03-19-2003, 07:12 PM
I'm, uh, not exactly sure what your point is.
Perhaps we've got different views on the word "tyrant". I tend to define "tyrant" as one who brings more sorrow than happiness, and makes no move to change that. Mao did not allow dissent about his incompetent rule. Sure, your parents survived, yet on what? The bare minimum. Your family was kept alive, well, mine didn't get such treatment. Mao did not bring prosperity with his socialism, just some sort of wishy-washy meager existence, and it was going downhill.
I myself am an immigrant from China, and have the slightest experience on what life is like there, and what is being taught about the communist party there. Most of it is glorified rubbish.
Besides, the Communist Party is not Mao. Maoism pretty much ended with his death. Not one of the "benefits" you described resulted from Mao, but from his successor, Deng Xiaoping, who implemented reforms not toward socialism but toward capitalism. If Mao had lived for another 20 years, however, China would be far down the gutter by now.
Perhaps we've got different views on the word "tyrant". I tend to define "tyrant" as one who brings more sorrow than happiness, and makes no move to change that. Mao did not allow dissent about his incompetent rule. Sure, your parents survived, yet on what? The bare minimum. Your family was kept alive, well, mine didn't get such treatment. Mao did not bring prosperity with his socialism, just some sort of wishy-washy meager existence, and it was going downhill.
I myself am an immigrant from China, and have the slightest experience on what life is like there, and what is being taught about the communist party there. Most of it is glorified rubbish.
Besides, the Communist Party is not Mao. Maoism pretty much ended with his death. Not one of the "benefits" you described resulted from Mao, but from his successor, Deng Xiaoping, who implemented reforms not toward socialism but toward capitalism. If Mao had lived for another 20 years, however, China would be far down the gutter by now.
Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.