A Single Re-Tweet Lands Chinese Woman in Labor Camp 273
lee1 writes "A woman in China has been sentenced to a year of 're-education' in a labor camp for the crime of 'disrupting social order' after retweeting a joke on Twitter (which is entirely banned in China, but popular nonetheless). Cheng Jianping had repeated a Twitter comment suggesting that nationalist protesters smash Japan's pavilion at the Shanghai Expo, adding the words 'Charge, angry youth.' At the time, China and Japan were feuding over a group of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, and groups of young Chinese had been demonstrating against Japan, smashing Japanese products; the tweet amounted to gentle chiding of the protesters. Ms. Cheng may also have been targeted because she is a human rights activist: she had signed petitions calling for the release of China's jailed Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo. She has been detained in the past for several other 'crimes,' including criticizing China's Communist Party."
Should apply to anyone using Twitter (Score:5, Funny)
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I'm pretty sure Bill Gates doesn't need Re-Education, nor does Stephen Hawking, and they both have twitter feeds.
Re:Should apply to anyone using Twitter (Score:4, Funny)
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I just don't get the "Twitter is for idiot jokes". Part of my brain must be missing.
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I just don't get the "Twitter is for idiot jokes". Part of my brain must be missing.
That's okay; here's help: Twitter For Dummies [amazon.com].
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I just don't get the "Twitter is for idiot jokes". Part of my brain must be missing.
No comment needed.
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Hawking's is only legit if you pipe the tweets through MacinTalk.
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Bill Gates might have money, but that doesn't mean he shouldn't finish college.
Re:Should apply to anyone using Twitter (Score:4, Funny)
Public service annoucement (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are a political activist in any country (not just China), don't post things publicly that are unrelated to your cause. Don't post things electronically that are or could be considered illegal, or be used as blackmail material. Remember that you are not representing yourself anymore, you are representing your cause. Everything you say and do will be put under a microscope, and the internet never forgets and never forgives mistakes.
Now that that's out of the way: China, you suck.
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Yes, be very afraid, you might get caught.
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Which just goes back to basic politics: The strongest win.
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So you feel that political activism and a personal online life are mutually exclusive?
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So you feel that political activism and a personal online life are mutually exclusive?
Yes, actually.
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... you are not representing yourself anymore, you are representing your cause...
That could easily have come from Gandhi himself. I wish I had mod points for you.
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I seem to remember an incident where they were fattening a tank/tub of leeches on a little girl.
Fat leeches more muneee!
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...and the internet never forgets and never forgives mistakes.
At some point, everyone's mistakes will be known to the world and we will become a much more forgiving society as a result.
You are all missing the point (Score:2, Insightful)
Ms. Cheng is pretty hot.
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But what seems ironic here is that this woman actually represented a success of the Chinese government's attempt to use "controlled nationalism" to redirect peoples' passions anytime they seem to be leaning against the government (or other powerful interests the government tacitly protects).
I guess they [the government] get scared anytime people get too passionate, even if government themselves stoked the fires in the first place...
Re:Public service annoucement (Score:5, Insightful)
In a dictatorship, anything can be illegal at the whims of those who rule.
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Pro tip: yes, they can. See USSR.
awaiting the equivalency idiots (Score:5, Insightful)
you know, the snide comments "well, its almost just as bad/ the same/ worse in the usa/ uk/ western nation"
no
it actually isn't
when you confuse hyperbole and reality, you are no longer commenting intelligently, you are merely broadcasting your ignorance
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The Chinese are just one upping the west and I can see the west about to catch up. Have you ever heard of court ordered sensitivity training?
Where the hell else would I broadcast my ignorance than Slashdot. Now get off my lawn.
Re:awaiting the equivalency idiots (Score:5, Insightful)
Except, I don't think most of the people making such statements are *really* idiots who don't get the obvious differences. I think (well, hope at least!) it's a matter of trying to caution/wake up people that nations like the United States are headed down a path that leads there, ultimately, if we don't stop and look at where we're going!
