Ru Zi Ke Jiao

If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap.
If you want happiness for a day, go fishing.
If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune.
If you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody.
– Chinese proverb

The issue of limited versus unlimited access to information and opinions is important. Traditionally this issue played out by governments banning books and not allowing newspapers to publish freely. Today the issue is played out on the internet. Tomorrow? Who knows? Regardless of how it is handled, anything short of unlimited access (and free expression) just doesn’t cut it. In fact, it violates international standards that China has agreed to uphold.

Hillary Clinton nails it. Here’s the money quote: “We stand for a single Internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and ideas. And we recognize that the world’s information infrastructure will become what we and others make of it…There are so many people in China now online. But countries that restrict free access to information or violate the basic rights of Internet users risk walling themselves off from the progress of the next century…”

Here’s the link:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30501433/vp/35104021#34978938China’s iconic Great Wall is proudly embraced by all Chinese as a symbol of China’s strength and longetivity. However, like so many things, the original purpose of the Wall – defending the nation against foreign armies – was twisted until it became a wall against everything foreign. The Wall nearly became a prison, and as China stagnated, poverty spread and the stale air nearly suffocated the people.

Today China faces another great wall – a Great Firewall – and it’s function today is equally repugnant. For starters, let’s be generous here and say that this new wall was built with nothing but good intentions (e.g. blocking porn). But like the original, this wall now serves a very different purpose – and it isn’t good.

In order to have “free thinking”, you have to also have “free speech / expression”. Otherwise, how do people communicate their thoughts?