Freedom?

Anarchy = freedom. Well not really but in order for a person to really be considered “free” one must have certain rights, many of which we are lucky enough to have here in the US. Some of those being, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the freedom to have as many children as you want. However, in other reaches of the globe these rights are not as common, specifically in communist China. Based on both sets of guests who come from China it is pretty obvious to me that the citizens of the country aren’t free. People vanishing from the streets, mysterious organ donors its all very strange. The Falun gong practitioners that spoke to our class were very against the Chinese government and never wanted to go back to China, fearing their lives. The students liked China much more and wanted to go back to their mother country. I found it interesting how they didn’t really have a large selection of places they could go for college having their choices be based only on tests given in English. The definition of libel in china is very different than that of the US. In America we make fun of George Dubya all of the time. Half of the things we pin him for saying/doing aren’t true but the cartoonists, columnists and comedians aren’t put in jail for their remarks. If a Chinese columnist were to bash Hu Jintao he would most likely be in jail in a matter of hours. This isn’t freedom. Neither is the suppression of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners who are stopped from doing their exercises due only to the sheer number of followers. The government is afraid of a revolt or an overthrow of power and they want to do everything they can to stop it. When someone or something pushes others down to get ahead, neither party involved is free because they aren’t allowed to express themselves without consequences.