I recently picked up a book called, "No Wall Too High", the translated man who escaped from a Chinese labor camp under Mao Zedong. In this book, during his time in a re-education camp in Lijiang, the author relates seeing the story of Yang Shukang -- a man whose crime was simply writing a letter to the central leadership in Beijing saying that two thousand people had starved to death in his town of Jiuhe during the great leap forward.

The author tells the story of seeing Shukang stand up in front of the entire prison and refuse to "confess his crimes" -- and was summarily spat on and beaten to near death by a group of party zealots. Tortured this way for three more days, Shukang hanged himself on the fourth day after writing characters on the wall, among which -- "The victims of the Great Leap Forward will live forever in the hearts of the people!"

We must not forget the victims of the past, and we must remember that we are less than two generations removed from men being killed simply for telling the truth when the facts do not align with political convenience. The intolerance of dissenting voices and contradictory information is a dangerous slippery slope on the fall from a free and healthy society.