Just this morning, I heard a couple of radio DJs doing their show, and despite their repeated insistence on taking a "libertarian outlook on things" in the past? These guys were obviously defending the full body scanners and pat-down searches at our airports! Their opinion, basically, was one of, "Come on! Someone having a grainy picture of your genitals is no big deal! I'd rather they see that than someone getting a bomb on my airline flight!", coupled with, "Like the TSA says... If you don't like it, just don't fly!"
That mentality is EXACTLY what gets us ever closer to Chinese style government and censorship, people!
Re:awaiting the equivalency idiots (Score:5, Insightful)
EXACTLY!!! How is that American citizens can be treated with less regard than a captured member of the Taliban? How is it that a sexual assault is now necessary and endorsed in order to board a plane? And just try boarding a plane without the sexual assault and you're likely to be shot at, imprisoned, put on a no-fly list, and your life will be essentially ruined by the government, forever, all because you're trying to retain your rights and dignity.
And people want to talk about how bad China is because it makes them feel superior and that they somehow have it better here. Well, in many cases you do not. Elsewhere, you're likely to recieve better healthcare, you're likely to recieve a better education and you're likely to live in country with more equal footing between you and your boss.
And the country won't be entirely run by corporations focused only on greed. Please, tell me how much better off you are here in the Paranoid USA.
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EXACTLY!!! How is that American citizens can be treated with less regard than a captured member of the Taliban? How is it that a sexual assault is now necessary and endorsed in order to board a plane? And just try boarding a plane without the sexual assault and you're likely to be shot at, imprisoned, put on a no-fly list, and your life will be essentially ruined by the government, forever, all because you're trying to retain your rights and dignity.
It Soviet Russia and communist China, there isn't this kind of board-gate sexual-assault.
Wow, a freedom that they have that we don't.
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Libertarians are fine with absolutely anything as long as you lower their taxes.
Hogwash. Libertarians like myself believe that you should have liberty to act as you wish so long as you don't infringe on the liberty of others. Please stop confusing the recent bandwagon Libertarians with those of us who have been registered as Libertarians for years.
Re:awaiting the equivalency idiots (Score:5, Insightful)
Sir (or ma'am), I truly wish I had mod points.
In America, you can say whatever the hell you want about the government -- even if it is slanderous, false, crazy, whatever -- and unless you are directly threatening to kill somebody, you can get away with it. That is NOTHING like a totalitarian government. If the Obama administration was really like China, Fox News would have been squashed a long time ago, and media types like Beck and Limbaugh would be quickly losing weight in a rock quarry somewhere.
And what exactly are you doing... (Score:2)
when you confuse hyperbole and reality, you are no longer commenting intelligently, you are merely broadcasting your ignorance
...when you go and put your cart in front of your horse?
Or when you jump the gun?
Could it perchance be that you have failed to hold your horses, and that by bootstrapping your own argument in anticipation of hatched chickens you are actually tilting at windmills and thus producing a tempest in a teapot?
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Someone really pissed at the TSA for their current screening techniques sends a satirical letter, thank-you card or email to Pistole saying:
"Thank you so much for doing exactly what I want. You have been a great help for my cause in showing the American people what it's like to live in a Police state when they are in an airport and what my Muslim brothers have to deal with everyday.
Yours,
Osama Bin Laden."
Just what do you think would happen?
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Done. Let's wait and see.
Re:awaiting the equivalency idiots (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at the Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Prisoner_population_rate_UN_HDR_2007_2008.PNG [wikipedia.org]
The U.S. just has a different spin on "freedom". Did you catch the video of the TSA assaulting the 3-year-old and the father standing helplessly while it happened for fear of being arrested? Do you suppose in China they watch videos of Americans being waterboarded, or stories about U.K. police gunning innocent people down in the subway?
There's no shortage of ugly propaganda on both sides. Don't think China is so bad, and don't think the U.S. is so good. It's all somewhere in the middle, on both sides.
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It's all somewhere in the middle, on both sides.
hammer(Nail::head), sir! Combine this with the fact that black and white logic is oh-so-attractive, and you have yourself the root cause of many failures of public discourse.
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It is in the middle but unless they are EXACTLY at the same position in the middle, one is closer to A than the other.
Dumping everything into the "it's all grey" category and ignoring every difference is just as stupid as assigning the Good/Bad label as if they were absolutes.
