Chinese President Xi Jinping Says Internet Must Be 'Clean and Righteous' (reuters.com) 325
The internet must be "clean and righteous" and vulgar content must be resisted in the field of culture, Chinese President Xi Jinping told a meeting of senior propaganda officials, state media said on Wednesday. From a report: The government has been tightening controls over internet content as part of what it says are efforts to maintain social stability, taking on "vulgar" and pornographic content as well as the unauthorised dissemination of news. The moves come amid a broader clamp-down targeting online content from livestreams and blogs to mobile gaming, as the country's leaders look to tighten their grip over a huge and diverse cultural scene online popular with China's youth. Speaking at a two-day meeting, attended by officials from major state media outlets and the internet regulator, Xi said propaganda efforts needed to be put front and centre, the official Xinhua news agency said. "Uphold a clean and righteous internet space," the report cited Xi as saying. China shut as many as 128,000 websites that contained obscene and other "harmful" information in 2017, Xinhua reported in January, citing government data.
Clean and righteous, right on! (Score:5, Funny)
Now, what's his email address?
And does anyone know a good goatse mirror?
Re:Clean and righteous, right on! (Score:5, Funny)
And if there's anything that will help clean thoughts of Tank Man from the minds of people, it's definitely tub girl.
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Well played, sir. Well played.
You win at the internet today. I'm impressed.
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> goatse
pandase
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Everyone getting all high and mighty about the Chinese government censoring the internet. I live in the UK... we do exactly the same - and are planning to do more.
We're barely any different.
Re: Clean and righteous, right on! (Score:2)
This message brought to you by the Communist Party of China.
And so do feminists, socialists, anti-fa (Score:2, Insightful)
Come to think about it, most Europeans and most Americans do wish for that.
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So do bible-thumpers. There's no meaningful difference between left-nazis and right-nazis here.
In the US, far left is currently mainstream while far right is not (Unite the Right 2018 had ~20 participants, most of the hype came from Russian trolls), while eg. in Poland the left is nearly non-existent while far right is everywhere, but that's just a matter of different colors of the same. Just note the name: national socialism.
Their policies are very alike. This includes censorship.
Re:And so do feminists, socialists, anti-fa (Score:5, Insightful)
bwahaha...
Left:
- universal healthcare
- environmental protections
- marijuana legal
- hate speech outlawed
- no coal plants
FAR left, is above plus
- universal income
- 50%-90% corporate tax rate
- all drugs legal
- proportional representation
- nationalized critical industries (energy, water, internet) and some too big to fail businesses or businesses in the national interest
- no more nukes, nuke plants or any polluting power plant. renewables only.
- cap higher end wages
So I very much doubt that the "mainstream" in the USA is "far left". I think you guys can barely get to the centrist position.
I know its said time and time again, but the USA version of "left" is considered center or center right by other 1st world democracies.
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The US only has right and far-right.
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bwahaha...
Left: - universal healthcare - environmental protections - marijuana legal - hate speech outlawed - no coal plants
FAR left, is above plus - universal income - 50%-90% corporate tax rate - all drugs legal - proportional representation - nationalized critical industries (energy, water, internet) and some too big to fail businesses or businesses in the national interest - no more nukes, nuke plants or any polluting power plant. renewables only. - cap higher end wages
So I very much doubt that the "mainstream" in the USA is "far left". I think you guys can barely get to the centrist position.
I know its said time and time again, but the USA version of "left" is considered center or center right by other 1st world democracies.
You left out their most extreme positions and you know it. For example:
Left:
- general disdain for white people and favor affirmative action type programs. I think this is unique to the US. - OK to openly fly job ads that specify no white males unless they are gay - general disdain for Christians as a group - general disdain for anyone from "fly over" states, the south, or just not from a city - amnesty for all illegal immigrants is acceptable. Multiple times is fine too. - Abolish ICE so that enforceme
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or add a background check for owning an automatic rifle.
no issue with most of your post, but throwing this in (being that it is 100% false) could undermine peoples perception of the rest of it, as you appear to be outraged by things you don't understand.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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I still have not found any meaning full difference between any xyz-nazis. Left/right/religio/etc.-nazis. Extremist minded-people that feel entitled to push their ideologies on everybody. All the same scum, with a bit of different imagery and catch-phrases. At least in the end all willing to kill anybody who disagrees.
