














Comments     Threshold


RE: Ignoring Local Laws
By daInvincibleGama on 3/27/2010 12:41:18 AM , Rating: 2
"Unethical or illegal to who?"

Unethical to everybody, including American consumers of Google products and services.

"If you say to us or the "western world", I have a real issue with that. The problem the US has is they believe that their way is the only way to do things."

If by "their way" you mean no forcible disappearances and persecution of people that disagree, then yeah, it should be the only way to do things. People have the right to live their lives, even if the govt. disagrees with what they believe.

"If you don't support democracy, you're nothing more than an idiotic fascist dictator."

Yeah. Pretty much the definition.

"This country is stuck in its "we've gotta police the world" state."

We have a right to condemn what we see as wrong.

"Do I agree with censorship? No."


"But I'm not going to tell another country that they can't enforce that policy in their own society under the guise of human rights."

Right. Human rights is a guise. The Chinese government can, with no justification, create a 'policy' of punishing people for expressing opinions they disagree with or bring violence upon people that demand a voice and basic political rights.

"When the Chinese get tired of censorship, it'll change, just like our country did when it was tired of the lack of civil/voting rights for women and blacks."

Excuse me, but when might the Chinese government get tired of censorship? And also, when were the Chinese people NOT tired of censorship?

"It is not our place to tell the Chinese when they should change or how they should do it."

We are as free to express our opinions and criticisms of their policies as they are to do the converse.

"Gates is absolutely right: the law is the law."

Would you say the same about such laws as the Fugitive Slave Acts and Jim Crow laws? Do you really assume that law, especially when created by authoritarian regimes, is always reasonable and legitimate?

"If we can just ignore another country's laws, why don't I just ignore the US' precious IP/DMCA laws?"

We can, and will, ignore another country's laws as much as we want as long as we are on our own free soil.

RE: Ignoring Local Laws


RE: Ignoring Local Laws
By Lerianis on 3/28/2010 10:14:32 PM , Rating: 2
You hit the nail right on the head when you brought up the Jim Crow laws and the Fugitive Slave Acts.

If we are going to say that someone has to obey 'all the laws'... we had better freaking well make sure that all our laws are not discriminatory against a group of people and are not trying to force the 'morality' of anyone on people who don't want to adhere to it, unless they are physically harming someone else without their permission.

