Democracy, Freedom and Human Rights
What do the three things in the title of this entry have in common? They are all banned on Microsoft’s China portal. I will never understand how American companies like Cisco, Yahoo! and Google can knuckle under to the Chinese Government like they do. I guess 30 pieces of silver is still a prime motivator. But this attitude really is beyond belief for me.
I’ve been to China (as an employee of Winnov about seven years ago). I met with Government officials there. I met with students. I met with professors. They explained their anti-free-speech stance to me and I understand it. I don’t agree with it, and I will be happy to explain to anyone the benefits of giving your citizens the right to speak freely, but it’s not my place to make their laws. It certainly is not my right to force their hand with business power. Any more than it’s their place to make American laws. I’d be very offended if Chinese companies tried to influence our laws here. Or, pushed their agenda on American soil. – Robert Scoble
Actually, I wouldn’t be offended if chinese companies tried to influence our laws, because the free exchange of ideas is not necessarily a bad idea, and I don’t think they would be get very far. I guess Robert doesn’t agree with these sentiments, though.
Americans are a resolute people who have risen to every test of our time. Adversity has revealed the character of our country, to the world and to ourselves. America is a strong nation, and honorable in the use of our strength. We exercise power without conquest, and we sacrifice for the liberty of strangers. Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America’s gift to the world, it is God’s gift to humanity. – George W. Bush
Or even these.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. – Thomas Jefferson
And it seems like his views fit in well with those of this employer. For the record, I first learn about this from Roger L. Simon and Shelley Powers has lots of reaction.