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National Socialism was very much not socialist in any way. The name was used to attract people. On the other hand, it wasn't very right wing either. But everyone insists it must be one or the other and it's used as a way to tarnish the reputation of the side that they disagree with. Politics these days is just stupid, I'd rather people get along as opposed to parties which claim that the othesr are traitors (not just the US, this is everywhere). Political parties are one of the worst ideas invented in
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Is all censorship the same?
The Left wants to censor incorrect political opinions, claiming that Ideas are harmful because they have the power to change someone's mind and make them believe something you do not want to believe. Please, if you believe their is a better or more less partisan way of putting this, please help me come up with a better one.
While the Right wants to ban content they believe is unsavoury or harmful.
Banning pornography is definitely not the exact same thing as banning all opinions dif
Immigration, Diversity, Social Welfare (Score:2)
Are you talking about literal Nazis here?
The 1942 Berlin diversity and Gay pride parade was quite a show. People came in droves, from many different nationalities. The military turned up too, on account of the huge social welfare projects created by the newly expanded funding. Controling the executive, legislative and parliamentary branches of government created a utopia, with one man in charge.
The only part which sucked was when the German military forced the racially impure, the Jews, Roma, sexual de
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Just note the name: national socialism.
Well you just fell for a big pile of Nazi propaganda. Tell me, if you think the Nazis were actually socialists, then why did they throw socialists in concentration camps?
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The difference between all of those groups and Xi is that he actually has the power to censor the Internet.
You mean, deplatforming isn't a thing?
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Just because it's open to the public most private places and events have some sort of rules. Heck, they'll kick you out of the public library if you can't behave not even their tolerance is infinite.
When a private site becomes the de-facto public forum, free speech laws may apply. There's precedent for this in meatspeace, though it's not 100% clear. It's also not so clear that social media has reached that level of importance.
It's a lot more clear that you're either a carrier, and carry everything legal without liability for content, or you're a publisher with full editorial discretion and liability for what you publish. I think it's time that principle applies to social media sites.
I assume it's an implied reference to Alex Jones and yeah it almost looked like a coordinated effort
"Almost looked l
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In meatspace, a public business can tell anyone they want to leave and refusal to leave will result in them calling the police for trespassing.
Not even close. If you're open to the public, you can't discriminate against protected classes. There are some additional restrictions around community message boards.
Really, there's only two places I'm aware of in which private businesses have free speech considerations forced on them: unions and company towns.
Good point, I had forgotten about company towns. But it's the same principle - if you are a de-facto public forum, there are some restrictions to your ability to censor not limited to protected classes.
he contention is that Alex Jones has went from "nutbag" to "nutbag inciting people to violence".
Yep, that's the given reason. No evidence or audit of that, of course.
Any one of these sites banning him, I could buy. We all know how biz
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The difference between all of those groups and Xi is that he actually has the power to censor the Internet within the territorial boundaries of China.
Fixed that for you.
NO ONE can censor the entire worldwide Internet. If that fact ever changes then we've all got a much bigger problem to worry about.
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So then why are maps from american airlines changing their Taiwan labelling?
Don't believe the within china nonsense., they're getting everyone to censor themselves.
PS: Xi Jinping looks like Pooh.
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Second, Bible-thumpers may be obnoxious in their misguided attempts to save your soul, but they won't beat up a progressive
Hmm, I think I can recall quite a few people burned at stake for saying things that were disliked by official teaching of Christianity (often things that were obviously factually true, or explicitly mentioned in the Bible). And even in modern times, censorship by Christians goes strong.
And that's still nothing compared to censorship in Saudi Arabia or the likes.
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Hmm, I think I can recall quite a few people burned at stake for saying things that were disliked by official teaching of Christianity (often things that were obviously factually true, or explicitly mentioned in the Bible).
I'm sure it happened over the centuries, but it was almost always politics that got you burned at the stake. Either local politics, or church politics. The more things change ...
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The bible serves excellent pretexts for all kinds of political murder. So does every "holy book". The whole idea of such a book is the very opposite of "holy". And since not even the very short abstract version (10 commandments) is in any way abuse-proof, the whole approach can safely be regarded as a fundamental failure.
