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Comment by gibsonf1 | Hacker News Reader

Can you give one example of a person put in jail or executed for their political views in the US? One example of government forced censorship? The difference between the US govt. and the Chinese is more than black and white. You have the right to disagree with US policies - try complaining about Chinese politcal policies in China and see what happens. This issue has no gray.

The case shown in your posted link is not an example of political persecution against the ISP. We have no information on the reason for the request by the FBI, so I won't speculate. Even with an FBI gag order, the person made the whole case public and went to court. Try that in China.

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I was just in China on vacation last November, and in terms of the atmosphere in public places, the U.S. almost seems like more of a police state than China is. Some examples:

I had mistakenly packed scissors (y'know, sharp pointy things?) in my carry-on when passing through the Beijing airport. The security guard said, politely and apologetically, "I'm sorry, I can't let you take these on the plain." On the trip back through Chicago/O'hare, a woman was yelled at and pulled out of line for having hand lotion.

There are no announcements in Chinese airports saying "By order of the TSA, no liquids may be carried on board flights, and all persons are subject to search by uniformed TSA officers."

There are no announcements in Chinese subways saying "Safety is our number one concern here on the MBTA, and so we ask you to report any suspicious persons or packages to the nearest MBTA employee." People are not manhandled and pulled off trains for talking about explosions, as happened to the person sitting next to me yesterday.

Chinese people can and do criticize their government all they want - verbally. Several people we met told us "Yeah, the government censorship is disgraceful, but it takes time to change things like that." When we visited a Taoist temple in Hong Kong, there were Falun Gong posters all over the place.

China's certainly not perfect, and overall I think its political freedom is somewhat less than the U.S. The Chinese media is still very much controlled by the state, and people can have reprisals made against them for things they say in print. The Internet is censored, as everyone knows by now. China lacks the culture of dissent that the U.S. has, so many people seem accultured to political passivity. China leads the world in executions, though it's worth noting that only it, Iran, and Saudi Arabia have more executions than the U.S.

But it absolutely is a matter of degrees. China is not that much worse than the U.S. is. And China's velocity is at least in the right direction: if the U.S. continues the course it's been on since 2001, within 5 years it will be a far more repressive regime than China.

You probably didn't talk to jailed dissidents, the families of executed political prisoners, the mothers who 's babys were killed because they went beyond the child quota, the people who were forbidden to have another child, the prisoners forced to work in factories, the prisoners killed to have their organs harvested, etc. Vacation is one thing, but the evil of the government is well documented.

Hong Kong used to be the freest country in the world prior to 1997, and it enjoyed one of the greatest generations of wealth in the world because of that freedom. Even their money was privately minted. I was fortunate enough to visit before the hand over, and what an amazing place it was. That tradition of freedom still lingers, but is being snuffed out. Those posters hidden away in the temple would have been out in the streets in the earlier freer days.

Technology, like the search engine provided by Google, is giving the government the power to keep the masses from doing what they should do - overthrow the repressive regime. Another Tiannamen square will come, and the regime will use any and all force to subdue it. Their only principle is maintaining power - that has been their history and present and future until they loose power.

Comparing this to the US system is dramatically misunderstanding and utterly taking for granted the amazing freedom we have and the reasons for it. The difference is in kind, not degree.

"Comparing this to the US system is dramatically misunderstanding and utterly taking for granted the amazing freedom we have and the reasons for it. The difference is in kind, not degree"

Well said. Democracies like the US and Japan and Europe have orders of magnitude more freedom than dictatorships. It's popular to see a moral equivalence between dictatorships and democracies, but history doesn't see an equivalence.

As a European living in the USA: the USA is much less free than any country in Europe. But not for lack of noble laws, in which the USA excels, but rather, for lack of public education that would entitle everyone to be aware and enjoy such freedom.

Add to the above the blatant lack of equality in opportunity: if one's family is not focused in providing an environment (and usually the funds too) to foster a high education --by which I don't mean a university degree--, one is screwed forever.

In short: high schools and undergraduate degrees in the USA suck big time (only at grad school does one see a proper, comparable level to Europe), and parents wander clueless as to what is important to create self-sufficient, independent and free adults.

"As a European living in the USA: the USA is much less free than any country in Europe."

Not according to Freedom House. The US and most of Western Europe are equally politically free: http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=15

And economically the US is freer than any country in Europe http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/countries.cfm

"lack of public education"

What are you talking about? The US has more than enough public schools.

