is already a democratic society really they are the People's Republic of China.
2.Another wa

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[AKAImBatman]

The constitution doesn't say they get that stuff, just that they enjoy it.

Keep in mind that it's just a translation. I seriously hope that the original (Mandarin?) is not quite so loosely worded. And even translated, it can be interpreted as granting a right.

Also keep in mind that Article 51 doesn't apply in this case because no law exists to prevent the discussion of democracy. (See the law professor's blog I linked to.) If this were America, one would simply file a court case and take it as far as the

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[Dr. Evil]

From what I've been told, the spirit of the law often comes into play too. To state in a legal document that the citizens of China derive pleasure from something would be a senseless thing to include. It's clear that that's not what it means, so the statement wouldn't be ambiguous.

Yeah, of course it is just an example. I agree completely that this ambiguity is just an artifact of the translation.

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[Ryosen]

So what you're saying is like "I enjoy chocolate, I'm just not entitled to it". Being a bit literal, aren't we?

From dictionary.com [reference.com]:

Enjoy:
v. tr.

1. To receive pleasure or satisfaction from.
2. To have the use or benefit of: enjoys good health.

I believe that the intent of the Chinese Constitution is under definition #2.

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[AKAImBatman]

If you're a product of the US education system, go ask for your money back, because you didn't get what you paid for. Rights are not granted by a constitution. Rights are inherent (at the 'certain inalienable' ones).

Man, I'm glad I didn't go to your education system. You have a pretty warped view of history.

Our declaration of independence says the following:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, th

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[bnenning]

You'll note the suspicious lack of "Freedom of Speech".

Gosh, and it doesn't say anything about the freedom to eat chocolate either. It does however say "Liberty".

Something else to note is that the US Constitution went into effect in 1789. Yet the First Ammendment (the right to free speech) was not added until 1791!

Statist fallacy #43. Neither the Constitution nor the Bill of Rights grants rights to citizens. They grant powers to *government*, and in theory government can act only in accordance with th

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[Rakishi]

Depends what school of morality you subscribe to, some preach that such rights are in essence unviersal. We have every right to say whatever we want about those laws, it's called freedom of speech. As for changing them; we again have every right to, given China's involvement with the world, try to influence Chinese politics by aiding certain factions.

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[Rakishi]

I'd like to point out what the above statement says about the parent. It seems that he believes we have no rights to do anything unless specifically given to us, it seems that some other entity (government?) must give said rights to us. This, of course, goes against the Western point of view which gives me all rights unless I decide to give them up (say because my government says so, China is NOT my government may I add). See it's funny however if you say that using the Western view of things to justify som

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[Wieland]

That's a valid point on a philosophical level. When there's no universally recognized moral authority (such as a supernatural being of some kind), there's no way to tell right from wrong that is beyond contestation.

From a more down-to-earth political viewpoint however, there are such things as universal human rights, which include, amongst others, freedom of thought and freedom of expression. Chinese law is in violation of those human rights, just like law in nazi-Germany and Japan during WWII, or laws i

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[tverbeek]

Let the pointless semantic bickering, hopelessly esoteric metaphysical sky-gazing, and ideological sermonizing commence.

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[tomhudson]

that, plus if they post in chinese and you can't understand it, you may very well be hosting a government "agent provocateur".

... or, if they post in english (or ingrish) then they aren't really communicating very effectively with their own countrymen, so it becomes just another political statement w/o much impact.

IOW, a cute idea, but not very practical or logical. Perhaps we're being trolled?

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[Belial6]

"plus if they post in chinese and you can't understand it, you may very well be hosting a government "agent provocateur"."

That should be just fine with the adopters. Free speech is free speech. If you start deciding that only certain kinds of speech should be allowed, then your no better than the government censors.

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[tomhudson]

There's a difference between free speech and abusing someone's trust to post lies and set them up to take the blame.

BTW, free speech isn't an absolute - you do not have the freedom to shout fire in a crowded theatre if there's no fire, for example.

I would be pissed as all hell if they were tell me that they were reporting on a civil rights protest, but it was really recipes for "how to wok your dog" in chinese and that I am one of the prime "dog ranchers" with really choice cuts from a wide selection of

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[Belial6]

It's a blog. Thus, there is not necessarily, and unlikely, a specific theme. If they are writting in chinese, they are unlikely to give you a translation of every post. While it would be nice if everyone always told the truth, the reality is that many people don't. It is unfortunate, but the "good guys" tend to be just as likely to lie about their foe as the "bad guys". The "bad guys" might still be bad guys, but lies are still lies.