Re:And so do feminists, socialists, anti-fa (Score:4, Interesting)
Ah, so the structures that successfully kept societies together for 2000 years "can safely be regarded as a fundamental failure"? How convenient. All religions over history combined have killed fewer people than communism, of course.
Any set of laws, without a sense of morality to guide their interpretation and enforcement, can be turned to evil. Does that make the concept of "laws" bad? Of "morality"? Or does it simply mean that humans are fallible?
There was this guy once who said that scripture is complicated, and it's easy to read it wrong, so if you think it's telling you to hurt someone, that's how you know you're reading it wrong. He got pretty famous for saying things like that, though it didn't end well for him. However, he got the last laugh, as it turns out, since you've probably heard of him.
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Indeed. The religious fuckups are entirely willing to kill, maim and slaughter anybody believing differently. At the moment these specific ones in the US are just not powerful enough to get away with it, so they exercise some limited restraint out of self-preservation. But even a brief look at history shows their real nature in action.
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Here's a good example of someone being 'held accountable' [oregonlive.com] for daring to display a symbol of the fascist alt-right neo nazis, and being 'censored' as your ilk would have it.
No thanks. Religious fanatics have no business deciding what is or isn't 'harmful' or 'hateful' for the rest of us. Only a fool would submit to this kind of tyranny.
Unauthorised dissemination of news (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Unauthorised dissemination of news (Score:5, Funny)
I think you a word.
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Don't ridiculous.
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Haven't heard? It's the bird.
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I completely this.
Interesting. (Score:4, Insightful)
Who knew that Winnie the Pooh [bbc.com] was so dirty and unrighteous.
Fuck Xi Jinping, fuck him up his stupid cartoon bear ass. (we both know the internet has images of that)
Re:Interesting. (Score:4, Funny)
So you think walking into the woods pantless with a baby pig and a jar of honey is OK?
That pig is a liar!
Says who? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, you can go fuck yourself Xi Jinping. We'll keep trying to show your people how the rest of the world works and hopefully they'll finish what was started in 1989.
And anyway... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sex is righteous. Sex is how our species survives. It is the reason everyone of us exists. And so on.
Sex is not dirty. It is perfectly natural and clean. Sexual desire is not dirty. It is an instinct that our species relies on for continuance.
Pornography is not dirty. It is the most automatic expression of our sexual instincts, given the tech available. It plays its part in assisting the entire enterprise of keeping our species alive.
People who want to block pornography usually have an ulterior motive. Either they actually want to block a whole bunch of other things and are just using a widespread cultural discomfort with our own survival instincts to get the necessary approval, or they are threatened by the fact that standards of beauty actually exist and aren't always trivially easy to achieve. Or they are just under-developed and hence erroneously believe their own sexual instincts are dirty. In any case, they insist that pornography is dirty, when it is not.
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Or perhaps you should study what science has to say: https://fightthenewdrug.org/ [fightthenewdrug.org]
Porn makes people stupid. Science FTW.
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I've tried to see what science has to say. But once you discount all organisations that are misrepresenting scientific studies to push a political agenda, all the personal anecdotes, and all the sensationalist reports just trying to get some views, science doesn't actually have much to say. There are studies that give contradictory results, but it's not an easy area to study. For one, good luck getting ethical approval for a controlled study.
Fight the New Drug looks superficially respectable. They don't hav
Re:And anyway... (Score:5, Funny)
Pornography is not dirty.
Dude, you need to find better porn.
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> to the point of banning the term "63+1", or 6/4.
Wow, that's a new low for China.
What's that quote?
--
Only children censor.
Adults communicate and even laugh at taboo subjects.
He can go fuck himself (Score:3)
It's all well and good to say "Fuck so and so" but until you vote people into office who will actually get tough on human rights abuses it's pissing in the wind.
communism (Score:3)
It's about time communism got with the program.
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Xi has KTV stock? (Score:2)
But there's still a KTV every few blocks in every Chinese city.
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Xi doesn't need stock... he essentially can do whatever he wants in China.
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Xi doesn't need stock... he essentially can do whatever he wants in China.
But he still maintains enormous bank accounts in Panama, Caymans, etc. Just in case.
Xi Jinping also says... (Score:5, Interesting)
that Tibet belongs to the Tibetans and that the Chinese project of replacing the Tibetans with Han Chinese will be reversed. And, Taiwan can now be considered an independent country of 23 million Chinese and can determine their own future with full recognition from Beijing.