"Add to the above the blatant lack of equality in opportunity"

Urban Myth. The per-capita GDP in the US is higher than almost every European country. Around $10,000 more than France, the UK or Germany. So your average US citizen is 30% wealthier than your average European.

Income inequality (assuming that's a bad thing) is only slightly lower in the US than Europe too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality

Also the US has a much higher proportion of the population with University qualifications than most of Europe too: http://www.oecd.org/document/31/0,2340,en_2649_201185_33710751_1_1_1_1,00.html

"In short: high schools and undergraduate degrees in the USA suck big time"

Could you back that up with some evidence?

"Not according to Freedom House."

The website you cite defines a Free Country as one where there is: 1) a broad scope for open political competition, 2) a climate for respect of civil liberties, 3) significant independent civic life, 4) independent media

The USA does not have 1 (locked two-party system with associated elite families, if not in theory, at least in practice), 2 ( 9/11 related policies? Federal agencies capturing information on citizens continuously?) and 4 (there was an independent media some decades ago, not anymore). 3 is allowed in full only within the privacy of your home. Don't confuse economical prosperity with freedom.

About "lack of public education": I am no native English speaker. I meant to say, lack of education of the public. General culture levels are very low among USA citizens. My data: you have no idea how many times I've been told that Spain is in the north of Mexico, and not by Mexicans obviously. Plus how many USA citizens can locate Iraq in a map? The statistics I've seen are hilarious. Severe lacunae in geography and history among USA citizens is the norm -even though my daily social environment is a university. Exceptions are very much welcome, and I have found out they are almost all first-generation americans with properly educated parents (by which I mean, their parents were born elsewhere and came to the USA as adults).

If you get the GDP and remove the top 5% of rich people, the average citizens' wealth changes a lot. But the main point is: if born poor and grown uneducated, here in the USA the citizen is likely to remain poor and uneducated. Where I come from, free access all the way up to PhD education is the norm, then you're on your own and it's up to you, but at least the impact of the socioeconomic status of one's parent's is removed from the equation (not totally, but substantially).

In my daily experience at the university, senior undergraduate students show the level of knowledge I am used to expect from freshmen, and the writing skills of a 14 year old. There are exceptions of course. And it's good that they catch-up during the first two years of graduate school. Something is horribly wrong in the education USA citizens receive between ages 14 and 22.

"If you get the GDP and remove the top 5% of rich people, the average citizens' wealth changes a lot. "

You made that figure up! The reason I also included the Gini coefficient was to demonstrate that income inequality in the US is reasonably low too.

"Don't confuse economical prosperity with freedom."

I didn't. I included BOTH Freedom House's ranking of political freedom (which equates the US as politically equal to Western Europe) AND economic freedom (which sets the US much higher than Europe.)

According to Freedom House freedom of the press in the US is as free as Europe: http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=251&year=2006

"Where I come from, free access all the way up to PhD education is the norm"

It's not free. You pay for it in high taxes all your life. Anyway the point is moot as even though you have a "free" education system in Europe the US still has a higher amount of university educated people than Europe according to the OECD.

And yet here you are.

I'm curious: what made you decide to move to a country with no freedom, bad education and no culture?

Good point! And hanging out on the forum of a company which explicitly helps people start companies to freely get rich.

I came to the USA following a professor I just wanted to work with. He came here in the 80's because of the weather (no kidding), given an existing research environment similar to Europe.

Before landing here I thought the USA was a great country. But my preconceptions have fallen.

I am aware I have started a thread that is drifting way off topic and can potentially get very personal. If you'd like to discuss the issue further over a beer, that'd be great. We can then talk about why I pay almost identical income taxes in the USA and in Spain, and yet here my money doesn't seem to come back to me. You can reach me at my surname at ucla edu.

"I am aware I have started a thread that is drifting way off topic and can potentially get very personal"

You sound like a nice guy, I just hate these myths that the US is somehow a hellhole compared to Europe. And you failed to demonstrate why the US is less free than Europe.

"We can then talk about why I pay almost identical income taxes in the USA and in Spain"

USA: top income tax rate and the top corporate tax rate are 35 percent.

Spain: top income tax rate is 45 percent, and the top corporate tax rate is 35 percent.

Now for the jugular (from heritage.org)!