You pretty much have two options. Speak within the law, along with

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[tomhudson]

I'm from the side that believes that increased trade and business relationships, emmigration, as well as improved communications in general, are the only way to effect real change.

Samizdat didn't bring down the Soviet empire - the rest of the world continuing to advance economically and politically, along with trade sanctions, did them in. Same with South Africa. Eventually the "grass is grener" becomes irresistable, because, with increased trade, too many people are exposed to knowledge that there are oth

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[dkf]

They wouldn't need to once they found out who it was and did away with the subversion personally.

I thought it was Visual SourceSafe that we wanted to do away with...

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[kfg]

I submit an article to a magazine. The magazine decides to publish it.

How does this constitute the magazine forcing its values on me?

KFG

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[yintercept]

No one is forcing Western values onto China in this program

Just for the record, the Communist system currently in place in China was developed in the west. It was forced on China in an extremely oppressive fashion (the Cultural Revolution). The Cultural Revolution was not simply about bringing in new ideas, it was a very violent Marxist program designed to completely wipe out China's past.

The post that labels free speech as forcing western values on China is quite amusing. Quite frankly the most like

In soviet Russia

[farker haiku]

Hrm... so,
In Soviet Russia, Bloggers host you!

Re:In soviet Russia

[ImaLamer]

In Communist China, You Host Bloggers!

*I love this meme, can't help it*

Re:In soviet Russia

[Glog]

This is like SO not funny anymore. Go back to fark please.

Adopt...

[British]

*Sally Struthers walks on*

For just 5 megs a month you can adopt a Chinese blog. You will recieve letters, a digital camera picture and more from your sponsored blog. Your blog will recieve bandwidth, FTP access and encryption...

Just 5 megs a month. Isn't that worth it?

Why not?

[ch0p]

What's to stop the government from arresting people who are trying to get around their censorship?

Punishment?

[OverkillTASF]

Is there some law in China against circumventing the censorship laws? Like.... What is the potential punishment that you are probably incurring upon whatever China-person you "help out"?

Re:Punishment?

[Neurotoxic666]

Both persons should agree on something like this:

1. The blogger (in China) pretends he just sent the content of the blog in a personal email and that

2. the host published the content of said email without permission.

IANAL and IANC (Chinese), but this seems to make some sense. This or something similar...

Re:Punishment?

[Nos.]

Because of course a government that won't respect personal freedoms will certainly respect a technicality.

This sounds like a good idea, BUT...

[Rude Turnip]

I'd be scared shitless to visit China if I let some dissident bloggers use some of my hosting space. The Chinese govt. is probably paranoid enough to start putting together a list of individuals who have helped these "dangerous" individuals.

Another concern I'd have is that a blogger might have lots of harsh words about some local official, but how do I know it isn't simply slander? And what would my liabilities be in such a case?

Re:This sounds like a good idea, BUT...

[Manchot]

Trust me, you won't be held liable for any slander that a Chinese blogger might say against a local official. Most countries aren't too keen on extraditing their citizens to China in order to face libel charges.

Re:This sounds like a good idea, BUT...

[Stonehand]

Eh, it might be rather more interesting from their point of view to let you in, but under constant surveillance so they can later investigate everybody you had contact with in case any of them happen to be dissidents -- or if it would be convenient to frame any of them as dissidents. Then, they can trumpet your involvement with this shindig as "evidence", and go drive up some good ol' fashioned anti-foreigner, nationalistic fervor.

Re:This sounds like a good idea, BUT...

[internic]

Right, because getting a computer to match up names from visa applications to a list of "offenders" would be way too difficult.

Out

[Capt James McCarthy]

I think I'll outsource my blog to India.

Outsourced

[CorporateWhoremone]

You can't outsource to the US. That just dosn't mesh with the United States' plan for global domination.

Not to rain on your parade but..

[matvei]

what's stopping the Chinese secret service (or whatever) to register with this service as hosts, collect all the information needed to snatch the blogger and make an example out of him and his family?

Re:Not to rain on your parade but..

[Uruk]

Nothing really stops them except the filtering that the adoption agency does. Since they're probably not trained in intelligence procedures, I'd guess they can't stop this from happening.