Hope springs eternal...and in Xi's China, goes there to die.
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I heard he was going to announce he was relinquishing claims on the South China Sea, after looking at a map and deciding that China was clearly wrong.
This is why (Score:2, Interesting)
China will have periodic revolutions and will never be a front-rank country, Western angst notwithstanding.
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revolutions
The ruling Communist party makes that much more difficult, but yeah, I've been kinda waiting for that to happen for quite some time now. It's hard to suppress unrest when you have over a billion people in your country. Imagine what Bashir al-Assad has done to the people of Syria, but on the scale of China. It might just plunge the rest of the world into World War III along with it, as it polarized every other nation on Earth, one by one.
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As long as the economy kept cranking along, no problems. I'm worried where they'll go once they realize you can't grow forever. People put up with dictators as long as their situation is improving enormously. when that stops...
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As long as the economy kept cranking along, no problems. I'm worried where they'll go once they realize you can't grow forever. People put up with dictators as long as their situation is improving enormously. when that stops...
See 1984. Control thought, language, and news. Then create alternate enemies for would-be disgruntled people. Punish the disobedient as enemies of the people. Economic turmoil is only a challenge for governments who care about human rights. In fact, the Chinese government is concerned about the possibility of the challenge to their tight-fisted control that economic turmoil might present. Therefore, it believes it needs to double down on the Orwellian strategies.
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China has never been able to control that many. That's part of the irony here, they have a centralized party that claims to control everything, but it is so weak that it has very little actual control over the regions. So the regional party bosses very often end up corrupt and abusing power without getting punished for it (or at least not until a school falls down).
Remember the Puritans! (Score:4, Interesting)
As an aside to all this: know what I think is really ironically funny about this? For a country that has recorded history going back, what, 3000 years at least? They still fail to learn from their own history. This guy has set himself up as Emperor of China for all intents and purposes. How's that worked out for you in the past, China? Do you even remember? Or has the Communist party removed your access to (or worse, rewritten) your own history, too? Sad, sad, sad. I actually feel bad for the average Chinese citizen.
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They still fail to learn from their own history. This guy has set himself up as Emperor of China for all intents and purposes. How's that worked out for you in the past, China? Do you even remember?
Yes, he certainly does know and remember. For the vast majority of Chinese emperors, being emperor totally kicked ass.
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You don't know much history, "Puritans" weren't a denomination just a blanket term. they're still around in the USA, didn't go away at all. I'd argue they're holding power right now.
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That being said: yeah, the GOP sounds and acts an awful lot like them don't they?
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Only that they were protestants that then went into various denominations that are still around. Would include Trump's main power blocks.
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Not a denomination but they were still a clear sect with teachings and beliefs setting them distinctly apart from other Protestant churches. And they were relatively few. History makes them see more populous than they really were. What people today call "puritan" has only marginal relationship to the actual Puritans.
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While I don't disagree with what you said, I don't know if the average person feels that much difference between the one Party and the one Emperor. I mean China has been cracking down on freedom of speech for 30 years if not longer, how much is really new and worse now?
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For a country that has recorded history going back, what, 3000 years
Don't give them that! Its Chinese propaganda. The Chinese nation as it exists today dates to October 1, 1949. In fact as far a "developed" they are whippersnappers. There is no meaningful connection to the China that came before. They ensure that themselves with the 'great leap forward'
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Re:Remember the Puritans! (Score:4, Funny)
Is it French??
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Maybe he only watches Fox News?
Which is why you don't criticize the government (Score:2)
... they're still blocking Tienanmen square. Because, remembering the tyranny of their own government is lacking in righteousness?... or cleanliness?
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when was the last time you criticized a government you supported?
Same problem in Nazi Germany (Score:2)
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Sanitizing of all media was a primary goal of Adolf. However I can understand this move from a perspective of historic Chinese social and their moral history. Mao was no saint but he did finally endorse a state set of morals largely based upon a Taoist cultural society. Thus todays leadership must bow to the will of the Chinese people in regard to social interaction morals. Amoral bureaucrats and political figures are a huge problem when a political system allows them to wield power over information, thus the people they are claiming to serve.
