TenjikuKensei
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there are 3 types of dissent. one is constructive; this is encouraged. one is destructive, hateful, but they don't try to organize. this is actually tolerated. go to tianya.cn (the most popular social forum in china) or even bbs1.people.cn (the forum of people's daily!) and open up google translate to see plenty of that. then there is destructive dissent that tries to organize more people to overthrow the government. that gets cracked down, as Liu found out when he crossed the line from just being an anti-china self hating racist nut to trying to organize more racists.
My post was not about dissenters in China, but about the way China went about trying to garner support for its boycott of the Nobel's.
Having said that, my view on "Dissent" is actually very liberal. I couldn't care less who dissents as long as they do something they truly believe in. For starters, if someone is a dissenter regarding the issue of prayers in public schools. I will have to disagree with him. I believe public schools to be secular places and to allow certain public schools to have prayer time impinges on the rights of the rest of the students...even thought there might be only one atheist student in the entire school. Its all about the separation of Church and state.
my definition of dissent it one that is about personal rights. For example, I deserve the right to say whatever I want. That is my freedom of speech. Ill definitely not give that up even if the entire nation I live in is opposed to it. Its a fundamental right which defines me and to lose it would portend the end of living and the beginning of survival, for me.
I'm not familiar with Liu's case so ill refrain from talking about it. However, I did read about the fate of a person(The father of a child who was affected by the tainted children's food scandal) who advocated for better food safety
BEIJING – A father who organized a support group for other parents whose children were sickened in one of China's worst food safety scandals was convicted and sentenced Wednesday to 2 1/2 years in prison for inciting social disorder, his lawyer said.
Zhao Lianhai had pushed for greater official accountability and compensation for victims and their families after the 2008 scandal that shocked China. His sentence appeared particularly severe because the case related to a public safety incident that the embarrassed leadership had pledged to tackle in a bid to restore consumer confidence.
Chinese father punished for food safety activism - Yahoo! News
not to criticize China....but the above seems to be a genuine travesty of justice. That person was neither a stooge of the west nor trying to gain anything for himself; yet he faces years in jail. What is your take on this case?
^^ I would definitely stick up for people like him, regardless of the country I live in. I come from a country (lanka) where even voicing dissent would result in people being made "disappear". It is probably one of the worst offenders of human rights and the sorry state it is in now can be directly attributed to its relentless crushing of any dissent. So I know the value of dissent and the problems that arise when dissent is not welcomed.Btw I'm not talking about some "western" notion of human rights , but stuff I've seen myself.