Sigh! So I have to deal with a child after all.

You are wrong, totally (had to get that bit of American-style sort-of English in just for the heck of it!)

So you have never actually read the Patriot Act, have you? I suggest you do so, and focus on: TITLE II--ENHANCED SURVEILLANCE PROCEDURES.

Wherever did you get the idea that Chinese people can't leave China??? Do you ever go outside your trailer? The only problems Chinese people with going to other countries are the racist immigration dept's in other countries! You have obviously never seen the hoops Chinese people have to go through to try and get just a tourist visa to visit yankee-land!!!

Any Chinese person with a passport has the right to go anywhere they want - if, that is, where they want to go to will grant them an entry visa for their holiday. Countries throughout Asia, the Middle East and Europe are having a field day with all the Chinese tourists. Your lack of knowledge on the subject of China seems to indicate to me that you would be better off perhaps if you were in discussion with someone that is involved in things you may know something about, China certainly isn't one of them.

Can't have children??? How in the hell could China have 1.4 Billion (used to be 1.3 but the latest figures show the increase) people if Chinese people couldn't have children??? You must mean the law - the law created by a sovereign nation in response to actual conditions and to preserve the social structure and one that is welcomed by most in China and also one that is ONLY relevant to members of the Han majority living in cities and NOT applicable to any of the other 55 ethnic groups in China. You mean that law? That is a law and as has been already pointed out, this is not about laws, either those in that backwater of the world called America or in China or any other country. Try again, this one you failed at miserably.

I see now you vomit the oft repeated mantra of "freedom of speech." Geez you Americans are really full of yourselves, aren't you? You have a backward law made over 200 years ago - like so many of your backward laws - that was created for the conditions of the time when the King of England would not allow what passed for newspapers in the "colonies" to attack the King of England and you automatically think that every country needs to be so backward. Another failure on your part for more reasons than one. If you could speak or understand Chinese you would know that there is much criticism of government policies in China. In every major and even small cities there are the same type of talk radio shows as exist in America and Canada and they are on the air 24 hours a day and they discuss and criticize and debate every aspect of China's government. Problem for those of your ilk, you think that it has to be done in English even though China has her own language. Pomposity thy name is American!

And I see you also make that same old pale inference that because I know something about a situation and it runs counter what know-nothings like yourself believe that I couldn't possible be a white Canadian. Well, wrong again bucko! But seems that's sort of a regular thing with you.

But hey, I'm sure my Chinese friends will get a laugh and I do take it as a compliment that you think I am Chinese, but no luck for me. I'm an old Canadian that has lived in China for 20 years. I came here because I wanted to know the truth since all I was being fed with was the same garbage American propaganda you have been fed with. I wanted to find out myself.

Hey! You are trying to crayon things about China so I should ask you. How long did you live in China so you could get first hand knowledge?

My gawd!!! Who dresses you each afternoon, anyway???

The Patriot Act is an American law. I don't care about American laws because I'm not an American and so am not required to accept any American law. I don't investigate who or when any American is arrested for violating American law, that's your business as an American. It concerns nobody except an American. Hell, if it concerned the rest of the world, Baby Bush would already be swinging beside Saddam!!!

I pointed out to you that the Patriot Act is an American law.

The people in China DO NOT need government permission to have a child and that is a fact. If members of the Han majority ethnic group living in a city wish to have more than one child, then they can do so. But, since unlike America - just for an example, not yankee-bashing here - in China education is free up to the 9th grade as is medical care. If someone of the Han majority ethnic group living in a city wishes to have more than one child, all they have to do is pay in advance for the strain on the infrastructure that would cause. Not a big deal at all. Nice to know that you are so concerned about the people of China having children though, too bad you don't understand the reasoning behind the one-child policy...a policy that could very well be extremely valuable to America. After all, getting all those morbidly obese women who only have another child because they get a bigger welfare check, off the welfare rolls, would be good for the American economy as well as improving the quality of education due the smaller class sizes in the lower grades.

You still have no idea of what a human right is, do you? All you can see is political rights. Alright, here's one for you: in Holland, they feel it is a human right to be able to choose to partake of a natural herbal product for recreational purposes rather than being forced to use the poison that is alcohol or the even worse poison of prescription drugs. In parts of Africa, they feel it is a human right for them to cut the clitoris off of a little girl so she does not have an orgasm that might embarrass the family. In India, they feel it is a human right for a little girl to be sold as a prostitute. In Islamic countries they feel it is a human right to kill any girl that dares to marry or even have sex with a partner not approved of and arranged by the family.