Correction and post edit...sorry if that is not possible. change "social and their moral history" to just "social and moral history" to avoid the grammar police coming to my door step. WHICH CAN BECOME A HUGE PROBLEM ON THE NET if is policed for moral correctness!!!
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Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
No argument there, that is why eventually reason will prevail because the bigotry, hatred and prejudice that we see from the alt right can shout louder but those who have real intellect can write much more effectively. The pen is much mightier than the sword and must never be silenced!
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Trying to make sense out of Nazi actions and ideology is a fool's errand, but it's quite a stretch to imply that sanitizing the media of sex was a "primary" goal. The media was used to serve the regime in any way it could, on an opportunistic basis.
While pornography was officially frowned on, it was really pornography produced by people who weren't in the party. The Schutzstaffel "Hygeine Institute" actually produced pornographic films for use by party members, and titillating images of naked "Aryan" wome
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Trying to make sense out of Nazi actions and ideology is a fool's errand, but it's quite a stretch to imply that sanitizing the media of sex was a "primary" goal. The media was used to serve the regime in any way it could, on an opportunistic basis.
While pornography was officially frowned on, it was really pornography produced by people who weren't in the party. The Schutzstaffel "Hygeine Institute" actually produced pornographic films for use by party members, and titillating images of naked "Aryan" women were common. For the vulgar masses, material that was pornographic by the standards of the day was printed in Der Sturmer -- if often depicted the violation of young Aryan women by Jews, skillfully blending sexual arousal and hate.
It wasn't porn they objected to, it was porn that didn't serve their political ends.
Precisely the point I was getting at and thank you. I was certainly not trying to justify the actions of an obvious dictator which is what the poor unfortunate masses have. China now must endure dictatorship again because in truth there is no real democratic system there to keep the assholes in check. There are only bullets not ballots. I just wonder if the central committee votes with a bowl and black and white balls the same way as the Greeks did. This is the problem with too much centralization of power
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Mao was no saint...
Now there's the understatement of the day. Being responsible for ~45 million deaths is more than just not being a saint.
Yugoslavia in the 80s (Score:2, Interesting)
I was born in "communist" Yugoslavia, and lived there through my early childhood in the 80s. There was no Internet, but the only three national TV programs were what you could call "Clean and Righteous". Lots of educational stuff through the morning, classic Disney or Fleischer cartoons before bedtime, movie classics, both domestic and foreign in the evening.
Yugoslavia was torn down in early 90s by "western democracies", split to smaller, weaker countries, and one of them - Serbia, where I live now - was fi
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You don't get to blame western democracies when Serbs and Kosavars start slaughtering each other because they can't get over ethnic conflicts from almost 900 years ago.
And if your argument is that it was all worth it so your son maybe doesn't see boobs or unfiltered news coverage on the TV, then I would suggest immigrating to North Korea where they still practice the clean righteousness you miss.
Wow (Score:2)
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I bet he has no idea how much he has in common with Facebook, Twitter, and Google.
Indeed. One has a social credit score and the other has a trustworthiness rating.
Wrong (Score:2)
And a dictator consolidating his power as we speak wants this massive censorsjip wave for purely coincidental reasons.
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Chicom delendo est (Score:2)
The planet must be clean and righteous and Communists must be destroyed. Xi first.
Nazis get bayonets, Communists get helicopter rides, humans get freedom.
To speak freely is to think freely (Score:2)
I saw just an epic speech by Dr. Jordan Peterson on free speech. It's about a half hour long but worth every minute.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Dr. Peterson explains how vital it is to speak freely to develop one's thoughts. If people are not able to say anything that isn't "righteous" then nothing of importance can be discussed. And who is to be the arbiter of what is righteous? To have a functioning society one needs to be able to say uncomfortable things. That includes "hate speech". Most anyt
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It's gotten bad enough here ta]hat Tom Sawyer is getting pulled from libraries because, in order to learn that slavery and racism are bad, Tom meets racists and interacts with them. Now that must be banned, as it's presenting racist views. FFS.
Our wishes are smaller (Score:2)
We'd already settle for a clean and righteous Xi Jinping.
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I agree there's a lot of vulgar content to be removed.
I mean, Futanari is one thing, furry is another, but furry futanari? The line must be drawned here! /Picard
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Isn't he an atheist? What does righteous mean?
Everything within the state. Nothing outside the state. Nothing against the state.
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