The Snowden Affair

Re: World News Thread & Breaking News!!

airsuperiority said:

Not surprised lol. Just be glad HK has this type of voice and people who are concerned about rights. You always need a freedom fighters to keep debates alive and fight for rights. This keeps the city in the vibe.

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What concerns me is that when such is voiced by those who harbor malevolent motives,and common folks just don't use their head to think it through before dancing along the tune...what's more, people these days only talk about rights but shy away from responsibilities, talk merely about freedom of speech but never discuss about taking accountability to what they say.

And about that gigantic waste of time event, aka "demonstration" tomorrow afternoon, if you scroll the event's Facebook page, you'd find the separatists are gearing to hijack the event, like all the recent years' anti-gov't rallys.

Re: World News Thread & Breaking News!!

airsuperiority said:

Not surprised lol. Just be glad HK has this type of voice and people who are concerned about rights. You always need a freedom fighters to keep debates alive and fight for rights. This keeps the city in the vibe.

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Is all of the Middle East "vibe" with "freedom fighters" right now? You can concern and debate about rights all day long, in the end stability and good government leadership always win because the nation's economy does not run on protests and rallies. The drama queens and all those Wall Street Occupiers type will always get the attention but will they really compromise on the issue at hand with the opposition group that are the majority? Just because you're protesting doesn't mean you're automatically the good guy. Heck sometimes here in the US (Texas and in the South in particular) you get KKK rallies against abortion, and illegal immigrants. Valid subjects of course (depending on your stance), but the KKK are known to be a racist white supremacist group, but they are protesting never the less, so does that make them the good guy? One has to be careful about making quick judgement and start seeing the issue from ALL angles and ask yourself what are the purpose and goals of the dissent in the first place?

Re: World News Thread & Breaking News!!

MwRYum said:

.....but shy away from responsibilities, talk merely about freedom of speech but never discuss about taking accountability to what they say.

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Totally agreed. Sometimes I just want to ask them, do they know what is freedom, and where it came from, and why. One who does not understand the origin and the symbolic growth and development of something will not understand its purpose of its existence and the meaning of it.

Re: World News Thread & Breaking News!!

Equation said:

Is all of the Middle East "vibe" with "freedom fighters" right now? You can concern and debate about rights all day long, in the end stability and good government leadership always win because the nation's economy does not run on protests and rallies. The drama queens and all those Wall Street Occupiers type will always get the attention but will they really compromise on the issue at hand with the opposition group that are the majority? Just because you're protesting doesn't mean you're automatically the good guy. Heck sometimes here in the US (Texas and in the South in particular) you get KKK rallies against abortion, and illegal immigrants. Valid subjects of course (depending on your stance), but the KKK are known to be a racist white supremacist group, but they are protesting never the less, so does that make them the good guy? One has to be careful about making quick judgement and start seeing the issue from ALL angles and ask yourself what are the purpose and goals of the dissent in the first place?

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Please don't think I mean any protest is automatically useful. I'm just proposing the general act of having different voices and viewpoints entertains an environment for different voices to be heard, which is important to keep a society healthy. The things you've said is something I certainly agree with, and thus therefore I often have this thought,

"Any freedom of expression and human rights should be universal and all individuals have the rights to access their own, provided their actions, privileges and existences do not threaten and endanger the basic rights and needs of others."

Of course this statement of mine is controversial and subject to disputes, and even simply discussing this from an (rule) utilitarian perspective can lead to miles of discussions, which I am free to take scrutiny, or in better way to put it, humbled to hear everyone's opinions.

Re: World News Thread & Breaking News!!

airsuperiority said:

Totally agreed. Sometimes I just want to ask them, do they know what is freedom, and where it came from, and why. One who does not understand the origin and the symbolic growth and development of something will not understand its purpose of its existence and the meaning of it.

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Ain't the Americans have a saying "Freedom is anything but free"?

Re: World News Thread & Breaking News!!

airsuperiority said:

Please don't think I mean any protest is automatically useful. I'm just proposing the general act of having different voices and viewpoints entertains an environment for different voices to be heard, which is important to keep a society healthy. The things you've said is something I certainly agree with, and thus therefore I often have this thought,

"Any freedom of expression and human rights should be universal and all individuals have the rights to access their own, provided their actions, privileges and existences do not threaten and endanger the basic rights and needs of others."

Of course this statement of mine is controversial and subject to disputes, and even simply discussing this from an (rule) utilitarian perspective can lead to miles of discussions, which I am free to take scrutiny, or in better way to put it, humbled to hear everyone's opinions.

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I understand, but the problem is what is universal expression and who gets to decide what expression should be consider legit? There will always be many different voices and viewpoints from individuals and groups of interests for times to come. The issue I'm having is who gets to make the rules and values that are deem "universal" to humans?

Re: World News Thread & Breaking News!!

MwRYum said:

Ain't the Americans have a saying "Freedom is anything but free"?

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But that saying is usually used to remind people that freedoms need to be defended, not that freedoms carry responsibilities.

Indeed, the notion that people own a responsibility to their fellow man to pursue their freedoms in a way that does not damage the interests of others is curiously lacking in modern western mainstream thinking.

Re: World News Thread & Breaking News!!

plawolf said:

Never underestimate the power of hypocrisy and the general public's infinite ability to forget, especially when the western media is co-operating.

Unlike the mandatory reminder of Chinese hacking in every article they can get away with, I fully expect the western media to dismiss Snowden as a traitor or foreign spy, and the revelations of US government hacking will not even need to be swept under the carpet, because so long as it only target foreigners, the American public won't give much of a crap.

The only thing that will change is that the western media will carefully craft a set of rules where their hacking are defined as 'fair' and 'necessary', whereas what China does will be found to be 'wicked' and 'inexcusable' blah blah blah.

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I have been crying a lot for President Obama recently. We all know that fighting for global Truth and Justice can be a nasty, dirty business and that such luxuries as openness, transparency, consistency and honesty cannot be allowed to interfere with or subvert supreme; if not, divine purpose.

It has been hurtful to have to read all the horrible press about the unnecessary revelations, such as " President caught with Cyberspying Pants down" or "President caught with hand in Cyberspying Cookie Jar" revealed by the spiteful traitor Edward Snowden.
The only thing that has helped me wipe away the tears has been the sudden gaining of clarity with regards to the Syrian Regimes use of Chemical Weapons which means that once again the President can take control of the news agenda and also advance the cause of world peace by arming Al-Qaeda. Doubtless President Obama will also have the good sense to put GPS chips in these weapons which will make the doubtlessly necessary future drone strikes against former Syrian Freedom Fighters (and their families) all the easier to carry out.

Re: World News Thread & Breaking News!!

MwRYum said:

Ain't the Americans have a saying "Freedom is anything but free"?

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No.. The saying is "Freedom is not FREE!"

Re: World News Thread & Breaking News!!

MwRYum said:

Ain't the Americans have a saying "Freedom is anything but free"?

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Maybe because their democracy grew out of the barrel of a gun, so when they export it that's the only delivery option available.