Evil Foreigners

That’s the claim of Hong Kong’s Chief Executive, Leung Chun-ying, regarding the current protests against Beijing’s usurpation of Hong Kong’s right to elect their own Chief Executive from a ballot of their own choosing. All of the kerfuffle is coming at the instigation of Evil Foreigners. Carefully unnamed ones, too.

Because it couldn’t possibly be the result of misbehavior (or simple error) by the government of the People’s Republic of China. It couldn’t possibly be that the PRC government has lost the consent of the people of Hong Kong to govern them (if that government ever had that consent).

Sure. That’s his story, and he’s sticking to it.

Even the Brits

This is an amazing development for the authors of the Magna Carta. That charter, recall, codified for the first time in Anglo-American history, limits to government’s (king’s at the time) right to intrude into a man’s private affairs and possessions except under some severely constrained conditions: due process of law.

This is that amazement:

Registered gun owners in the United Kingdom are now subject to unannounced visits to their homes under new guidance that allows police to inspect firearms storage without a warrant.

The new policy from the British Home Office went into effect Oct 15, permitting police and constabularies to conduct surprise home visits to legitimate gun owners.

Why else, it turns out, have a gun registry, except to identify those honest citizens in the best position to resist excessive government—like the barons and others who resisted King John’s excesses? Like those later colonial Americans who resisted King George III’s excesses?

And this is where our own gun control lobby and the Progressives in our own government are headed.