From: Bill Lucy 

In article ,
rgparker{at}west.net says...

> No it isn't. Books and mags and newspapers are key to a healthy civil
> society.

So, prior to the 17th century society wasn't civil?

> > > You are missing a far deeper point: A society's health depends on the
> > > civic mindedness of a fairly small minority of its members.
> > Agreed. But many of those get arrested and get put in jail in Puerto Rico,
too.
> > Some of them are still in jail, due to recent events (I chose Puerto Rico
for a
> > reason).
>
> They are not getting arrested for speaking out, writing, talking. They
> also are probably not being systematically tortured in labour camps. You
> ever read Against All Hope by Armando Valladares?

I read an excerpt. Have you seen how the Cuban government are releasing
some of their dissidents from jail? And none complained of ill treatment
while there?

I don't really want to be a devil's advocate for Castro, Randall. But I
also don't think he deserved to be demonized. What Canada and the EU have
done is open up the possibility of a change in the way things are done in
Cuba. Our stilted position does nothing but allow Fidel a reason to
continue being who he is.

> You are beginning to sound like Wittgenstein or the deconstructionists.
> If we can't determine whether we are free then the term becomes a
> pointless and meaningless concept. If this is so unknowable there is no
> point to even striving.

PLEASE, don't accused me of being deconstructionist! 

I don't think it's a meaningless term. But we continue to labor under a
definition of "free" which puts me as an individual at risk every
time I step onto the streets.

> > Please understand this one thing. If you think that I care one whit if I
lose
> > my job with the State of Illinois, you don't know me.
>
> If you were a resident of Cuba and had a job with their government you
> _would_ care about whether you lost your job because you would care
> about not having yourself and family starve to death.

Juan Miguel Gonzalez does not have a government job. He does not appear to
be starving.

> >I have had more than one
> > person attempt to "muzzle" me (within the last months,
there was the
Assistant
> > Director of the Department of Aging who tried), and I have carried on.
>
> The stakes were low.

Were they? Again, I don't have the tools to know that.

> > C'mon, Randall, you know me better than that. 
>
> Bill, this is actually how I expected you to behave. But in a
> totalitarian system I doubt that you'd behave that way. I know I
> wouldn't.

I don't know how I'd behave. And that, my friend, is why we're having this
discussion.

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