Why is freedom more valuable and desirable than safety? Also, why does mass surveillance lead to tyranny?

I've seen a Snowden documentary. I don't like reading much though.

What was the extreme right wing backlash?

@tenslein Being used to being in power a person will be very sensitive to any loss of it. Dissatisfaction with the group in power is always there. When the traditional white male protestants that drove the direction of America felt themselves losing power to non-traditional groups, it was understandably very upsetting to them. Their anger was focused on the group that they saw as taking it away, the Democratic party. I am old enough to remember when the opposing parties could communicate with each other. The right has reacted strongly to that and the Democrats have gone off the deep end in trying to win back voters.

Well I thought the purpose of government was to keep people safe because there’s so many laws designed to do that: You’re not allowed to commit suicide, not allowed to drive without a seatbelt, etc.

Isn’t the purpose of guarding the borders to keep us safe from illegal aliens? Or is that to keep the culture safe?

@tenslein but we don't know what your real opinion is, since In China, you are not allowed to have any other opinion than the one you have expressed here.

@curvycom I'm in Washington DC now. I just haven't bothered updating my location here. I felt I could speak just as freely in China as in America. Actually, I could speak even more freely. I could say wig-nat stuff in China with no negative consequences.

Only if you're famous does your anti-China speech get silenced in China. I'm a nobody in China so I said a bunch of anti-China stuff in private messages on the Chinese social media app. I'd talk about the organ stealing, for example.

@tenslein Not what I've heard from people close to me who lived and worked there. They were constantly under surveillance (including their emails and phones) and they knew people deported within 24 hours just for saying something negative about the Chinese government.

@tenslein Really? Which famous bear does the leader of China resemble again?

: )

I can't imagine China would care about wignat stuff. That's more critical of the US, really.

Although, in your defense, I will say, a friend of mine went to china on some kind of business. While there, he met an American Expat and struck up a conversation with him.

The guy told my friend something along the lines of "Actually in a lot of ways, you have more freedom here in China." to which my friend sardonically replied: "Yeah. There was a Christmas display in our hotel lobby! Try doing THAT in the USA!!" Which sent the (probably leftist) Expat reeling and careening away.

I have another old friend that works for Disney (I believe he is in Hong Kong right now, though I'm not really sure) I will say he seems to really love it there.

"curvycom" Group

@curvycom Winnie the Pooh.

China in general is very lax on rules. It got to the point where I longed for the strictness of America.

@Potgieter I've only heard of some Youtubers being bothered for being negative about China. I never felt I was being monitored by the government. One time I was talking negatively to a girl on WeChat about restrictive Chinese Internet. She suggested that I don't talk about that with her. I asked if she was scared of the government, and she blocked me.

Also, when I thought I had coronavirus, I would use Gmail instead of AOL mail (don't need a VPN for AOL) to communicate about my symptoms to my family because I was scared of possibly being abducted and taken to a hospital. I was scared because I saw videos of Chinese being dragged out of their apartments. In hindsight, I was probably being paranoid.