Tag Archives: freedom

A Continued Power Grab

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The People’s Republic of China objects to the sale of defensive weapons to the Republic of China.

China will sanction US firms that participate in arms sales to Taiwan [The Wall Street Journal‘s conflation of the island with the nation that sits on the island], after Washington approved sales of $2.2 billion in tanks, missiles and related military hardware, Beijing said.

The PRC’s Foreign Ministry has justified the threat with this:

the arms sales “harmed China’s sovereignty and national security”

Of course, it does no harm to the PRC’ sovereignty to sell weapons to a sovereign nation.  Of course it does no harm to the PRC’s national security to sell defensive weapons to a sovereign nation that’s so much smaller than the PRC.

All the sale does is increase a sovereign nation’s ability to defend itself against the aggression, the threats of invasion, which the PRC has so repeatedly leveled against that sovereign nation.  If the PRC has no such aggressive intent, it has nothing to fear from the sale.

The PRC’s moves would be nonsensical, did they not amount to such a cynical and naked and continued grab for power.

Cynicism

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Hong Kong Chief Executive and People’s Republic of China Senior Employee Carrie Lam claims that her Extradition to the PRC Bill is “dead.”

However, the subheadline says it all:

We hope people will not read a different meaning just because we are using a different word

She continues, after all, to refuse to explicitly withdraw her bill.  “Trust me.”

The people of Hong Kong are right to be…skeptical.  Lam really does need to go, as do most of her subordinates down through several layers of her hierarchy, but PRC President Xi Jinping is unlikely to permit it.

A Bit on the Citizenship Question

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The Electronic Privacy Information Center sued Commerce and the Census Bureau in Federal court over the inclusion of a citizenship question in the upcoming census.  EPIC centered its case on the premise that these agencies must explain the impact on privacy of such a question prior to

initiating a collection of new information

when that collection involves electronically stored, personally identifiable information.

The DC Circuit correctly tossed the case on the grounds that EPIC had suffered no harm, so it had no standing to sue.

That’s too bad, though, because EPIC also was wrong on the facts.  Between 1970 and 2010, the Census Bureau, in addition to a short-form census form sent to everyone present in the US, sent a long-form census form to a significant subset of that population, and that long-form version contained the citizenship question.  As recently as 1950, the census included the citizenship question on every form sent out.  As recently as 1960, the census asked after place of birth—which clearly is a citizenship question, since being born under US jurisdiction (vis., in the US, on a US military installation on foreign soil, etc) makes one a citizen.

The conclusion is obvious.  Nor Commerce nor the Census Bureau have any obligation to conduct a “privacy impact” assessment and publish any statement of that impact: Census isn’t collecting new information; it’s merely attempting to resume collecting information it routinely had collected in the recent past.

Separately, I won’t go far into how the 14th Amendment makes the question an absolute necessity, except to point out the following.  Section 2 of the 14th says this [emphasis added]:

But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

While representation is apportioned according to the number of persons present in each State, the sanction for abridging the right to vote is based on citizenship, not mere presence.  (Lest anyone get their panties in a bunch over that “male citizens” part, the 19th Amendment cleared that.)  It’s impossible to carry out that sanction without knowing the number of actual citizens in each State.

And with Progressive-Democrats constantly bleating about voter suppression, the ability to apply that sanction clearly is necessary.

Hong Kong Protests

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And the People’s Republic of China threatens.  Hong Kong citizens have been protesting a PRC-endorsed law proposal that would allow Hong Kongese and others resident in or visiting Hong Kong to be extradited to the mainland for trial in the PRC’s government-run court system.

[The PRC’s] government signaled its fraying patience with protesters in Hong Kong after they stormed the city’s legislature, calling the violent turn a direct challenge to Beijing’s authority and suggesting it would have to be answered.
Public statements from Beijing marked a shift in Chinese leaders’ attitude toward the crisis in the semiautonomous territory, indicating they may be forced to step in….

Consistent with that, the PLA’s Hong Kong garrison has begun “emergency handling” exercises.

And this:

The [PRC] government’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office called the protests a “blatant challenge to the bottom line of ‘one country, two systems’….”

Hardly.  The PRC’s proposed extradition law for Hong Kong is a deliberate threat to the two systems part.  Yet, here’s Zhang Jian, Associate Research Fellow at the Shanghai Institute of International Studies:

The suspension of the bill is tantamount to a withdrawal. There is no more room for backing down, no more ground for retreating.

This, of course, is nonsense. Suspension is not withdrawal, it’s a deliberate attempt to keep the extradition bill alive for later, quieter reconsideration and for enactment out of site of the peasantry. There’s plenty of room for continued action: the actual withdrawal of the bill.

Beijing has often appeared tolerant in the face of mass protests in mainland China and Hong Kong—and when passions and attention fade, authorities detain, attack, or otherwise punish ringleaders to prevent a recurrence.

To be sure, that’s a faux patience, and the tanks may well roll across the bridges, just as they rolled into Tiananmen Square not so very long ago when another bunch of uppity peasants demanded freedom.

Pick One

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Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis (R) signed a bill that returns the ability to vote to felons when certain conditions are met.  However, in his piece at the link, Arian Campo-Flores wrote

Under the bill, the state doesn’t automatically restore rights to felons who completed their sentences but have outstanding fines, fees, or restitution—common for many released from prison.

That’s a misunderstanding of the law and of the Florida Constitutional Amendment that prompted it. Either the felon has completed his sentence, or he has not. If he still has outstanding fines, fees, or restitution, he hasn’t completed his sentence.

Being released from prison is an important milestone, but it in no way signifies completion of anything. Here is Florida’s Voting Restoration Amendment as it appeared on the ballot:

Constitutional Amendment Article VI, Section 4. Voting Restoration Amendment This amendment restores the voting rights of Floridians with felony convictions after they complete all terms of their sentence including parole or probation. The amendment would not apply to those convicted of murder or sexual offenses, who would continue to be permanently barred from voting unless the Governor and Cabinet vote to restore their voting rights on a case by case basis.

The Amendment passed, and this is how it appears in the Florida Constitution [non-italicized emphasis added]

Article VI, Section 4. Disqualifications.—
(a) No person convicted of a felony, or adjudicated in this or any other state to be mentally incompetent, shall be qualified to vote or hold office until restoration of civil rights or removal of disability. Except as provided in subsection (b) of this section, any disqualification from voting arising from a felony conviction shall terminate and voting rights shall be restored upon completion of all terms of sentence including parole or probation.
(b) No person convicted of murder or a felony sexual offense shall be qualified to vote until restoration of civil rights.

All terms of their sentence means all terms, not some of them.