Daily Archives: 22 December 2014

The PRC’s Misunderstanding

Posted on by
Reply

After too much hemming and hawing, the US finally got around to approving the sale of four, used, Oliver Hazard Perry class guided-missile frigates to the Republic of China. Even used, these combat ships represent a considerable boost to Chinese national security.

Naturally, the People’s Republic of China is…up in arms. The PRC’s Foreign Affairs Minister of objected, asserting that helping arm RoC

blatantly interferes in China’s domestic affairs and undermines China’s sovereignty and security interests[.]

Of course, the sale does no such thing. In fact, it enhances RoC Chinese sovereignty and security interests. It plainly doesn’t represent a threat, or any impediment, to the PRC’s national security, except in the fevered imaginations of PRC President Xi Jinping his Foreign Affairs Minister.

Unless the PRC has designs on the RoC.

Misunderstanding

Posted on by
Reply

…by Howard Kurtz in his recent Fox News piece.

Sony’s unforgivable blunder was in making this misbegotten movie in the first place. I mean, an assassination “comedy” that includes Kim Jong Un’s head being blown up, with an internal debate over how much his hair should be on fire? As Greta Van Susteren tweeted, “Anyone who has been to NK knows how dangerous it is and would not have been so stupid to make that movie.” Sony Pictures and Seth Rogen didn’t even have the wit to make it about a fictional regime with a short leader.

No. Sony and Rogen had plenty of wit—they had the wit to skewer a living, breathing thug who’s starving his own people.

Kurtz misunderstands completely. The quality of the movie, the degree of its comedy, are wholly irrelevant. Folks like Kim “Bébé Doc” Jong-un are exactly the ones who need to be called out, satirized, ridiculed, caviled, and by name.

The point of free speech, the reason it’s at the center of liberty, is to allow men to speak their minds on any subject—especially including calling out, to facilitate their removal, political thugs.

Sony’s unforgivable blunder was not in making a movie but in collapsing into their fetal ball in the face of some threats.