But if you're Chinese intelligence, the better method is to prevent people from getting to the adoption service in the first place. They don't want to throw people in lonely prisons after they publish damaging things, they want to prevent damaging things from being published. The best way to do that is to use the Great

Re:Not to rain on your parade but..

[duggy_92127]

...collect all the information needed to snatch the blogger and make an example out of him and his family?

What country/world do you live in?? You're really contemplating the possibility that the Chinese government is going to hunt you down, "snatch" you away, and do horrible things to you?

Listen, America has a number of problems, but keeping its citizens safe from foreign aggression while on their own soil is not one of them. And I'm including "terrorism", even though that's not remotely the point

Great idea...

[Anonymous Coward]

Would any chinese adopt my european CVS?

That would be great! If I could move my project to a free country. Reading trivial patents is so boring you know...

Other countries?

[5plicer]

This is great idea! What about hosting blogs of citizens of other countries where internet censorship run rampant? I guess the campaign does cover a lot of territory, given China's immense population.

Does anyone here appreciate the irony?

[tigre]

China is a safe haven for all sorts of internet activity which is illegal and reprehensible here, I guess it's only fair that we return the favor.

Re:Does anyone here appreciate the irony?

[UrgleHoth]

China is a safe haven for all sorts of internet activity which is illegal and reprehensible here

Two questions:
1. Like what?
2. Where is here?

Adware hosting?

[Donny Smith]

The linked site does not exactly show how they plan to limit (ab)use to actual opressed bloggers and keep the spam and ads out.

BTW, what is wrong with opening a (Chinese) blog account on one of Western sites and emailing blog posts via some foreign Webmail site that provides HTTPS encryption of Web sessions?

Re:Adware hosting?

[Heisenbug]

BTW, what is wrong with opening a (Chinese) blog account on one of Western sites and emailing blog posts via some foreign Webmail site that provides HTTPS encryption of Web sessions?

Popular blog hosting sites are trivially easy to censor and track. Hosting on thousands of unrelated volunteer sites is meant to be harder to block.

In other news...

[subtropolis]

a secluded NOC was the target of what appears to have been a small nuclear strike. The only other traffic in the area was a Chinese cargo blimp twenty klicks south- southwest which also seems to have been destroyed in the incident.

At the risk of being off-topic...

[bradbury]

This isn't about blogging. Its a somewhat rhetorical, outside-of-the-box question -- "What if the Chinese government is using the right approach?"

Their economic growth has been much better than ours over the last decade. Their top-down economy can decide to build new nuclear plants when they need them without having to deal with environmentalists interfering for a decade or more. [One of the best prospects for eliminating dependence on foreign oil is relatively cheap electricity combined with hybrid and

Re:At the risk of being off-topic...

[hsmith]

This is insightful?

I would rather be purvey to freedom and liberty than have a totalitarian government limiting what choices i can make in my life. You see, as china moves more towards a capitalistic society, where people are free to choose and expore, they are becoming quite successful. It isn't "communism" that is making them well to do, it is captialism and the free market.

Government controlled economies NEVER work, it was the end to the socialist USSR empire, it will be ours as we move closer to it.

T

Re:At the risk of being off-topic...

[Daniel_Staal]

The democratic or republican forms of government are not designed to be the best form of government: a benevolent, wise, dictator/king is a far better system. What they are designed for is to limit the downside. While a good dictator/king is the probably the best form of government, a bad dictator/king is probably the worst.

The point of a democratic or representative system is that the worst case is limited, because no one person has the power to totally screw everything up. Presumably, therefore, at least some people will be decent, keeping the system from total failure.

So, yes, a planned economy can outperform a non planned one, if the planners are very good. A controlled political system can out perform a non planned one, if the planners are good.

But you have to have good planners. And they have to stay good, and operate in the interest of the system, not themselves.

An uplanned system, where everyone operates in their own best intrest, works fairly well, and does not depend on finding exeptional people to run it.

(My personal feeling, by the way, is that their economic growth has been more the result of technology upgrades than anything else. The US/Europe leads the world in productivity-enhancing tech, and a country that can jump a few grades closer to us will grow a lot faster than we will because we have to develop the next steps.)

Re:At the risk of being off-topic...

[earthbound kid]

Which is great until a blue screen of death results in the execution of your grandparents and a murderer getting early Social Security.

Re:At the risk of being off-topic...

[Eslyjah]

IAAE. Ignoring the other tyrannies of the Chinese government (as you do)...

