Tag Archives: freedom

Information Flow, PRC Style

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Last month the People’s Republic of China’s government news service, Xinhua News Service, carried a statement from the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) concerning the PRC’s decision about what the Chinese people will be permitted to see on theirthe government’s television sets.  The translation is courtesy of NightWatch.

A recently implemented rule has effectively curbed the “excessive entertainment” trend as two-thirds of the entertainment programs on China’s 34 satellite channels have been cut….  According to an SARFT directive last October, each of the country’s satellite channels would be limited to broadcasting two entertainment programs each week and a maximum of 90 minutes of content defined as entertainment every day during primetime….  The directive also required channels to broadcast at least two hours of news programming.

The restricted programs on the SARFT list include dating shows, talent contests, talk shows as well as emotional stories that were deemed ‘excessive entertainment’ and of “low taste.”  …the satellite channels have started to broadcast programs that promote traditional virtues and socialist core values.  The newly-added programs…are documentaries as well as cultural and educational programs….  The SARFT believes that the move to cut entertainment programming is crucial in improving cultural services for the public….

Nothing like limiting speech “for their own good.”  The Chinese people apparently are sufficiently bereft in judgment that they cannot be left to their own devices—or to their own decisions concerning what speech they might wish to hear.

KnightWatch reminds us that the PRC does not have freedom of speech.  It’s important to note, also, that these broadcasting restrictions are consistent with another fundamental ideological position of the PRC: free markets, free speech, freedom of association, and so on are not inalienable rights; they are privileges granted by government, to be adjusted from time to time solely according to government judgment.

Consider also, the background of this broadcasting move.  In response to increasing influence in the PRC  by Western culture and ideas, which has been facilitated by increasing foreign trade (and some loosening of economic strictures in the direction of freer markets), which in turn helps foster an increasingly prosperous peasant and middle class population (at least by historical Chinese standards), Chinese leadership is pulling back and retightening restrictions.

Last fall, the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee approved an explicitly ideological foundation for cultural activities, announcing a new policy specifically to eliminate many Western entertainment shows and so limit much foreign influence.  Moreover, the PRC government earlier this year ordered internet service providers to ensure that microblog posters (a rough equivalent to the Western Twitter facility) have registered their accounts under their real names—no anonymity here. The government also has pressured those running the microblog platforms to censor themselves “voluntarily.”

So, I ask: of what is the PRC government so afraid?  Oh, wait—it’s the men populating the government…. And I ask further: why do we want these guys for our national banker?

h/t Business Insider

The Constitution: Who Needs It?

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Certainly not our Progressive Supreme Court Justices.  Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg doesn’t even think our Constitution is a worthy for others drafting a new one:

I would not look to the U.S. Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012.

I might look at the constitution of South Africa.  That was a deliberate attempt to have a fundamental instrument of government that embraced basic human rights, had an independent judiciary.

The South African constitution is interesting for how it treats individual rights and Justice Ginsburg’s independent judiciary.  There’s this on rights [emphasis added]:

When interpreting the Bill of Rights, a court, tribunal or forum must promote the values that underlie an open and democratic society based on human dignity, equality and freedom; must consider international law; and may consider foreign law.

Their Constitution notes this in its Preamble:

We therefore, through our freely elected representatives, adopt this Constitution as the supreme law of the Republic

It wasn’t even adopted directly by the people, as ours was, just by their government.

Their Constitution notes this about their Bill of Rights [emphasis added]:

7. Rights.-
( 1) This Bill of Rights is a cornerstone of democracy in South Africa. It enshrines the rights of all people in our country and affirms the democratic values of human dignity, equality and freedom.
…
(3) The rights in the Bill of Rights are subject to the limitations contained or referred to in section 36, or elsewhere in the Bill

Here is what Section 36 says about limiting those “Rights.

36. Limitation of rights.-
(1) The rights in the Bill of Rights may be limited only in terms of law of general application to the extent that the limitation is reasonable and justifiable in an open and democratic society based on human dignity, equality and freedom, taking into account all relevant factors, including-
(a) the nature of the right;
(b) the importance of the purpose of the limitation;
(c) the nature and extent of the limitation;
(d) the relation between the limitation and its purpose; and
(e) less restrictive means to achieve the purpose.
(2) Except as provided in subsection (1) or in any other provision of the Constitution, no law may limit any right entrenched in the Bill of Rights.

The Government gave, the Government hath taken away.

I won’t go into the vasty enumeration of “fundamental” rights (34 pages worth!), that is an enshrinement of “rights” that are the fallout of individual decisions made under our Creator-given and inalienable ones.

Now here is Justice Ginsberg’s “independent” judiciary

(4) Only the Constitutional Court may-
(6) decide on the constitutionality of any amendment to the Constitution:

And this [emphasis added]

173. Inherent power.-
The Constitutional Court, Supreme Court of Appeal and High Courts have the inherent power to protect and regulate their own process, and to develop the common law, taking into account the interests of justice….

This isn’t “independent.”  This is superior, the final despot.  The people aren’t to be allowed to decide for themselves what their Constitution will say.  Ultimately, the people’s representatives will not be permitted to make the law in their name—the courts’ common law will overwhelm.

This is what a Progressive Justice of the Supreme Court thinks is a superior constitution.

Hypocrisy

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Fox News is reporting that the People’s Republic of China is claiming that

it was forced to veto a United Nations vote on Syria because it was called before differences in the proposal were bridged, but denied playing spoiler and said it wants to see an end to violence there.

