From: Randall Parker 

In , note these
cogitations from blucy{at}mediaone.net Bill Lucy:
> Yes, I've spent almost 30 years thinking about it. On a day to day basis, I
> don't think a person would notice whether they were in Cuba or Puerto Rico,
> unless they were told where they were.

So if you wanted to go get some newspapers and magazines you wouldn't
notice? You wouldn't notice in a bookstore? You wouldn't notice in a
department store?

(lets pretend we can't see the cars)

You are missing a far deeper point: A society's health depends on the civic
mindedness of a fairly small minority of its members. Even if most people
don't educate themselves all that much about politics doesn't mean that
freedom of speech and association and press are not that important. If the
minority that does concern itself with such things can not pursue its
interests free of censorship and free of fear of loss of any means of works
then that minority can't do the things that make a free society work.

> > There are plenty of things that get said in this forum that would land a
> > Cuban in jail.
> How many of them are said?

Plenty. Ah, if Bill Mattox was a Cuban criticising Castro the way he
criticizes Clinton he'd be in jail or at minimum hungry and jobless.

>I heard an interesting statistic yesterday -- there
> are less than 500,000 Americans who actively participate in any political
> process. That's less than 2/10% of the population. Some who have been in the
> past are in jail -- and not because of any violent crime (in some cases for
no
> crime at all except association).

The average person who gets arrested for political activity in this country
has to work at it to get to that point. I read an article by the Reason
Washington D.C. correspondent about a protest a couple of months ago in
D.C. about the World Bank and IMF. There was a point during the
demonstration after many hours where the police gave the crowd instructions
on what they had to do to get themselves arrested. This is comic. Some of
the protesters _wanted_ to get arrested (bragging rights once they returned
to their college dorm I guess) and the police were not enthused about it
but were willing to accommodate them.

> So we're really back to the relativistic argument. It's *relatively* safer to
> open your mouth here than there.

Since its all a matter of degree there isn't that much substantive
difference between all the regimes in the world?

>And if you are politically active in the
> Communist Party, you are better off, even if you do open your mouth.

Sure. Your point being?

> There are books on sale at Amazon that local governments won't allow children
> to read.

Ah, and these local governments have prevented Amazon from selling them?
You are grasping here. Its hard to compare the degree of censorship in this
country to that in Cuba. We aren't even within a few orders of magnitude to
being in the same game.

> Unlike some, I don't place that much value on personal property.

It is not a small matter. If you depend on the state for your job you are
muzzled far more than you would be in other circumstances. Freedom to trade
and own property are necessary for survival. Otherwise you are a slave.

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5