I'm watching the olympic thing and I'm wondering.
You know how people draw other people.
I've never seen other people as the evil ones.
I guess we are all evil or maybe we are all good. Maybe the same thing locally and in families and couples, I really don't know and I never got it.
And if all lead to blows (better if it never did) However wins can say they were right.

I don't know. What do you think of all world violece?

i like violence myself, it kills the tedium that too much peace can produce.

but seriously, for whatever reasons, Chinese culture [and by that we mean most specifically, the culture of the  Han, which is the predominant group among those East Asian peoples identified as Chinese] is notoriously xenophobic.

and they're still commies, too.

and i've never bought into the int'l brotherhood of athletes bit always trotted out at every Olympics.  If so, why play the national anthem of the country of the Gold Medalists?

Well, back to TV to root against certain personally disfavored countries.

oh, come on, don't you remember the outrageous anti-American refereeing and the "lifetime amateurs" that every other country used to run against the US Olympic teams.  and the US teams still managed to win most of the time anyway.

Yeah, the NBA thugs are appalling, but so are the half-assed cheating behaviors and totally unsportsmanlike behaviors of all those other countries.  The thrashings the NBA players deliver are well-deserved.

The level of mayhem that some cultures engage is is astonishing.  

We can debate the validity of some of the wars that the United States has engaged in.  However, ultimately it still would be a question that is at least subject to reasonable dispute.

On the other hand, the Chinese have managed to kill more of their own people during peace time, between 20 and 30 million in the Cultural Revolution alone, and that is just starting the count, than the United States kills in war.

When you kill more in peace than other countries kill in war, something is wrong.

Also, most Americans cannot understand what a really repressive society is like.  The mere existence of this site is impossible in repressive countries.  The fact that posters are allowed to say 1/10th of the things they say on this forum and remain out of prison (or alive) belies the idea that we are in a repressive state.  

I know some people in Pelican Bay State Prison, the most "secure" prison in California.  An inmate in Pelican Bay has more freedom than a citizen of China.

If you don't think there is evil, what do you call it?

Your pelican Bay analogy is just plain stupid.
I have been to China. You would be surprised at how much freedom the Chinese people really have.
You have been watching too much of our USA propaganda.

I used to speak fluent Russian and visited the Soviet Union in the bad old days.  I have also visited other totalitarian societies such as Syria.  My knowledge of China is not from USA propaganda, but from international sources.

A person living in China is not allowed free access to unlimited printed material.  They cannot get books critical of the Chinese government.  There are not newspapers printed without the consent of the government.  There are no radio broadcasts without government approval.

Groups like Move-On.org, networks like Air America, or magazines like "The Nation" just do not exist.  

One of my pen pals in Pelican Bay is a self-educated, rather radical person.  He gets books extremely critical of the U.S. Govt.  He has never had a book turned down because of its political content.

You say I would be surpised at the level of freedom.  Do you really believe that the Chinese have unlimited access to political liturature that is highly critical of the government?

Can you name two political parties in China that are allowed to run in elections?

Can you name on newspaper printed in China that is an "opposition" paper?  Doesn't exist.

Of course, if Chinese society is so good, one must wonder why millions abandon their families to go to the U.S., Austrialia, England, France, and dozens of other countries. The list of countries with Chinese immigrant populations is huge.  I have even seen Chinese living in Lebanon, itself a perpetual war zone, and not the greatest place to seek refuge.

The number of people who flee China is dwarfed only by the number of its citizens China has killed.

-- Modified on 8/9/2008 8:19:04 AM

just like almost everyone else does who comes here from other countries. Since they are leaving China, they are free. They are not all fleeing.
True, they don't have the freedom of speech as we do today, but they are changing. Change does not happen overnight.
I will not change my citizenship to live in China, but enjoy every minute while I am there. I see a bustling enterprising China, not some giant prison that some would want us to believe.

Look at some of the garbage that we read in our print from the liberal media. It's deceiving and
self serving. Most of it is trash, and our standards of journalism are almost non existent.
Yeah, I guess that's better, but not by much.

I enjoyed my time in the USSR, Syria, and other countries, all the while knowing that the people there had no freedom. My enjoyment did not  detract from their lack of freedom.

People leave totalitarian countries for more than the economic advantages.  That is why the defectors from places like the USSR and other countries were often the elite, such as ballet dancers, musicians, scientists, etc.  They lived lives of luxury (relatively speaking) in their countries of origin.  They were willing to risk it all to leave and go to other countries (Not only the U.S, but places like France and Italy.)

China allows people - or rather some people - to emigrate because they have too many, which is why the put limits on how many children its citizens can have.

It is not a prison in the sense that no one can leave. My comparison was to the degree for freedom one has within the boundaries.  My client in Pelican Bay has more freedoms than a university professor in China.

By the way, you haven't even begun to explain the cultural genocide the Chinese are committing in Tibet. An ancient culture is being wiped out.

Or China's support of the worst groups in the Sudan.

During the days of the USSR, segments of western society appologized for every evil, from the death of millions in the Ukraine to the Gulags themselves.

The same continues today with China.

I never said they were perfect. I too feel bad about what is going on in Tibet.
We all have have our share of stones and broken glass.

Perfect is so far off.  Millions dead in peacetime is a big moral no-no. As I said originally, reasonable people can debate the merits of certain wars and honorable people may differ.  But when your devastation in peace time exceeds other countries war deaths, something is horribly wrong.  "Not perfect" is not an apt phrase.

Every country has its "share of stones and broken glass," but some countries have managed to far exceed their share just in human carnage alone.  These countries include China, Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Uganda, Cambodia, Rwanda, the Sudan, and  North Korea (2 million of its own citizens starved to death, and they keep order by telling them the rest of the world is worse off).

WOW, that statement is extremely revealing.

And I feel for the Chinese people, just as I feel for the North Koreans.  They are basically slaves of their own Governments.

You are very right.  Actually, I do want to clarify what I was saying. I was talking about their government, not the people themselves.

When I have visited totalitarian countries, I always had a wonderful time with the people, from whom I experienced nothing but hospitality.

Ironically, the countries where I had the most gracious experiences were the Soviet Union and Syria, both horribly oppressive and anti-US.

When people found out I was an American, they would open museaums early, give me gifts they weren't giving to other tourists, invite me to their homes, etc. Stories too numerous to recount.

At first, I always wondered why they were being so nice, when all they heard for decades were the most terrible things about the US.  And yet, they treated me much nicer than than the treated the English, German, or French visitors.

THEN, I realized that every Syrian in Damascus or Alepo had a cousin in Glendale or Detroit from whom he heard about the US.  Likewise, every Russian in Krasnodar or Leningrad (the use of Leningrad is a hint as to my age) had relatives in New York, SF, or some other US city.

The more repressive the regime, the more the people like us - witness the countries of "New Europe"

Yes, the governments are evil.  The people were not.  Sorry if I was not clear.