Your reasoning is based on numerous fallacies. The biggest is that you are calling the Chinese economy "top-down". The top-down approach impoverished the Soviet Union, and would do the same to China. China professes to being a Communist, top-down economy, but it's not true. There is quite a bit of free enterprise carried on in addition to the state-owned version. This is where the growth is coming from.

The Chinese economy is

Re:At the risk of being off-topic...

[Guppy06]

"What if the Chinese government is using the right approach?"

So what? The ends do not justify the means.

Re:At the risk of being off-topic...

[ediron2]

In short, no.

Economic growth: growing from zero (china) has a better percentage gain than growth from peak (US). No news here. On the other hand, things that grow quickly have a higher risk. Put another way, a startup grows faster than GE or Microsoft. But they can also overheat/crash/fail for a lot of reasons that won't kill a stable diversified giant corporation.

Your posting also interchanges economic and political concepts. They're not the same thing, and untangling them is necessary to talk effec

Chinese gov't can adopt DMCA victim websites

[Anonymous Coward]

It's great to see efforts being made to give the people of China free speech, but the increasing level of madness and greed emanating from (corporate)America the situation is no longer as one-sided as it once was.

The Chinese government should return fire with fire by encouraging "legal" Chinese web site operators to "Adopt a patent-free website" or Adopt a DMCA victim".

They could start with the author of DVD Decrypter.

The American Government is no longer the squeaky-clean defender of the oppressed that i

Webspace

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm looking for a free, fully-managed, load-balanced hosting environment with unlimited bandwidth and space, free domain registration, SQL Server and the dotNet framework.

In exchange, I promise to be scathingly critical about nation you choose.

Yin and Yang

[davmoo]

On the surface, I think this is a wonderful idea. I just happen to own a server, and very well may participate in this.

But I have one concern.

If I get caught by the Chinese government, all they can do is block my server. If the person I'm hosting gets caught, they get tossed in to jail or stood up against a wall and shot.

I must contemplate this on the tree of woe...

Re:Yin and Yang

[TheKidWho]

But see that is their choice! They know that could possibly happen, but to them its worth fighting for.

Ah, the irony...

[The Woodworker]

I've read hundreds of posts on slashdot that were wrongly modded down (censored) as trolls because people didn't like what they had to say, and others modded up as 'insightful' with content like 'MS SUCKS' and nothing else to say. Now this community is bitching about China?!! The looking glass is a mirror.

BTW, -1 as a troll. To hell with my karma.

SPAM it out

[dark-br]

China's gov. does nothing to stop de floods of SPAM sent everyday from there but want to fsck up bloggers? Simple! Just start sending out all your political considerations by spamming the world with it.

If you can sell vI@gr@ and enlarge my penis maybe you can make me read all the things you have to say about living in a represive country (not that by living in Brazil we don't already know).

If you cannot blog it, SPAM it!

Communitycolo.net is the answer

[Tairan]

Community Colocation Project [communitycolo.net] is part of the Online Policy Group which provides Free (as in speech AND beer) hosting to any individual or non profit entity. They're the peoeple who fought Diebold, refuse to work with unacceptable takedown notices, and in general, are here to host these kinds of sites.

What about LJ

[Leroy_Brown242]

What about Live Journal or something?

Maybe Bittorent style blogging?

What's the Point?

[KrisCowboy]

What's the point if this Slashdot article is filtered in China? Apparently no Chinese blog would know about it.

Smart little trick

[Morgor]

When I first read about the blog censorship on msn in china, I tried it myself, and discovered that you were infact allowed to write the words "freedom" and "democracy" if you only registered yourself as not living in China. So with my fake identity of a Chinese student living in Beijing, I couldn't write the characters for democracy, but with my real identity of a Danish student living in Copenhagen, I could easily write those words, and it had no impact that I was infact using the Chinese msn site.

Re:What is their major malfunction?

[Curtman]

"Leave China alone for Christ's sake. You're not going to change things, especially if you are NOT IN CHINA!"

No way. This [abc.net.au] has gone way too far [www.cbc.ca].

If there is truth to these accusations that the Chinese government is intimidating citizens of my country in any way for something such as practicing Falun Gong [wikipedia.org], then we have a serious problem that need s addressing.

I'm in no way in favour of military action, but this is clearly and act of war on their part if it is true.

Re:What is their major malfunction?

[Rakishi]

Sorry to tell you this but its only an "act of war" if the US goverment doesn't like the country, just look at Israel and what they do.