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It is just as bad, it's just not the same kind of bad. China is very public about their activities, whereas western nations prefer smear campaigns, false charges, and complex bureaucratic procedures to blunt the minds of their critics and dampen or perhaps entirely dissipate, protest of its policies. Just because China does in public what other countries do in private does not make the other countries worse.
The United States has the highest per capita imprisonment rate of any first world country, and a larg
We in the West are so much more... oh wait (Score:3, Informative)
Oh that's right, they get a visit by their friendly neighborhood police officers. http://boingboing.net/2010/11/13/twitter-users-re-twe.html
This is probably front page news because we clearly all hate China, and Twitter is involved. In full seriousness, relying on the humor of law enforcement/secret police to keep you out of trouble is a bad bet. Relying on that sense of humor when seemingly inciting violence against a nation with whom ties are already strained is an even worse bet. Is this seriously anything new or surprising?
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Except the person in question didn't even write the tweet. It was a retweet that mocked a bunch of protesters. She was targeted because her tiny comment didn't serve the purposes of the CCP.
And your link shows what happens when the law in the US and UK try to pull that shit. People don't cow down quietly, they mock the government loudly for their stupidity (also, the UK has fucked up laws.)
This is probably front page news because we clearly all hate China
Now now, don't go stuffing words in the mouth of all
Re:We in the West are so much more... oh wait (Score:5, Insightful)
Its one thing to post a joke bomb threat and have the cops show up. Possibly give you some misdemeanor.
Its another thing to post a joke and have the cops pick you up and put you in a labour camp.
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Yeah, there is no difference. Idiot.
No, no, no... (Score:2)
What would happen if someone tweeted a "joke" about a bomb threat in the EU or the USA?
The woman is a "human rights activist" who was "detained in the past for several other 'crimes,' including criticising China's Communist Party".
Clearly, in order to make an accurate comaprison, you would have to replace "someone" in your argument with say... Julian Assange.
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So in your mind, originating a threat via twitter is the same as re-tweeting a joke about protesters? Clearly they are identical situations.
It is also identical where the threatener received a fine versus getting locked up for a year of hard labor.
Yup, identical situation.
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However, making jokes about threats of ANY kind is a bad idea. It doesn't matter if it is a tweet, a retweet, a blog post, a text message, a letter, etc. In this day an age, it doesn't matter where you are. Threats against the government or against entities the government cares about is a Bad Idea(tm).
Of course, many prefer
{Yawn} (Score:5, Insightful)
Who cares about the human cost as long as we can continue to get cheap electronics, right?
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So what type of device are you posting on, and where do you think it and/or the majority of its components are made?
Are you advocating something or just whining? (Score:4, Insightful)
I get a little tired of the bitching about China's human rights problems not because they aren't problems, but because people seem to just like to bitch rather than suggest what might be done. See the US can't just make China play nice and respect human rights that movie about Team America: World Police was a comedy/satire, not a documentary, if the puppets didn't give that away. The US can't just police China.
Now, the US could of course do things like refuse to trade or embargo China. Ok, ignoring any consequences to the US itself, what makes you think that would work? What evidence is there that wold do any good? It has been tried time and time again and never seems to improve conditions in countries, only make them worse. That isn't to say it cannot be a useful tool for security related issues, but it doesn't seem to do anything good human rights related.
In fact a rather strong argument can be made that the only way China will get better at human rights is if their own citizens demand it. They will have to force the change internally. Like with most things in human nature, people have to want to change before you can help them change. You can then also argue the best thing that the US can do for that is to keep as much free and open trade as possible. With free trade comes free information. though the Central Committee might not like it, they can't just cut off the flow of information, it would hurt business.
Free trade with China is producing dramatic increases in the standard of living for many people, and has actually improved the human rights situation from what it was. It is far, FAR from good but it is a hell of a lot better than when the great leap "forward" happened.
There's a strong argument that the best thing we can do is just to trade freely and make all our information and culture available. If you've a different suggestion then let's hear it as well as the defense for it, but please less with the hand-wringing.
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Actually, embargos have worked for more then they have failed. Study up.
