Free, baby. Free.

I find This interesting. Free speech in China. How amazing.

I don't think we get it. We have free speech (at least currently) and no matter what the doomsayers are crying we haven't lost it (yet). We can still criticize out leaders (pick up any paper on ether coast and I can almost guarantee you will find an editorial or some article blaming Bush for something. I'm not saying he doesn’t deserve it, but rather I am pointing out a liberty we take for granted. In the post article referenced above, the authors were censored for criticizing a local government official. A LOCAL official. They were censored because it might make the party look bad. (Gee. Simple logic dictates that if you don’t want the party to be embarrassed then don’t do stuff that might be embarrassing. But what do I know? I’m just some guy.)

Like I said, I don't think we get it. Canada looks at us and points out our flaws to make them selves feel better about whatever it is that they need to feel better about. A good portion of the rest of the world lives in places where they encounter extortion, censorship, and other personal impositions (And that is just from the people that are supposed to be there to help them) We get news about Chinese censorship and my guess is that it won't make a blip on our collective society’s consciousness.

This is a reminder. We could end up in the same boat as those Chinese authors. We are not there yet, but the possibility exists.