Forced.  Poor babies.  The resolution that the PRC (and Russia) chose to veto would have been a move toward ending nearly a year of Bashar Assad’s killing—to the tune of 5,400—of his own people since last March.

The PRC justifies itself by insisting that the resolution, as written, unduly pressured…the Syrian government.  This is a strange, but strangely consistent, objection coming from a country with similar problems in Tibet, and in its Xinjiang province (which is populated with all those uppity Uighurs.  Oh, yeah, and that also is the PRC’s largest natural gas-producing region).  This also comes from a country that still maintains it has a right to conquer the Republic of China.

Liu Weimin, a spokesman for the PRC’s Foreign Ministry, insisted that that too-early Security Council vote was forced before suitable (Chinese diluting) amendments had been agreed.   This, though, ignores the fact that the PRC never would have accepted a resolution that had actual teeth for ending the Syrian government’s butcherybloodshed.  Just as it had consistently demanded watering down earlier versions of the resolution.

Liu also denied that the PRC was favoring Assad, in particular.  Yet this is exactly the outcome of the Chinese veto.

The People’s Daily  opined

The present situation in Syria is extremely complicated.  To naively back one side, while attacking the other side, might look like bringing about a favorable turn, but is actually just laying up trouble ahead.

No.  It’s not complicated at all.  Either the PRC supports Assad and his behavior, or it does not.  In the meantime, people are dying today.  But that’s no trouble at all.

We don’t need to keep taking the PRC seriously on the political stage; we can ignore and bypass them—and we should ignore and bypass them, so long as they continue to side with bloody despotism.

These Chinese are not just on the wrong side of history—they’re on the wrong side of morality.

Resetting with Russia and China

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Given Russia’s and the People’s Republic of China’s veto of an Arab League motion before the UN’s Security Council “aimed at ending the violence in Syria that called for Mr. Assad to hand over his powers to his vice president and allow creation of a unity government,” vetoes that came hours after Assad’s murderous artillery bombardment of the Syrian city of Homs with an estimated 200 civilian deaths )about which Russia and the PRC surely knew), it may be time to “reset” relations.

Plainly, these vetoes are motivated by either, or both, of two things.  Others have written of Putin’s reluctance to admit that a dysfunctional, even dishonest, much less a murderous government should be susceptible to abolishment by the people: for one thing, Syria is important to a Russian naval presence in the Med, for another, Putin doesn’t want to encourage the Russian people along the same lines, and so on.  Other Chinese motives also seem apparent: Iran is a convenient source of needed oil, and Syria is an important, if not critical, ally of the Iranians.

Another motive is much more stark.  A butcher in charge of Syria hurts the US.  American impotence in dealing with this butcher, especially after the benign (compared to the Syrian situation) affair of Gadhafi, hurts the US.  Vetoes of American-backed (if Arab-led in the present instance) public initiatives demonstrate that impotence.

Following these vetoes, we’re getting some unusually strongly couched statements from President Obama’s State Department.  UN Ambassador Susan Rice has said of the vetoes

The United States is disgusted that a couple of members of this Council continue to prevent us from fulfilling our sole purpose.

and

The people of Syria…have been slapped in the face by several members of the Security Council today.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said

What happened yesterday at the United Nations was a travesty.

and

Faced with a neutered Security Council, we have to redouble our efforts outside of the United Nations….

and

We will work to expose those who are still funding the regime and sending it weapons to be used against defenseless Syrians, including women and children….

The question becomes, then, is this a sign that resetting is beginning?  Or is it just more idle chit-chat and firm finger-shaking from the Obama administration?

First Racism, Now Bullying (Cont’d)

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I first posted on this subject last week.  It’s a matter that concerns a school administrator’s definition of a student’s essay, written for a sanctioned debate, as bullying  for the sole reason, apparently, that the essay expressed opposition to adoption by gay couples.  In that post, I wrote that I had emailed District Superintendent Todd Carlson, the administrator who found the dissenting opinion an act of bullying, the following questions:

1) The hoo-raw is about a student newspaper op-ed debate in the form of an essay supporting gay couple adoption and an essay opposing gay couple adoption.  Is this a fair characterization of the newspaper’s debate?
2) I request access to copies of the student essays written in favor of and in opposition to gay couples and adoption.
3) You are reported as saying “It is a form of bullying or disrespect to a group of people” in reference to the “anti” essay.  Is this an accurate quote?  If so, please advise how the “anti” position could have made without such bullying.  What terms and arguments would have been acceptable?

Dr Carlson has chosen not to respond.

Mathew Staver, founder of the Liberty Counsel, wrote to Dr Carlson also decrying the Superintendent’s bullying.  Staver described Carlson’s own bullying.

He’s using his position to bully this student. This is absolutely the epitome of intolerance….
When Mr. Wegner stated that he did not regret writing [the essay], and that he stood behind his beliefs, Superintendent Carlson told him that he “had got to be one of the most ignorant kids to try to argue with him about this topic[.]”

Then came the threat.  Carlson told Wegner

[W]e have the power to suspend you if we want to.

Although Dr Carlson declined to make the boy’s essay available to me; Staver obtained a copy of both essays in the debate, apparently from a copy of the student newspaper in which the essays originally appeared.  He made the essays available at the above link, and both essays can be read here, as well.

Read the essays, and decide for yourselves whether the boy is “bullying” anyone.

In the meantime, it’s curious that Carlson refuses to explain his own actions, or to explain the manner in which an opposing opinion could be couched in a non-bullying manner.