Re:What is their major malfunction?

[Curtman]

"just look at Israel and what they do"

This is true too. I am much less familiar with that situation than this one. I am however aware that the Jew -vs- Muslim war has tyrants on both sides. Buddhism is concerned primarily with having compassion for others. I do not believe you will find an example of Buddhists retaliating against oppression. I have no idea the depths of what happens in Israel, or to Muslims when they travel there, but this quote is what I am concerned about:

Montreal resident Yi

Re:What is their major malfunction?

[Curtman]

Yes, and yes. Pretty much exactly the same way. Except that China isn't engaging in as many illegal trade practices. And they didn't deport the lady from Montreal to Syria.

Re:What is their major malfunction?

[Curtman]

None of that matters in the face of the allegations that China is doing these things on foreign soil. Whether or not Falun Gong is a 'fucking crazy cult' or not is only your opinion. The Scientologists have a right to believe what they do too, it's their methods of dealing with non believers that I have a problem with. I've seen enough of that to know what it's about I think. I'm not about to call them names though, or tell them they are wrong.

Re:What is their major malfunction?

[Curtman]

"Falun Gong is not Buddhism. Buddhism is not at all illegal in China, and there are many Buddhist temples."

Sorry, I meant to respond to this as well. China's history with Tibet is enough to make me fear their persecution. Especially based on their lack of respect for international borders. The practice of Buddhism was banned there, as Falun Gong is now in China. To me this fear of political instability is almost as frightening as fear of opposing religions.

Re:What is their major malfunction?

[TummyX]

just look at Israel and what they do


What exactly? Protect their citizens (15% of which is Arab by the way)?

No, governments should do nothing while palestinians blow up kids in nightclubs and school buses.

Re:What is their major malfunction?

[Rakishi]

You mean like spying on my goverment and stealing information from it?

Re:What is their major malfunction?

[TummyX]

Oh, like no Governments except for the Israeli government spys on other nations.

Get some fucking perspective.

Re:What is their major malfunction?

[Curtman]

"No, governments should do nothing while palestinians blow up kids in nightclubs and school buses."

They should consider themselves lucky that the US gives them billions of dollars of weapons to fight enemies that are equiped with rocks and primitive explosives. Enemies that they imposed upon, and enemies that they threaten and steal from when they attempt to expand their borders.

Israel lost its sympathy card a long time ago.

Re:What is their major malfunction?

[TummyX]

They should consider themselves lucky that the US gives them billions of dollars of weapons to fight enemies that are equiped with rocks and primitive explosives.


WTF? Do you think they use all of those weapons on the Palestinians? The best thing that can happen for Israel is for he world to acknowledge that it *IS* a war. The fact is, if they used those weapons in an all out war, the Palestinians wouldn't have a fucking change.

And to describe palestinian as poor enemies with only rocks and primitive

Re:What is their major malfunction?

[Curtman]

"The fact is, if they used those weapons in an all out war, the Palestinians wouldn't have a fucking change."

The fact is, they should not have those weapons at all. I find the idea of giving someone weapons and calling it humanitarian aid offensive.

Isreal has been attacked by its neighbours, but Isreal has also attacked them. Neither one is right

Suicide bombers are attempting to show how hopeless they feel about their situation in the very loudest way possible. There is a fair solution, and it d

Re:What is their major malfunction?

[TummyX]

The fact is, they should not have those weapons at all. I find the idea of giving someone weapons and calling it humanitarian aid offensive


What? Israel has been attacked by its neighbours who have sworn to "push israel into the sea" and the US shouldn't help Israel defend itself? it is in the best interests of the US and the world that Israel -- a stable multicultural democracy in the middle east -- survives.


Suicide bombers are attempting to show how hopeless they feel about their situation in the

Re:What is their major malfunction?

[Curtman]

"Israel has been attacked by its neighbours who have sworn to "push israel into the sea" and the US shouldn't help Israel defend itself?"

Yes, exactly. They bulldoze homes of Palastinian people, and build settlements on their land. This is outrageous. It makes no more sense for you to defend the US' relationship with Israel, than it does for Syria or Lebanon to aid the Palestinians. Less so, because it's really none of the US' business until one side or the other decides to play fair at least.

"The

Re:What is their major malfunction?

[TummyX]

Yes, exactly. They bulldoze homes of Palastinian people, and build settlements on their land


Homes used by terrorists or to smuggle weapons (hidden tunnels).


