Bloggin in Iran....dangerous?

Human Rights Watch recently published an article about some of our fellow bloggers in Iran. There are two points that I would like to make here; 1) if you read enough on the net today and you are inclined to believe what fits in with your views, you will be quickly convinced by the various apologists for terrorism out there masquerading as "anti-imperialist" that we are all living in some kind of Orwellian nightmare. But ivory-tower coffeeshop revolutionaries in the west who idolize Che Guevara and put a wierd gloss on the modern results of Marxist dogma pretty rarely end up experiencing the type of totalitarianism they bitch about. As much as the ISM and their ilk scream hysterically about how evil Israeli is, you will not see these same folks going into Iran or North Korea because they understand quite well the difference between a liberal democracy and a totalitarian state. They know that within minutes of being in Iran, they will be arrested, possibly tortured and even killed with no free press to take note of it. So while they claim one thing, they actions demonstrate their knowledge of the differences between Israel and Syria.

2) Western conservatives also portray Iran in an unrealistic way. While they are light years from a democracy, a brief glance at their human rights record demonstrates that there ARE democratic efforts and ideals at work, and the government recognizes that. People can and DO protest. Newspapers Do criticize the government. People ARE released from prison. In other words, there is a considerable "liberal" movement afoot in that country that the conservative Mullahs must take notice of. Western conservatives pretend it doesn't exist. Western liberals pretend terrorism doesn't exist.


http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/04/04/iran10415.htm