smooth

OK, first of all, I apologize because I didn't notice that you limited your comments to "Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia," That was my bad and an honest mistake--I wasn't trying to put words in your mouht.

Second, my comments were about the human condition, in general, but I directed them at you because we were engaging each other. I do exactly what you do in terms of filtering and categorizing, etc. Please don't think that I was excluding myself or any other particular person from escaping cultural blinders.

Third, the really main point I want to get across is to dispute your remark that, in this country, people aren't being arrested for things that ought to be politically acceptable. People are being arrested for 'harmless' or should we say what ought to be considered lawful activism. The point I would also drive home, however, is that our fictionalized notions of freedom make us interpret this as new, when in fact all powerful, effective political speech is dangerous to the established power structures in this nation and has always been supressed. There hasn't, to my knowledge, been a time when effective political speech has been allowed by activists that wasn't happening on the streets outside the purvue and abilities of the authorities to end it; except possibly during the birthing of this nation before we had a solidified power structure--but even then it's possible the rabble rousers weren't really doing much in terms of there subversiveness. I mean, it wasn't like they were throwing off the crown and participating in some sort of populist or communal governance.

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"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman