Category Archives: ethics

“Freedom” in Hong Kong

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Natasha Khan had a piece in Sunday’s Wall Street Journal concerning the implications of the People’s Republic of China’s 30 years ago Tiananmen Square bloody crackdown on today’s Hong Kong, especially in light of the PRC’s increasing and increasingly direct control over Hong Kong.  In the course of that piece, Khan asked about the implications of tightening freedoms on Hong Kong’s position as an international finance center.

To which I answer:

The implications of the PRC’s “tightening” of freedoms in Hong Kong are obvious and universal. The “tightening” is not that, it’s a direct attack on those freedoms with a view to converting them from actual freedoms to freedom to do as the PRC and its ruling Communist Party of China require.

Such an attack can only result in the destruction of freedom, and from that, the destruction of a people’s ability to prosper physically and morally.

The proximate impact will be the destruction of free market business in Hong Kong, followed by the departure of foreign businesses from Hong Kong, taking with them their economic activity and their jobs. That will lead to the impoverishment of the Hong Kong people.

There’s an upside, though. It’ll provide a clear, empirically done object lesson of the differences in outcomes between free markets and freedom on the one hand and a centrally controlled economy and freedom to do whatever the men running the Communist Party of China will allow from time to time on the other hand.

Trump Commentary

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There is much commentary, generally negative, over President Donald Trump’s statements, among others, that he likes the idea of Boris Johnson succeeding outgoing British Prime Minister Theresa May.  It’s unbecoming. It’s unpresidential. Mostly, though, it’s simply not supposed to be done for one foreign dignitary to comment on the doings of another nation’s political debate.

I’ll ignore the foolishness of “unbecoming” and “unpresidential;” those objecting on these grounds routinely shy away from saying what they mean by “unbecoming” or “unpresidential.”  We’re simply supposed to accept their august pronouncements without question.

There’re a couple of larger issues in play here, though.

Why shouldn’t Trump weigh in on this or that British political debate?  After all, the Brits, including Sadiq Khan and Jeremy Corbin among several, routinely weigh in on American political debates.

More important than the triviality of such tit-for-tat, though, objecting to his speaking up—or to Khan’s/Corbin’s speaking up—insults the citizens of both countries: those objecting are saying that the citizens are so droolingly stupid that they’ll actually be swayed by what a foreign leader says about their own leadership or what that foreign leader says about any other domestic matter.

A Nutshell

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On the matter of the House voting up the US Mexico Canada Agreement, the trade agreement agreed among the US, Canada, and Mexico to replace NAFTA, Congressman Gerry Connolly (D, VA) had this to say:

Given his behavior, I don’t see some great groundswell of support for this on our side of our aisle. I’m a free trader and I’m in no rush to approve this agreement.

That is the Progressive-Democratic Party’s hysterical anti-Trumpism in a nutshell. Party opposes the USMCA over Trump’s behavior; its opposition does not consider the merits or lack of merits in the agreement.

Never mind that Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has said his government will proceed with ratifying the USMCA despite President Donald Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on Mexico over the latter’s “migrant” flow failures.

Gun Rights vs Gun Controls

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In a Sunday Wall Street Journal piece about red flag laws as a means of gun control, Zusha Elinson asked whether there are any (other) measures that could unify gun rights and gun control supporters.

I say there are none.  Full stop.

Gun rights supporters want the 2nd Amendment honored as it’s written. That’s it, and it’s that simple.

Gun control supporters, though, don’t care about the 2nd Amendment, except to the extent they’re willing to go to the trouble of repealing it rather than simply ignoring it. This is demonstrated by a couple of things central to their position.

One is their demand to dictate our purpose in having this or that weapon—”Why does anyone need an assault weapon” and “You don’t need that for defense” and “You don’t need that at all.”

The other is their flat refusal to identify their limiting principle on their controls. Where would they stop? What natural condition in our Constitution would set a limit? Gun control supporters refuse to say; they just natter on about “just this sensible control,” or “just that sensible control,” or “common sense controls” generally.

And, of course, it’s their common sense, not anyone else’s.

Concerning Elinson’s main thesis, red flag laws allow authorities to seize, ostensibly temporarily, firearms from people someone has accused of being threats.

The problem with red flag laws is that they have no protections against the flag being raised falsely because the complainer has an axe to grind; or a grudge to push; or someone is oversensitive or overreacting, vis. a grade school teacher who doesn’t want to hear little Sally talking about granddad’s pistol so the teacher denounces granddad; or….

Nor are there any mechanisms beyond pretty words for returning confiscated weapons to the owner once the false flag is identified or the legitimately raised flag’s concern satisfied.

And this: they leave no means of protection for anyone else in the household from which the weapons have been confiscated. Those members are left completely defenseless.

Those last two are consistent with (though by themselves not dispositive of) gun control advocates’ desire to disarm us.

More Censorship Demands

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There’s a doctored video on Facebook that purports to show House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) drunk—or in the aftermath of a mild stroke, or…—, it’s been up for several days, and it’s well-known to have been doctored.

Of course, Progressive-Democrats are in an uproar over it and over Facebook’s refusal to remove the video altogether, even though the company has flagged it and downgraded, based on evidence of the video’s faked nature, its rate of appearance in user news feeds.  I disapprove of the video, also, but only because there are plenty of things over which to criticize Pelosi and her fellows without making stuff up, too, and the fakery reduces the overall credibility of those with legitimate criticisms.  However, I don’t want it taken down; that would be rank censorship.

Which brings me to my point.  The Progressive-Democrats are going too far, and Facebook may finally be getting something right.  Here’s Senator Mark Warner (D, VA), Senate Intelligence Committee Ranking Member, as cited by The Hill:

lawmakers need to put “guardrails in place” to prevent a “crisis of confidence” in what consumers see on social media platforms.

Who cares if consumers don’t automatically believe what they see on social media platforms?  Folks in the center and to the right already are skeptical of what they see in the media, whether social or so-called news, as they should be.  It’s only those to the left of center and beyond who care; it’s only the Left and its Progressive-Democratic Party who want whatever they put up to be unquestioningly accepted at face value.

Here’s Monika Bickert, Head of Global Policy Management at Facebook:

We think it’s important for people to make their own informed choice about what to believe[.]

Yewbetcha.