Category Archives: morality

The Coming End to the Crisis in Hong Kong

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The Wall Street Journal, in its piece on the latest and bloodiest overreaction by the People’s Republic of China’s President Xi Jiping to the protests in Hong Kong, asked how “the Hong Kong crisis can be deescalated.”

It will be in the same way that the Tiananmen Square crisis was deescalated; this is made clear by Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Colonel Wu Qian. The WSJ cited him as saying that [emphasis added]

[President Xi Jinping] gave “the highest direction of the central government” to end violence and restore order in Hong Kong. He called it the army’s most pressing task in Hong Kong.

Look for the tanks to roll in the not-to-distant future.

California’s Progressive-Democrats

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They have a homeless problem, and they seem oblivious to it.

Oakland has seen a 47% jump in homelessness—one of the largest surges of any California city, according to a one-night street count released in July. The count, which used federal guidelines, showed Oakland had 4,071 homeless people in 2019, up from 2,761 in 2017. The increase puts the city’s per capita homeless rate higher than neighboring San Francisco and Berkeley and comes at a time when several West Coast cities are struggling with a homeless crisis that’s being driven by rising rents, drug addiction, mental illness and pushback from progressives.

San Francisco, Berkeley, Palo Alto, Los Angeles—the list goes on—have a severe homeless crisis.

One could almost get the impression that Congress’ Progressive-Democratic Party politicians from California just don’t care about the plight of their constituents.

It’s not just California’s Progressive-Democrat-run cities, either.  San Antonio has one so bad that the State has had to move in and try to clean the streets and under-bridge areas for them.  Seattle is just as bad.  Chicago and New York City have the same thing, although they’re less publicized, and their respective State governments—Progressive-Democrat-run—don’t provide, or even offer, any help.  Baltimore is infamous for its terrible neighborhoods.

This is what those Progressive-Democrats in Congress should be working on instead of their smear sham impeachment election year campaign.  These folks are their constituents, not the lobbyists, pressmen, and reflectors in their DC echo chamber.

One could almost get the impression that Congress’ Progressive-Democratic Party politicians everywhere just don’t care about the plight of their constituents.

US Olympic Committee

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Now styled US Olympic & Paralympic Committee, the body objects to being held accountable for its abominable handling of the sexual abuse of so many of its athletes for so long—indeed for its active suppression of complaints about those abuses.  The Senate Commerce Committee voted to send to the floor for debate and vote a bill that would authorize

Congress to vote to dissolve [the USOPC] board of directors and terminate any national governing body, which run specific sports within the U.S.

USOPC Chief Executive Sarah Hirshland had sent the Committee a letter threatening objecting to that:

[USOPC Chief Executive Sarah] Hirshland had told members of the Senate Commerce Committee: “The International Olympic Committee has made clear that Congress assuming the power to dissolve the USOPC board would violate the Olympic Charter and endanger our recognition by the IOC as a National Olympic Committee.”

Hirschland had gone further:

The International Olympic Committee has made clear that Congress assuming the power to dissolve the USOPC board would violate the Olympic Charter and endanger our recognition by the IOC as a National Olympic Committee.

In the end, the Committee called her bluff.

One of Hirschland’s few supporters, though, was Senator Mike Lee (R, UT) who made his usual libertarian-esque argument that

Washington had no right to act as judge, jury and executioner over the committee…and that the US should hold itself to higher standards than China in the operation of its Olympic movement. He also said that passing the bill would heighten IOC scrutiny on the US committee.

Because the IOC is such a paragon of virtue, too.

I often agree with Lee, but here, he’s mistaken. The protection of our children from predators is one area where the Federal government must play a role, albeit not exclusive of the States’ equally necessary role. I do agree with him, though, that we should hold ourselves to higher standards than those the People’s Republic of China employs in the operation of its Olympic movement.  This bill is a step in that direction.

“Enemy of the People”

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The good citizens of Hong Kong continue to protest the despotism of PRC President Xi Jinping’s satrap government in Hong Kong, and Xi’s Governess, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam is coming unraveled as she’s squeezed from one side by the ongoing protests against her rule and from the other side by Xi’s increasing demand that she get this right.

Her police, for some time, have taken to shooting protestors at point blank range, firing water cannon with dyed water so protestors can be identified and arrested for their effrontery—260 arrests from Monday’s protests alone—siccing Hong Kong’s mafia-esque thugs on the protestors.

Lam now is calling the protestors “the enemy of the people.”

No.  The protestors are the people.  Neither the despot in Beijing nor his satrap in Hong Kong seem capable of understanding that.

Disgusting

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On Veteran’s Day, last Monday, University of Virginia President James Ryan—you remember Virginia, the State that just went full-on Progressive-Democrat the prior week—canceled the University’s 21-gun salute part of what used to be the school’s Veterans Day ceremony.  Ryan’s rationalization (as opposed to rationale) was two-fold.

[F]irst, to minimize disruptions to classes, given that this event is located at the juncture of four primary academic buildings and is held at a time that classes are in session….

Surprisingly (or perhaps not), it seems never to have occurred to him that classes could have been not in session on this day, or during this hour, or that students could have been allowed excused absences on this day, or during this hour.

His other rationalization:

second, recognizing concerns related to firing weapons on the Grounds in light of gun violence that has happened across our nation, especially on school and university campuses.

Because, apparently, Ryan has no confidence in his professors’ ability to teach UVA pupils enough capacity for critical thought to be able to distinguish between real gun violence (a rarity) and a celebratory firing, annually, to honor those who fought, were killed, or were maimed in defense of the right to be snowflakes.

Consistent with the foregoing, though, Ryan chose to duck his role in this business, blaming it on his Provost and the ROTC commander. He doesn’t even have the courage of his own convictions.

 

H/t Texan99, writing on Grim’s Hall.