Tag Archives: responsibilities

The Correct Way

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The People’s Republic of China demands that the Republic of China be referred to, exclusively, as Taiwan, Province of China.

A large number of institutions cravenly go along with that, solely for their personal political gain, including—especially shamefully—an American high school.

Colorado’s Regis Jesuit High School applied for credentials to attend the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.

The purpose of attending was to give some students a taste of foreign affairs.

That’s when the PRC, a member of that commission, instructed the school to mend its ways. The PRC, through that commission, instructed the school to “fix” an obscure reference to the RoC on its Web site:

…modify[] it to “Taiwan, Province of China.”

Christina Vela, the Spanish teacher responsible for the application, meekly complied—and she got her school permitted to attend the commission. What a lesson in foreign affairs that process was.

Nor was this American high school alone in its obsequiousness.

China cited improper Taiwan terminology to stall applications from at least six other groups, including the World Bicycle Industry Association, a French nature society called the Association of 3 Hedgehogs and For All Moonkind, a volunteer team of space lawyers trying to preserve lunar landing sites so they don’t become tourist traps in the far-off future.

Iain Patton, Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges CEO, another organization seeking permission to attend the commission, added Province of China some of the group’s Web site references after being told to do so by the commission.

We did it because we’re intent on getting in and influencing that [UN] system from within.

Left entirely unaddressed is how Patton or his organization expect to influence “the system” from within when his first act is to timidly succumb to that system’s diktat.

On the other hand, the PRC’s UN representative Zhang Zhe, makes the case (albeit unintentionally) for not “correcting” references to the RoC.

“…sovereignty and territorial integrity of UN member states” is a core UN principle, so “using correct terminology is one of the most basic criteria for submitting applications.”

Indeed, and the logic applies, also, to nations not members of the UN, including nations like the Republic of China which was so shamefully and spinelessly expelled from the UN’s Security Council and then from the UN altogether.

Thus, the correct way to write the name of the nation that’s on the island of Taiwan is “Republic of China.”

Full stop.

A Couple Perspectives

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The contrast between them illustrates on the one hand the artificial nature of the hysteria that surrounds the risk of the Wuhan Virus, including its Delta variant, and on the other hand the very real risk to our children in the lawlessness in our (Progressive-Democrat-run) cities.

Over the course of 2021, more minors have been shot in Chicago than have died of [Wuhan Virus] in all of the United States, according to data from police and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A total of 214 children 17 years old or younger have died of [Wuhan Virus] so far this year in the country. Comparatively, Chicago police told FOX 32 Chicago earlier this week that 261 children have been shot—41 of whom have died.

The endemic nature of the lack of law enforcement in Chicago (for example) is real and ignored. The endemic nature of the Wuhan Virus in children (and healthy adults, too) is artificial and hyped.

Failure

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A letter writer, in his 10 Sept Wall Street Journal Letter, quoted from former President George Bush the Younger’s Decision Points (scroll to the last letter).

Ultimately, the only way the Taliban and al Qaeda can retake Afghanistan is if America abandons the country. Allowing the extremists to reclaim power would force Afghan women back into subservience, remove girls from school, and betray all the gains of the past nine years. After the Cold War, the United States gave up on Afghanistan. The result was chaos, civil war, the Taliban takeover, sanctuary for al Qaeda, and the nightmare of 9/11. To forget that lesson would be a dreadful mistake.

What Bush said.

The letter writer added his own codicil:

Prophecy fulfilled.

What he said, too.

“A Retreat on Racial Preferences”

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That’s the headline on a Tuesday editorial in The Wall Street Journal. The Editors opened with

The Biden Administration has been losing in court on its racially biased policies, and last week something remarkable happened. It gave up. Without explanation, the Justice Department declined to appeal a federal court injunction against a discriminatory loan-forgiveness program for farmers.

The decision not to defend appears to be widespread.

More than a dozen lawsuits have been filed challenging the USDA’s racial preferences, and three so far have resulted in preliminary injunctions by district courts in Florida, Wisconsin and Texas. Justice failed to appeal the Florida injunction before its 60-day deadline last week and hasn’t contested the others.

But maybe not. This collection of decisions only concerns the Ag Department, not other parts of the Biden-Harris (it’s Biden’s demand, after all, that the administration be termed Biden-Harris) Executive Branch.

Without explanation—without public explanation, perhaps. Another explanation might be that, sotto voce, President Joe Biden (D) and his co-President (co-Vice President?), Kamala Harris (D), fear that their Executive Branch’s racism is getting to be too obvious to too many average Americans.

It’s no retreat, actually, nor even a retrograde, but only a misdirection. This administration continues to push racist policies in Defense, with its critical race “theory” spew; in Justice, with its push for “diversity” for diversity’s sake; in Education, with its push to have critical race “theory” and its parallel and misnomered “anti-racism” taught in K-12.

In Which the Supreme Court Gets One Right, So Far

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Whole Woman’s Health et al v Austin Reeve Jackson, Judge, et al On Application for Injunctive Relief is a case brought to the Supreme Court by plaintiffs seeking injunction against a newly effective Texas law that bars abortions when a doctor can detect a fetal heartbeat and assigns to the citizens of Texas sole authority to enforce the law, through civil court action.

By a 5-4 vote, the Court declined to enter the matter at this stage of litigation, thereby permitting Texas’ law to remain in effect.

I have some thoughts on the matter.

Here’s the core of Chief Justice Roberts’ dissent from the Court’s decision to not interfere, at this time, with Texas’ heartbeat law:

I would grant preliminary relief to preserve the status quo ante—before the law went into effect—so that the courts may consider whether a state can avoid responsibility for its laws in such a manner.

It’s interesting that Roberts would so misconstrue the situation. Even at the State level, the citizens are sovereign, not the governments they hire/elect from time to time. Far from Texans’ government avoiding responsibility for its laws, it has put that responsibility in the present case, without filter, where responsibility originates: with the sovereign citizenry.

Here’s Justice Breyer, dissenting:

But a woman has a federal constitutional right to obtain an abortion during that first stage.

True enough, as far as it goes, but it, and Breyer, don’t go very far. The baby has a prior, unalienable right to its life.

Then Breyer raised a non sequitur, unusual for a Supreme Court Justice:

The very bringing into effect of Texas’s law may well threaten the applicants with imminent and serious harm. One of the clinic applicants has stated on its website that “[d]ue to Texas’ SB 8 law,” it is “unable to provide abortion procedures at this time.” Planned Parenthood South Texas [URL omitted] And the applicants, with supporting affidavits, claim that clinics will be unable to run the financial and other risks that come from waiting for a private person to sue them under the Texas law; they will simply close….

That’s purely speculative, however plausibly so, and so it’s beyond the scope of any American court’s reach. Aside from that, and more importantly, it may be unfortunate for Planned Parenthood South Texas, but that’s all it is. No business, no entity of any sort, has a Constitutional right to a particular business model. On the contrary, any business’ model must be designed to operate within the bounds of law.

Here’s Justice Sotomayor, dissenting:

The Act [SB8], which took effect statewide at midnight on September 1, makes it unlawful for physicians to perform abortions if they either detect cardiac activity in an embryo or fail to perform a test to detect such activity.

And yet the presence of cardiac activity—Sotomayor’s (cynical, I say) euphemism for a heartbeat—clearly shows that the baby is alive, and not just a cluster of cells (as many pro-abortionists assert babies to be). That brings us back to the part about the baby having a prior, unalienable right to its life.

The Court’s ruling can be read here.