“They have a different worldview than our” seems to me you, in fact, do understand why I keep saying how liberals think. I am just repeating their worldview which I find not to be based on reality. Correct me if I am wrong, but didn’t you just admit that you also are telling me how liberals think?

Do you not know how liberals think? We both obviously have friends who are liberals. I could probably list some “ways liberals think” and you would find that I am right on in my assessments. I do not find most of them to be what you describe as “normal folk.”

Difference of opinion, no doubt.

“After the communists brutally put down the Tienanmen square protests they knew they had to give the educated middle class something to put their energy into; making money.”

This simply did not happen as the reforms have continued on the path set out ten years earlier by Deng.

I can only “know” what you write. Did you not make the statement that the reform started after Tiananmen or am I mistaken?

I do not pretend to know what you think or not think. I am not a liberal so I do not even try to fathom the intentions of my fellow humans. I may sometimes speak in general terms when I make statements about liberal philosophy or at least those liberals with whom I have a close friendship but that is normal.

I will admit I am wrong with the correct evidence. I do not believe I am wrong about my perception of China and the Chinese. Thus, why should I not question people who think I somehow live in something other than reality. We who believe as I do are not stupid and certainly not uneducated. The Obama administration is governing outside the direction that is America. He is trying to put into place policies that will fail, have failed in the past and go against human nature. He is destroying the very core of what made us Americans - who we are and that means different than Europeans and other Western folks.

You have the right to think this is ok but because some of us say loudly that he will fail has nothing to do with whether we want him to fail or not.

Chickens simply cannot be bred to cows as I said earlier and that is the reality in which I live.

Been a trip, thanks.

This “big difference” appears to explain why you think I am a right-wing wacko or worse. Could it be that you may not be correct in what reality really is? You see a big difference in events in China and the US where I see no difference especially in the results? Maybe it is those of you who believe there is a big difference in governments even though they have the same results that are in different realities.

With Acorn and other criminal organizations active, corruption throughout the states, free flowing tax dollars to constituents and the WH Personally involved in trying to muzzle opposition, should I and others question your belief that there is still a big difference in governments? Both you and Rick contend that those of us who raise the issue of socialism in America are only doing so to spread fear. Maybe it is people like you who have their head in the sand and believe that no such thing could happen in the US even though the results we see are the same as we see in authoritarian governments.

As to your belief that reforms in China somehow started in 1989 with the Tiananmen protest as a means to quell possible unrest simply shows your lack of understanding of China. Tiananmen occurred ten years after Deng instituted the first reforms. The unrest we saw at Tiananmen were a direct result of ten years of economic reform (liberalization) without the expected political reforms. “Protestors at the 1989 Tiananmen Square Incident included workers who felt that reforms had gone too far and threatened their livelihoods (Wikipedia).”

Misconceptions about modern China abound in the US. Collective state verses a individual state, you say? I certainly do not see that in my college students and they certainly do express such a notion. Mao is not an exalted figure and most have parents who were brutalized by the Cultural Revolution. The students I have are the same as any student in the world, where college is an exercise in pursuing truth. The text books are nearly identical as those in the US and some are even better since they do not have the stupid political correctness crap so common in the US education system.

So to summarize my position or “different reality”:

1. The Chinese government successfully controls the message coming from the mainstream media.
2. The US government is trying to control the message coming from the mainstream media.
3. The Chinese government keeps a watch on those whom they deem to be problems politically and will go to great measures to demonize and even jail them.
4. The Us government keeps a watch on those whom they deem to be political terrorists (conservative activists), demonizing them with lies and smears and no doubt, would love to throw most of us in jail.
5. The Chinese government has a huge problem with corruption inside its organizational structure.
6. The US government has a huge problem with corruption inside its organizational structure. Seems this has risen to new heights under Obama.
7. The Chinese government passes rules and laws without consultation or regard to its citizens’ needs or even wants. These laws usually are passed to add more money to the corrupt coffers or insure power continues and are passed with the idea that the elites know best.
8. The US government appears to be trying to pass rules and laws without consultation with its citizens. Control of major industries (banking, housing and auto) has been established to insure the coffers of the ruling party continues to swell, payback for those who kiss the ring so the party remains in power. Of course, these ruling elites know what is best.

Do I need to continue with the list or do you have just a little bit of an idea why members of the “uneducated right-wing mob” may not really be living in a different reality as you so firmly believe. We just may not be the uneducated folks you believe us to be.