USA: Unemployment: 5.5%, $39,676 per capita

Spain: Unemployment: 11%, GDP per capita $25,047

It would seem that Americans are almost twice as wealthy as Spaniards, pay less income tax, and have more than half the unemployment.

Here's a little experiment you could carry out to see which society is more of a police state. Take a soapbox into a popular park or square on a Sunday afternoon and start denouncing the government in public. See how long you would last in China.

"Chinese people can and do criticize their government all they want - verbally. Several people we met told us "Yeah, the government censorship is disgraceful, but it takes time to change things like that." When we visited a Taoist temple in Hong Kong, there were Falun Gong posters all over the place."

Hong Kong currently has different laws to mainland China.

"China's certainly not perfect, and overall I think its political freedom is somewhat less than the U.S."

Somewhat less? Freedom House gives the US a 1 (Free) and China a 7 (Not free): http://www.freedomhouse.org/uploads/press_release/fiw07_charts.pdf

Look what Amnesty International say about Human Rights in China: http://web.amnesty.org/report2006/chn-summary-eng

The great thing about secrecy is that you never really know what's going on. Exactly who is in Guantanamo or the secret CIA prisons, and why?

Do you honestly believe that prosecutions, FBI investigations, etc are never politically motivated?

I have 0 evidence of anyone jailed or killed for their political beliefs in this country. Do you have any?

Tell that to the people in this documentary (or their parents). Wonder if you'd still be saying that if it was your son in jail....

Take a look at: http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=310

There's audio, and here's a direct link to the written transcript of the episode:

http://www.thislife.org/extras/radio/310_transcript.pdf

An excerpt: "As best as we can tell, Badr Zaman Badr and his brother were imprisoned in Guantanamo for three years for telling a joke. Actually, for telling two jokes."

I guess on second thought you are absolutely correct. These people weren't jailed in gitmo for their political beliefs after all - they just landed there because the US govt decided to listen to some random guy who was upset at being the target of their humor.

Your examples are foreigners in a time of war. The interview asks them why they were detained without any other information from other sources on their case. I think most people you ask in prison will say they are innocent. In any case, this is not an example of a US citizen being put in jail etc for political reasons.

Also, the main point here is that even if the US were prosecuting people for their politics, which they are not, it would not make what Google is doing any better. What Google is doing is directly aiding in the political prosecution of people in China, and nothing makes this right.

I think I've said now more than enough, and so I withdraw from this thread.

I wasn't discussing what the main point of this thread is.

I was responding to the statement you made 'I have 0 evidence of anyone jailed or killed for their political beliefs in this country. Do you have any?'

Withdraw if you like. I'm normally not one to get into political/ideological debates, but a statement like this deserves to be challenged.

Yes, my examples are foreigners in a time of war. But, you said 'anyone', not US Citizens. But even if you ignore this (which I wouldn't really - a society should be judged by how it treats humans regardless of which country they happen to be a part of), you are still misguided.

How about Martin Luther King being jailed for anti-segregation protests? Does that count to your re-framed question?

I don't know if this could happen today (although the stage seems to be set with the wonderfully named Patriot Act which among other things has a section 215 which allows the FBI to search your library records), but the fact that it happened only a few decades ago should make you think twice before uttering blanket statements.

"Exactly who is in Guantanamo or the secret CIA prisons, and why?"

Well, not you, and not anyone you know.

The mere fact that you're comfortable posting this stuff on a public site, under your own name, demonstrates that you have ZERO fear that someone will break down your door tonight and take you off to a "secret prison".

To be quite blunt: you don't even believe your own bullshit.

This is not reddit. Be polite.

The gratuitous U.S. bashing in this thread looks exactly like something you'd see on Reddit (more likely, Digg). Not only is it ugly, it's utterly irrelevant to the nominal topic of discussion. Even if the U.S. were Nazi Germany, the Stalinist U.S.S.R., and the Pol Pot regime rolled into one, it would have zero relevance to the ethical position of Google with the Chinese government.

I suppose I could have said that Paul B.'s position (and that of several others) is a classic example of the tu quoque variety of ad hominem fallacy, but that would basically just be using Latin to say the same thing.

Ah, and I see my original post has been modded down to zero, in the classic Digg-style mob rule fashion.

I'm outta here.

My point is that no place is perfect and that different countries have different problems. It's not US bashing to suggest that we are not perfect, and that everything isn't black and white.

I usually sidestep political discussions..

But you have got to be kidding me.

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