From: mariond@facts.com   
      
   Carlos E.R. wrote:   
   > Freedom for being black, and not being killed by the police when being   
   > stopped for a traffic violation.   
      
   I'm not Black, and I never lived in a community with more than one or two   
   black kids in any of the schools, so being white as a ghost with blue eyes,   
   I'm not the one to speak for the oppressed, but wasn't it mostly Spain &   
   Portugal who brought most of the black people to the Americas as slaves?   
      
   Anyway, I'm appalled at police brutality, where the White people are killed   
   as much as Black people by police. Here in Silicon Valley, a boy was shot   
   in the back who had a toy gun and the police didn't say it was his back for   
   weeks on end. They just kept saying his "torso". But he was White.   
      
   Likewise, the Boston Bomber was White and the police said for three days   
   there was a "ferocious firefight" when they knew within five minutes of   
   going inside the boat that the (White) kid was cowering unarmed the whole   
   time.   
      
   The police here are irresponsible sometimes, both to Black and to White   
   people, but if you've ever followed the Los Angeles videos of police   
   following speeding cars for hours on end (yes, hours and hours), I'm amazed   
   they don't shoot them outright given how dangerous those chases are.   
      
   I once reported a cop myself, and I'm as White as a cracker, for abusing   
   me, where twice or three times in my own life the police abused me.   
      
   So it's not just Black people 'cuz nobody would mistake me for being Black.   
      
   > Freedom for being a communist.   
   > Freedom for having communists in government.   
      
   Huh?   
      
   In the USA communism is protected as free speech and association, but it's   
   true there are far more communist parties in Europe than in the USA,   
   particularly in the United Left coalition in Spain, and the French   
   Communist Party, and the Italian Communist Party was once one of the   
   largest in Western Europe and Communist parties remain active in Portugal   
   and Greece.   
      
   In some Eastern European countries (e.g., Poland, Hungary, Latvia),   
   communist symbols or parties are restricted but in general European   
   democracies protect political pluralism, so communists can run for office   
   as long as they respect democratic rules.   
      
   In the USA, the Communist Party still exists legally, but communists rarely   
   hold elected office as their political ideology never turns into reality.   
      
   BTW, that last snippet is critical for people who are not stupid.   
      
   There are no communist countries, but there are no democratic countries   
   either, as all devolve/evolve into some form of socialism or dictatorship   
   over time.   
      
   What generally happens to all governments, is some kind of Feudal System.   
   --   
   People who don't know history are dumbshits because they don't understand   
   anything about the present, and they're very easily swayed by propaganda.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)