251–260 of 311 posts
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As long as you don't care about the whole democracy thing.
The US is a democracy?
It will only get worse as long as people want security over liberty and elections are decided by money and not voters.
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> China can and does easily suppress dissent. Why do you feel the need to add "easily"? It is not easy at all. Some dissident like the artist Ai Weiwei recently are playing all the time with the sensitive nerves of the regime but he managed to make himself famous enough, and to never crosses the red line too far as to get "suppressed". For instance, there is this picture of him giving the finger to Mao in Tiananmen s…
How is it not easy? For every Ai Weiwei whose fame gives him some protection (and who still ends up getting harassed and put under house arrest) there are many Li Wangyangs http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/09/world/asia/chinese-activis... They don't seem to have had much trouble at all keeping him in jail for 22 years from where he probably didn't get to do a lot of public dissenting.
This still doesn't explain why he didn't choose a country with no possibility of extradition like, uh, any of these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extradition_law_in_the_United_S... They may not be technological paradises, but it's pretty hard (nearly impossible) to be extradited to the US from any of them.
He did. China is on that list. Hong Kong is China.
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I wouldn't say that the US is substantially more free today than it was then.
> I wouldn't say that the US is substantially more free today than it was then. It's not something that needs a lot of thought if you consider that the current president allegedly personally authorises deadly drone strikes even on american citizens (on "Terror Tuesdays"), while Nixon had to resign over Watergate.
You can also sneak out of Hong Kong easily, and it is an hour ferry ride a to Macau or Guangzhou or a bus or taxi ride to Shenzen. Hong Kong has very loose exit visa policies on western passports. You can jump on a plane to some destinations with your passport only being checked at checkin (which is of the ticket). It is very simple to get to any number of ~50 countries in the space of hours and not having your ident…
This isn't true. At the airport there is a passport check after security. At Hung Hom train station the same. At all the China land borders things are pretty strict. Most smugglers go through Sha Tau Kok in the north east, but you need a permit to even enter that area.
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He did. China is on that list. Hong Kong is China.
Right, it is but it isn't. The whole point of the piece is that because of HK's complicated relationship with China it makes extradition possible, just very hard. I guess my point is, why not Shanghai? I'm sure the PRC would love the opportunity to grand asylum to an Internet freedom activist.
"Nobody stands to win by taking decisive action on Snowden, so my guess, based on years of living in Hong Kong, is that both Beijing and Hong Kong will avoid doing so, which heightens the possiblity of a long, long court process." That depends on how badly the US wants him. If they want him badly enough, they'll buy him from China with an offering big enough to create a winner. That would be trivial for the US to do…
Like movies, do you?
Would that do? Yep, I think it would. Perhaps even just the substantial delay of new arms sales. It's meant as a black and white example, but it proves my point. There are countless things the US could give China that are worth a lot more to China than Snowden is.
Your comment is comical in its lack of realism. And that's comical because you're alluding to me being the unrealistic one. In reality, politics is a game of buying or trading favors. It's that simple, and it works that way locally or internationally.
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"It's striking how one obscure blog post can be more valuable than all the media speculation on this question (that I've seen) put together." Perhaps this still qualifies as striking, but it's becoming rapidly more common, as mainstream journalism becomes ever more predictable and imitative, and individuals with expertise and actual insight, not working for news organizations, stand out as the only voices worth payin…
Exactly. Blogging allows subject matter experts to easily, cheaply publish, be widely read, and compete for eyeballs with the MSM. There's no way most people who just went to Journalism school can compete with, say, an experienced Constitutional lawyer like Greenwald or Lessig, or hacker like PG or Spolsky, or VC like Fred Wilson etc. But there are some things MSM can still do - good professional journalists can stil…
I dont get it - every one of those factors is present in India as well (with a few compromises on bandwidth I'll admit). If the article makes a case that in Hong Kong people can take to the streets, it so happens that they did in Delhi [1]. Hell, India has a superior record of amnesty than most other countries [2]. Plus, the tech work scene is undoubtedly better in India as well as .... um... not being 100% undemocra…
By choosing HK, he "kinda" knew what he was getting into. Comfort.
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That's what it appears on the outside - The Hong Kong government and Chinese government spend a lot of effort to maintain this image. Take a deeper look and you will see this isn't the case. The government has previously tried to sneak Chinese propaganda into primary schools as well as pass copyright laws that will outlaw (often political) satire and allow governments to sue on behalf of companies(!!). It was only fr…
Yes, but these protest did happen and I'm assuming then the measures were defeated. That is something and one can be at least doubtful that this would happen in the US. And it's not because the US government isn't doing some pretty horrible things, as we can see.