All of those are of course not "human rights" but they are political and in some cases societal "rights" given by the political and/or social environment in which those people exist.

The biggest problem with Americans when looking at any other country in the world is that Americans have this insane idea that what America wants, all others in the world must accept. Pure idiocy and the most perverted pompousness.

What you do in America - nobody in the world cares about. If Americans are so stupid as to allow baby rapers to live - that's fine and if in other countries they feel that baby rapers deserve to die then that is the right of that other country! It is not America's right or the right of Americans to dictate to other countries and other people how they must run their country or how the people must live in their country.

Deal with it bunkie, it's none of your business. Any sovereign nation has the right to make their own laws. Any society has the right to choose their societal norms.

For any American to attempt to dictate to any person or any other govt in any other country as to how that country must be run or how the people in that country must live is a violation of the rights of those people and a violation of that country's rights to promulgate their own laws and societal norms.

America is NOT the king of the world. Americans are NOT the best people in the world. American businesses are NOT the best businesses in the world and American laws are NOT the best laws in the world.

Your problem, and that of others of your ilk, is that you want to be able to tell every one else how to live their lives, how to think, how to act and how to either live or die.

Such an idiotic attitude is barely worthy of comment but what the heck, I had the time, but it's late here, nearly quarter to 4 in the am and I have work to do and to also attend the world's first truly international Olympic Torch Relay which comes to the city in which I live tomorrow - or, er, later today. 137,000 kilometers - that's the world's usage of distance, I am no longer familiar with the backward American system of miles, I'm part of the rest of the world - the longest of any Olympic Torch Relay ever and it will result in the best Olympics ever as well.

So I'll leave you to try and create something vacuous that I can laugh at and answer to, tomorrow - er, later today, perhaps in the evening.

Really? So why Chinese teenagers like to drink Coca-Cola, wear Levi's blue-jeans and watch MTV ? To promote the Party lifestyle ?

I am Canadian too and I will tell you that most of the NOT you mentioned above are YES THEY ARE for me.
On top of that, I was born in Europe, I traveled a lot in Europe when I was young age and to let you know that almost all countries in there do believe in YES THEY ARE.

Besides, there are many Chinese immigrants to U.S. and Canada who believe in YES THEY ARE, those are numbers you cannot argue with.

Since Tibet is his country, and he speaks in support of his own country, how can he possibly be termed a 'traitor'?

It's amazing how much is made of the wheelchair torch bearer having the torch snatched from her, and how OTT the Chinese media describes it as.  Here's a good post someone made about this:


I think that really hits the spot.

Furthermore, snatching a torch to make the voice of an oppressed people heard hardly compares with the 50 years of cultural genocide, destruction of ancient culture, forced movement of nomads of their land, etc.

Chinese censorship of the internet is widely documented.  While your 'facts' are not documented at all.  http://www.greatfirewallofchina.org/  You are either stupid, or working for the government.  And since you do have internet access, you are working for the government.  I should bother you to come here and lie to us all...
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Ah.  And this is where western ideas are OTT and don't quite reflect the reality of China either.

Biker Dude, many many people in China who do not work for the government have access to the internet.  At the school where I work all the teachers have internet access in the office.  Some have it at home.

The only restriction is money; the people on 500 RMB a month simply can't afford to get online.  But a lot of people in urban and china, unconnected to the government, can and do have internet at home.

What IS true is the censorship.  I find that about 30% of foreign sites simply won't open.

Recently some sites, like the BBC and wikipedia, were unblocked for the first time.  I suspect that they are slowly doing this leading up to the olympics so that the masses of foreigners visiting will be led to believe that the censorship is made up by the western media, then immediately after the olympics, it will all be blocked again.

It IS frustrating, though.  I pay 50 RMB a month for my internet, about 7 USD, but considering a) the slow speeds (can never download at more than 100kps) and b) the censorship, I think that's a ripoff.

Yes, this forum is available, but google searches are different in China from in the UK (I realised this when I was back in the UK in January), with way more stuff coming up in the UK.

The BBC was blocked until two months ago.

Angelfire links still don't work
VOA apparently doesn't work - never tried it
Loads of other things.
Blogspot was also blocked until two months ago