It makes no more sense for you to defend the US' relationship with Israel, than it does for Syria or Lebanon to aid the Palestinians.


No, it does and I've already explained why.

Without US weapons defending Israel (deterrence works great), Israel would now be North Egypt, West Jordon and Southern Lebanon. The concept of a Palestinian state woul

Re:What is their major malfunction?

[Curtman]

"Homes used by terrorists or to smuggle weapons (hidden tunnels)"

Yes, well we all know what a threat to humanity hidden tunnels are.

"Without US weapons defending Israel (deterrence works great), Israel would now be North Egypt, West Jordon and Southern Lebanon. The concept of a Palestinian state would be a footnote in history."

So would Israel. I'm not sure Israel is justified in existing in the first place. What went on in Germany was attrocious, but I don't think it gives anyone the right to beh

Re:What is their major malfunction?

[Curtman]

"yet Saddam Hussein can kill 2 million people and almost all here on /. would say we should not have gone to war with Iraq"

Excellent point. This is why I am also not in favour of military action against China. On this account, at least you cannot call me a hypocrite.

I'm talking about diplomacy, and possibly outlawing trade with them.

Re:What is their major malfunction?

[tomhudson]

A trade embargo is not going to make China change it's policy on internet content filtering.

Exactly. Besides, the rest of the world couldn't even afford a trade embargo with China at this point ...

And its not like other countries aren't doing the same ... (hello, France wrt louis vuitton auctions, Germany wrtnazi memorabilia, Microsoft wrt Mike Rowe Soft) ... oops, forgot, Microsoft isn't a country - they outsource that function by renting their politicians.

Re:What is their major malfunction?

[Stonehand]

Quite. Other nations are looking to *increase* trade with China, not to decrease it. Forget about embargos in terms of leverage against Beijing.

Re:What is their major malfunction?

[Rakishi]

Yes, they're people will just suffer a lot more and lose whatever chance they may have had at goverment reform in the future (from everything I've read the Chinese goverment isn't stupid enough to believe they can keep their current system going once China become rich/capitalistic enough). Look at Iraq and North Korea, or Cuba.

Re:What is their major malfunction?

[Curtman]

"Yes, they're people will just suffer a lot more and lose whatever chance they may have had at goverment reform in the future"

At this point I'm pretty sure the Chinese people feel hopeless about any chances for reform. Iraq, North Korea, and Cuba aren't involved in spying on and arresting citizens of foreign countries, that we know of. What a government does to its citizens is one thing, but foreigners are different. The citizens have a responsibility to keep their governments in line. I fear the sam

Re:What is their major malfunction?

[m50d]

I think we're more against lies. If you say it's clearly because of the people's rights and that's why you're invading we might support you. If you make up something about weapons of mass destruction (ok china actually has them, so you wouldn't be making that up, but something along those lines) we won't.

Re:What is their major malfunction?

[Curtman]

"I think we're more against lies. If you say it's clearly because of the people's rights and that's why you're invading we might support you."

The reality is, if we go to war with China nuclear weapons are going to be used. They will likely also ally with the "Axis of Evil" that Bush invented. We have to send a strong message that our citizens are free, and that isn't up for negotiation though. It doesn't take a war to do that.

Re:Fighter Censorship at Home!!

[archmagusrm]

Methinks the distinction here is censorship of information and legitimate opinion rather than censorship of trolls. We like to censor trolls, nobody wants to wake up to one in the morning...

Re:Fighter Censorship at Home!!

[advocate_one]

sadly, I've blown my mod points for today... otherwise, I'd have modded you up

Re:Stop trading with them

[Austerity Empowers]

Their people will work happily for peanuts so we can have manufactured goods for less than the price of air. Their government contrasts our own governments slow but deliberate transition to facism, making us think we're still "free".

In other words, why wouldn't we trade with them!

Re:Risk

[scupper]

I would think the risk of this "Save the China Bloggers" deal would be from Chinese spammers and hackers taking advantage of folks through this "program" that might not know how to securely configure their hosting accounts or servers. It almost seems like an ingenious scheme to get people to give up server access, however limited, bandwidth and disk space for mischief.

Could this be turned into a gigantic social engineering blitzkrieg?

Re:I like...

[tverbeek]

I like Chinese... There's 900 million of them in the world today

This is only true for very old values of "today" (e.g. 1973). It's currently estimated at over 1.3 billion.