Category Archives: culture

Hong Kong and Freedom

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The backdrop is this: in the last few days in the Hong Kong district of Mong Kok, there have been violent clashes between peaceful student and other protestors on the one hand and “locals” consisting, allegedly, of older residents and small business owners mixed with members of the triads on the other hand, this mix attacking the protesters. The latter are losing income from their prostitution and drug…enterprises…and they’re upset about it.

My own view is that the residents and business owners are being provoked and the triads winked at by the PRC in the hope of getting sufficient pretext to justify the government’s coming violent crackdown. That’s a separate question, though; what interests me here are the charges being leveled by the current Hong Kong administration against those who were arrested during those weekend clashes.

Hong Kong’s Secretary for Security, Lai Tung-kwok, said that among other charges, those arrested had been charged with unlawful assembly.

How is it possible to unlawfully assemble in a free society?

PRC, Hong Kong, and Rights

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The situation in Hong Kong, which the People’s Republic of China has created with its high-handed treatment of the Special Administrative Region, is getting tighter.

[Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying] Leung told voters it is better to agree to Beijing’s plans for nominating candidates and to hold an election, than to stick with the current system of having an Election Commission choose the chief executive.

“It is definitely better to have universal suffrage than not,” Leung said. “It is definitely better to have the chief executive elected by 5 million eligible voters than by 1,200 people. And it is definitely better to cast your vote at the polling station than to stay home and watch on television the 1,200 members of the Election Committee cast their votes.”

This is cynically misleading. The 1,200 to whom Leung referred are the nominating committee of the Communist Party of China. They’ve been the ones—and they continue to be the ones, now formally under the control of the Party’s Standing Committee—who will determine who the candidates will be that those “5 million eligible voters” can select from. Those 5 million are only being allowed to rubber stamp the selection made by those 1,200. This is no elective choice. Of course, Leung and his PRC masters know this.

And

[PRC President] Xi Jinping, who has taken a hard line against any perceived threat to the Communist Party’s hold on power, vowed in a National Day speech to “steadfastly safeguard” Hong Kong’s prosperity and stability.

This is just wind in the trees. Xi knows full well that Beijing cannot “steadfastly safeguard” Hong Kong’s prosperity and stability. Only the people of Hong Kong, acting for and by themselves, without outside interference, can do that.

And

China’s government…so far it has not overtly intervened, leaving Hong Kong authorities to handle the crisis.

This is a misunderstanding. The Hong Kong authorities are in the streets, not in the government buildings. The people are sovereign over their government in a free state. Of course, this is hard to realize from inside a despotic state.

The protesters, upset that Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying has refused to meet them, have threatened to expand their demonstrations unless he resigns and the Chinese leadership agrees to broader electoral reforms.

It’s clear from the breadth of these protests, that the PRC has lost the consent of the Hong Kong-ese to govern them. PRC governance, thus, is illegitimate. This is corroborated by the protest news clampdown the PRC has done, especially in contrast to the freely flowing protest news within Hong Kong.

And finally, there’s this failure, this one from the West.

British Prime Minister David Cameron saying he planned to summon the Chinese ambassador to discuss the dispute, saying it is essential that Hong Kong’s people have a genuine right to choose their top leader.

This is an even greater misunderstanding, both by its existence and coming as it does from the leader of the birthplace of John Locke. No, Prime Minister, each one of Hong Kong’s people is created with an inalienable right to his own liberty and happiness. That means he has an inalienable right to choose his own government and the men who operate it. What is essential is that Hong Kong’s people have that right genuinely acknowledged and accepted.

A Thought on Birth Control

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Dr Manny Alvarez, one of the house doctors for Fox News, had a useful piece the other day on teen birth control, in particular IUDs. He’s basically spring-loaded against them for teenage girls, for a number of reasons.

Very common side effects of placing this foreign object inside the womb include cramping, spotting, heavy menstrual flow and possibly even an infection that could lead to a condition called pelvic inflammatory disease, ultimately rendering the individual infertile.

Not to mention, uterine perforation—although extremely rare….

Rather than IUDs, Alvarez pushed for more sexual education information from (and for, say I) parents and physicians.

This is a right step, but I think there’s another aspect to IUD use that’s overlooked. Pregnancy is a serious thing that disrupts and alters lives and is the creation of a new one, and pregnancy does this whether it’s wanted or accidental.

An IUD, leaving aside its side effects, is a fire-and-forget device: by design, it’s intended to block pregnancy for a long time, so the woman and her partner don’t have to think about it while they’re being sexually active. This is fine for adults.

However, the teen years are where habits are being set on matters regarding sex and the outcomes of sex. It’s useful, then—it’s actively beneficial—for the teen girl to think about this more than on just the single occasion of getting the IUD installed. She’ll form better habits regarding safe sex (including STDs, even though birth control, per se, does nothing to counter these) if she’s encouraged to think about it more often, at the least on the occasion of taking her daily birth control pill.

The same habit benefit accrues to the each time use of a condom by the boy, even if the condom isn’t as effective as a birth control pill.

Some Thoughts on Immigration

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Started 24 years ago, the EB-5 program allots 10,000 visas annually to foreigners who invest at least $500,000 in US development projects, from dairy farms and ski resorts to hotels and bridges. In return, the investor and family members become eligible for green cards, or permanent residency, typically within two years.

There are similar quotas, if not monetary requirements, on the other visas we issue.

But why? Immigrants are good for the United States: they bring with them ideas, problem solving techniques, entrepreneurship, a demonstrated view of the importance of family, and so on.

Beyond that, they are spring-loaded to take to heart the modern Conservative/18th Century Liberal view of their personal responsibility and liberty, and the proper role of limited government in their lives (in too many cases, they’re coming here explicitly to escape an intrusive, controlling government)—they already possess much of that view.

Why are modern Conservatives afraid? In any contest of ideas, the Conservative message will resonate with the majority. Immigrants are not at all “natural Democrats.” Far from it: they’re natural Conservatives.

A Little Bit About Fighting

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This came up a while ago from Bing West’s book, The Wrong War.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Adm Michael Mullen, was fond of saying, “we can’t kill our way to victory.” That was political drivel. If the Taliban weren’t killing people, there wouldn’t be 100,000 American troops in Afghanistan. It was comparable to a police chief saying, “Arrests are not the solution to crime”—a vacuity sure to result in fewer arrests. War is centered on killing. The grunts knew that, even if their own generals did not. Killing was not the solution, but it was the means to the solution.

It’s still true, and it’s especially applicable today as the Obama administration pays lip service to taking on ISIS. We need to take this war seriously, and set about doing a couple of things:

  • getting serious about fighting—and killing—these terrorists, rather than just taking potshots from the air
  • repairing our reputation with our friends, allies, and enemies so that we can get a real coalition going and take the fight to these terrorists, on the ground as well as from the air.

It’s also applicable today as so many on the Left argue that this isn’t a war we should be fighting, it’s a wrong war. Never mind that if we don’t fight today, there, the terrorists will force us to fight tomorrow, here.

The time for talking is long past. Three administrations have tried talking, including the present one for six interminable years. Words don’t stop terrorists.