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Such repression is a sign of weakness (Score:3, Interesting)
Paradoxically, the Chinese leadership's need to quell
even the slightest expression of dissent, or the slightest expression of
free-thinkng, simply telegraphs the inherent weakness and illegitimacy
of their system of government. If the government is truly legitimate, is
truly based on the consent of the people, then it does not require such
measures. The most legitimate form of government is that which requires
the least repression of individual expression and will while still being able
to function in a stable manner.
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You mean... like the TSA here in America?
Wow, let's do this in the USA! (Score:3, Funny)
She has been detained in the past for several other 'crimes,' including criticising China's Communist Party.
So in the USA the Republicans would be locked up for criticizing the Democrats, and the Democrats would be locked up for criticizing the Republicans. With almost everybody locked up, who could work as prison guards? I guess this could be solved with some H-1B visas.
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So in the USA the Republicans would be locked up for criticizing the Democrats, and the Democrats would be locked up for criticizing the Republicans.
Go on...
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As long as you put all your new prisons along the beaches - I don't think Canada would mind holding down the fort till you all get out of jail.
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China is the abusive boyfriend of the G8+5. (Score:5, Insightful)
Still better than... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/11/18/pakistan.blasphemy/index.html?hpt=C1
"This month a Pakistani court sentenced Isham's mother, 45 year old Asia Bibi, to death, not because killed, injured or stole, but simply because she said something."
"The town cleric, Qari Muhammad Salim, reported the incident to police who arrested Bibi. After nearly 15 months in prison came her conviction and the death sentence."
USA's best friends, China and Pakistan. Awesome.
Coming soon to America (Score:2)
With all of the new surveillance requirements of our friendly government and the alphabet soup laws and treaties pushed on us by the **AA, we are not far behind China in this.
Remember to put "Twitter" in every headline (Score:5, Insightful)
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But (Score:5, Interesting)
This is actually a popular view in China and the party actively promotes it. Our increasingly frustrating politics make it more and more believable.
Do those camps even work? (Score:2)
Serious question here. Do people assigned to these re-education camps actually come out thinking that oh, they had it all wrong, and they'll be on the right path once again? Because I have a hard time believing, after nearly 40 years of dealing with people, that this is the result. If anything, I'd believe they come out even more convinced than ever that whatever got them in trouble was right, but more cautious about expressing it.
I'm talking about what happens in real life, not what happens in Orwell's
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It's sort of like how America's medieval-style prisons are called the "correctional system".
Meanwhile in the US... (Score:2)
Meanwhile in the US...
A Single Shared CD Lands US Woman in Life-Long Bankruptcy
"A woman in the US has been sentenced to a life of bankruptcy for the crime of 'sharing intellectual property' (which is entirely banned in the US, but popular nontheless). Jammie Thomas-Rasset had shared a few Songs with other people. She has been tried and convicted in the past for several other 'thought crimes,' all involving infringement of US's Recording Party's so called "imaginary property rights".
Different countried, diff
Oblig (Score:2)
A Single Re-Tweet and a History of Human Rights Activism Lands Chinese Woman in Labor Camp
There, fixed that for you
Re:hate speech is NOT protected anywhere. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:hate speech is NOT protected anywhere. (Score:4, Insightful)
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No, the KKK were arrested for ACTING upon incitement toward violence.
The KKK are allowed to march and yell in public, openly, as is any group like that, so long as they obtain
a parade permit, WHICH THEY CAN, in the US.
But if you break the law, like, oh, I dunno, KILL PEOPLE, commit arson, violate labor laws, intimidate employers...
such as what got the Klansmen in question in the parent post put in prison...
in China, you'd be the government. In the US, you're arrested.
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such as what got the Klansmen in question in the parent post put in prison...
in China, you'd be the government. In the US, you're arrested.
Don't forget, the KKK *did* have a lot of influence in government in the early part of the 20th century.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan_members_in_United_States_politics [wikipedia.org]
US Senators, Supreme Court justices, Presidents...
All that aside, I actually did attend a KKK rally once (as a protester, because fuck those hateful assholes.)
To get anywhere near the rally, you
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No, it's just required to hold a parade, which disrupts traffic and commerce in the area for a short time. There are plenty of other ways to exercise your freedom of speech that don't disrupt anyone, and don't require a permit.
As long as you stay in the Free Speech zone, of course.
