Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community - View Single Post - Shocking New Video Out of Tibet: Beating and Killing of Tibetans by China

jammies · 03-20-2009, 10:58 PM

All I have to say is that our duty as citizens of the world is to point out injustice wherever it can be found, sparing our own faults even less than those of others. Criticism is the foundation of a modern, pluralistic society and does not need the consent of the criticized to be pertinent.

The present era is characterized by the involvement of the public in legitimizing government, and the exercise of the right to free speech is a necessary outgrowth of that involvement. Regimes who violently suppress free speech, association, and other expressions of the public will are anachronisms fueled by corruption and beholden to the elites that control them; we who are free to protest need to stand in for those under such regimes who dare not.

To excuse these despots in the hopes they will reform on their own is what is truly naive; they worship the rule of force and understand only that we are weak when we fear to condemn their actions. To quote Barry Goldwater, the last truly great Republican: "Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Tolerance in the face of tyranny is no virtue."

03-20-2009, 10:58 PM	#13
jammies Basement Chicken Choker Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: In a land without pants, or war, or want. But mostly we care about the pants. Exp:	All I have to say is that our duty as citizens of the world is to point out injustice wherever it can be found, sparing our own faults even less than those of others. Criticism is the foundation of a modern, pluralistic society and does not need the consent of the criticized to be pertinent. The present era is characterized by the involvement of the public in legitimizing government, and the exercise of the right to free speech is a necessary outgrowth of that involvement. Regimes who violently suppress free speech, association, and other expressions of the public will are anachronisms fueled by corruption and beholden to the elites that control them; we who are free to protest need to stand in for those under such regimes who dare not. To excuse these despots in the hopes they will reform on their own is what is truly naive; they worship the rule of force and understand only that we are weak when we fear to condemn their actions. To quote Barry Goldwater, the last truly great Republican: "Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Tolerance in the face of tyranny is no virtue." __________________ Better educated sadness than oblivious joy.