[WikiEN-l] Classification of China?

Fri Apr 25 23:31:58 UTC 2003

At 05:16 PM 4/25/03 -0600, Fred Bauder wrote:
>I intend to speak truth. China (and the Catholic church, for another
>example) are authoritarian. \ It is not merely a matter of the opinion of
>vague critics. There are objective criteria which if met constitute an
>authoritarian government.

This concerns me, not because I disagree, but because I don't know
what objective criteria Fred is using, and because almost anyone who
promotes a point of view sincerely believes that he or she is speaking
truth.

The determination to speak truth, while admirable, is not the same as
NPOV, which is our policy.

>Fred
>
> > From: Daniel Ehrenberg <littledanehren at yahoo.com>
> > Reply-To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> > Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2003 09:32:01 -0700 (PDT)
> > To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Classification of China?
> >
> > You can't just say "China is an evil totalitarian
> > country" (I know that's not what you said) or even
> > "China is a controlling country" because that's an
> > opinion, not a fact. The communist party in China
> > might think "We're not controlling or authoritarian,
> > we just want the best for our citizens", which makes
> > the comment POV.  You could say (in a later
> > paragraph), "China is critisized for being
> > [[authoritarianism and
> > totalitarianism|authoritarianist]].
> >
> > --- Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
> >
> >> I stirred up this hornet's nest  by inserting a link
> >> to [[authoritarianism
> >> and totalitarianism|authoritarian]] into the first
> >> paragraph of the article.
> >> I think this is a fair characterization of the
> >> regime (regardless of what
> >> ever other adjective might describe it).

-- 
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org