Re:hate speech is NOT protected anywhere. (Score:5, Insightful)
Possibly because it didn't happen? Klan members were arrested and imprisoned for crimes they commited (murder among them), but they still exist today and hold public rallies and events without being imprisoned for speaking.
You seem to be confusing hate-speech with hate-crimes. Going up on a stage and saying that "group X is a bunch of subhuman degenerates" is certainly hateful, but you have the right to do it. Going on stage and saying "group X is a bunch of subhuman degenerates" while beating a member of group-X with a club is a hate crime, and will carry different penalties than just beating someone with a club would normally.
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If I tell someone how much I love them while beating them do I get less time then just beating them? How about if I'm apathetic towards them?
Re:hate speech is NOT protected anywhere. (Score:5, Funny)
We probably need a whole new rating system.
Beating someone while shouting racial slurs at them: +10 years
Beating someone while staring into the distance trying to remember if you left the oven on: +0 years
Beating someone while shouting "I love you man!" at them: Actually, that's creepy. +12 years
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This irony thing...you don't get it, do you? Hint: it's not what Alanis says it is.
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Or the UK, where you get arrested for suggesting you might blow up an airport on Twitter.
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I think the fundamental difference between that and this is that she is put in a labour camp for it - what happened to that UK Citizen? One night spent in a cell, if that?
Re:Athletes get fined for things like this (Score:4, Insightful)
That's a difference in degree, not kind; not a fundamental difference, but surely much less unpleasant to undergo.
Re:Athletes get fined for things like this (Score:4, Informative)
...plus a criminal record and a £3000 legal bill when he lost his appeal.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-11736785 [bbc.co.uk]
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What?!? Arresting someone for suggesting they'd want to blow up an airport?! That's an outrage, I think I'll go blow up an airport in protest.
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Really. Well I guess its not like in the U.S. where a sports athlete will be fined at least 20 grand for posting nothing out of the ordinary. AKA Terrel Owens, Randy Moss
The fact of the matter is - if you have money in a bank account, and some spare change, you are better off than the majority of China, and most of the rest of the world.
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20 grand is probably more than a chinese laborer earns in their entire lives
FTFY
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Are you fucking serious? That bitch was slapped with contempt of court because she was both nasty enough to decide the defendant she'd sworn to judge impartially was guilty before the defence had even been made, and stupid enough to post that on facebook. That wasn't about expressing an opinion, it was about openly declaring her intention to put someone in jail unjustly. Being on a jury is incredibly serious business.
Re:Athletes get fined for things like this (Score:4, Insightful)
That has what to do with the U.S. government now?
It's stupid?
Re:Kudos for unbiased reporting (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Kudos for unbiased reporting (Score:5, Funny)
This is a left-leaning website.
There. I said it.
Re:Kudos for unbiased reporting (Score:5, Funny)
No, that would be \. This is /. - obviously right-leaning.
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Those douchebags still praise Mao
I'm "left", and I don't praise Mao. Or Stalin. Or Pol Pot.
I do know a lot of folk on the "right" who praise Pinochet, though. Better dead than red and all that.
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Correction: the financial human right they disagree with is "people have the right to make a profit off of the financial loss of other, to the point of causing significant suffering/death."
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In a free market, someone can end up better off than someone else, but nobody gets screwed.
In a planned economy everyone can end up better off, and only the multinationals get screwed in their turn.
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He's a libertarian. You can't argue with them based on things like facts and evidence. They believe that governments are the cause of all evil, and that without governments keeping them in check corporations will be warm and fluffy.
See jcr? It works better when you use an ad hominem as well as a straw man.
Re:asdf (Score:4, Insightful)
Soon America will be like this, if we don't start electing politicians who remove, rather than add laws.
Re:asdf (Score:5, Insightful)
Every time you elect a lawyer to elective office you are guaranteed that you will get a flood of redundant, contradictory, unenforceable & expensive laws, thereby ensuring the perpetual employment of their colleagues who are paid handsomely to unravel, defend against & prosecute this utterly pointless bullshit!
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Re:asdf (Score:4, Insightful)
How is this modified as a troll? This is the writing on the wall and it will be too late to be disappointed once it has come to pass.
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