China's very own Mandela

This article about China's Nobel Prize winner, Liu Xiaobo, and China's poisonous and paranoid reaction to the honour bestowed on him and China, is worth reading.

I've lived in a police state.  In the end, they always lose, and democracy grows.

This John Stuart Mill quote came to mind:

[...] a State which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes—will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished; and that the perfection of machinery to which it has sacrificed everything, will in the end avail it nothing, for want of the vital power which, in order that the machine might work more smoothly, it has preferred to banish.

Human rights, whether they're for minority groups like gays, or for whole nations like China, must be fought for.  Their struggle is ultimately our struggle.  And, with gay rights or freedom in China, it will be successful.  We shall overcome, one day.