In your country, people who criticize the government can be arrested and sent to “re-education” camps. But over here, if government agents started trying to do stuff like that, they’d likely get blown full of holes by pissed off Americans with guns.
So our guns protect our freedom of speech.
I can criticize my government if I want to. I can say “Donald Trump is a corrupt pompous ass and his cabinet is full of lickspittles and toadies.”
Or I can criticize the Chinese government if I want to. I can say, “Xi Jinping heads an evil government that oppresses the rights of Chinese citizens while the Party lackeys grow rich from corruption.”
Now you try. Go on, post something critical about the Chinese government.
Sir Launcelot
July 1, 2017
Tomb Raider forum post in the The mass shootings and gun control debate thread
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
The truth is the most terrifying thing in the world, to an authoritarian. If serviced correctly, it will drive the forces of coercion and corruption into self destruction.
You need not necessarily even criticize them directly, but mainly to espouse the principles of liberty, individual responsibility and sovereignty. Even when they’re not mentioned, they’ll take it as a direct attack against them. They will lash out, thus indicting themselves. They’ll be compelled to bring you before a board of inquiry. Stay on message, and they’ll drive themselves into madness.
Look at the insane hate speech laws in the UK and Canada and other poorly-named “civilized” places to see the dangers of restricting free speech and denying the right to weapons for self-defense.
People who speak the TRUTH about Satanic islam are punished and people are routinely murdered by that religion because of the evil commands of that religion.
Their governments attack their citizens and abet murderers. That is uncivilzed.
Any government that denies arms and self-determination is illegitimate. Yes, China is a rogue nation for its abuses on human rights. A slightly more palatable evil than say Syria, but effectively the same.
China is not a rogue nation for restricting the rights of its citizens. It’s mainstream. It’s the US and its recognition of rights that is rogue, off the reservation, and a deviation from the historic norms.
That is why so many nations want to see us taken down. Our very existence is an affront to all that they, and their ruling elites, are.
You got that exactly right. I frequently remind people that there is no freedom of speech in the rest of the world. Pretend-free countries like those of western Europe do not have free speech. They make this quite clear occasionally, though much of the time there is obfuscation. It’s one consequence of not having real constitutions, and not having a theory of limited government. (Never mind that our practice isn’t particularly limited — we do have a theory of limited government and that acts as a slight brake.)
For the Communist Chinese illegally in control of mainland China and all Communist everywhere…”Carl Marx’s Theory of Labour is invalid!” ( I used the British spelling of labor because it was in England that Marx invented Communism and there is where he is buried. )
For the poor people of Turkey…”Mustafa Kemal Ataturk is dead!” ( Read about him if you don’t understand. )
And yes the Turks slaughtered the Armenians by the millions. ( Truth Hurts!!!)
And reading that forum thread reminds me why I quit reading forums.
A few brilliant posts in a sea of ignorant garbage.
Old joke from the Soviet era:
American: “We have freedom of speech in our country, ‘I can go to the steps of the Capitol and say that the American President is an idiot.'”
Russian: “We have freedom of speech in our country too. I too can go to the steps of the Kremlin and say ‘The American President is an idiot.'”