Tag: Human rights

From MAGA to “MAWA” or “MAMA” – American Far-left Destroying the US One Freedom At a Time.

Many people have written or said many uncomplimentary things about President Donald Trump. Nevertheless, despite the intentionally unfair and untruthful characterizations of his tenure as President, and the TDS (“Trump Derangement Syndrome”) that gripped the far left almost to the point of rendering liberal lemmings apoplectic, America thrived during those 4 years, and enemies of peace, democracy, freedom, capitalism and strength were cowed and rendered mostly impotent (in particular Communist China, the world’s worst threat to peace and prosperity, a genocidal regime hell bent on world domination).

MAGA (“Make America Great Again”) was at the same time a rallying cry for patriotic lovers of the United States and supporters of the American president, Donald J. Trump, and anathema to President Trump’s denouncers and far leftists unhappy with American exceptionalism, who 1. despise America (from inside and outside the US), 2. wish they were America, and had its influence, 3. thrive on chaos and seek power, enemies of freedom in general, 4. are some American allies who are like little guttersnipes nipping at America’s heels, wanting to be what America is without doing what America does, and want what it has, without accomplishing what America has worked so hard to make, and having its power, but being consistently weak and fearful and never leading, always appeasing.

Throughout history, when leftists cannot win, they either change the rules or overthrow. In America now, it has been a two-step process. Using the Coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to change election rules, Democrats expanded “vote-by-mail” (a/k/a “cheat-by-mail”) which essentially allowed for hundreds of thousands if not millions of fraudulent votes to find their way into swing-state ballot boxes, engineering a coup. Now, having installed a cognitively challenged career politician who frankly cannot find his way from the Executive bedroom to the Oval Office without a guide as President, and a trained Marxist as VP, the dangerous far-left, with two dimwits at the helm, have taken over the American government. Enemies? Joyous. Allies? Joyous (grab power by filling in the vacuum left by Barry 2.0). Ordinary Americans? Suffering, suffering, suffering, because that is what the far-left does – destroys culture, economy, discipline, and installs chaos.

The American Marxist plan is to weaken America (hence “MAWA”, “Make America Weak Again”, or “MAMA”, “Make America Marxist Again”, “again” in both cases referring to Barry 1.0), and its agenda is straight out of the Marxist playbook, including Mao’s Little Red Book. Destroying a capitalist republic requires destroying history, culture, education, family units, traditions, holidays, heroes, statues, artwork, books, criminal laws, police, military, the nation’s reputation, and using censorship, criminals, shaming, monopolizing education of the very young, group-think, cancel-culture, fear-mongering, racist tropes, and other similar tactics to justify absolute power, and cancel every democratic institution until there is only far-left absolute power left. In only 6 months, the American left has accomplished a good deal of this.

Every single Marxist regime in history has failed, and failed miserably. It doesn’t matter to the far-left. They are not interested in success. They can’t think that far ahead. Their only target is destroying what exists, not inventing what comes next. That’s why Marxism is so dangerous. It leads nowhere but to the toilet, and that is perfectly suitable for far-leftists. That is their milieu, their comfort zone. Dystopia is their nirvana. This hopeless cycle of destruction cannot be allowed to affect the ONLY force on Earth that can stop evil in its tracks. Europe needs to pay attention. Without America, there only comes chaos.

I firmly believe that most of the nations on Earth resented President Trump for one reason or another. Leftists lamented how he was disliked by enemies and allies alike. Ask me if I care that President Trump was disliked. I do not measure alliances by who is our friend when everything is ok. I measure alliances by who understands who their best friend is when the going gets rough. Every member of the EU understands that in a conflict, the EU cannot protect any part of it, let alone all of Europe. The only place that protection exists is America. For this reason, our function in the world is not to be everyone’s friend or anyone’s friend, or even likeable. Our function is to be the single strongest force on Earth for good, freedom, peace, democracy, human rights, honesty, and protecting each and all of these things. Doing this does not make friends. But for me, it is not necessary for us to be liked, it is only necessary for us to be strong and true and do our job. Barry of course not only did not understand this, he hated it. His first act was to apologize for America’s strength, and deny it. That is why he was weak. Oppeasement. Obamunism. Biden’s regime is a diluted, sick, viral, diseased version of Barry’s pathetic administration. Barry was popular. Trump was powerful. I will take powerful each and every time. Barry can have his fans and dance all night long. He does so now only because Donald saved America from Barry’s pathetic weakness. You’re welcome.

Now we have to start all over and MAGAA – Make America Great Again, Again.

Taipei Times Uncensored

I wrote and posted at the Taipei Times for almost 20 years. When I wrote a comment in the Taipei Times criticizing China for lying about the Wuhan Virus, and then lying about lying about the virus, and when I criticized Tedros for being the lapdog of the Chinese Communist Party for his heaping of oodles of praise on China for its “handling” of the virus, and the WHO’s official policies which inevitably suppressed the initial dangers of the virus in order to mollify Communist China for fear it would cut off the WHO’s access to facts on the ground, I was kicked off Facebook, though my post was published on the Taipei Times website without any issue. Facebook has been censoring comments critical of Communist China and/or Tedros and/or the WHO. As a consequence, I am unable to post at the Taipei Times or comment on any of the articles published there. I wrote to the editor to ask that the Taipei Times provide other access to posting, but thus far no changes have been made. After almost 3 months of being banned, I have decided to post my comments on the Taipei Times here under the title “Taipei Times Uncensored” instead of at the Taipei Times website because in order to comment or post there, you must have a Facebook account, and only a Facebook account. This in effect allows Facebook, which has previously had a pro-Communist Party approach, to censor the posting and comments at the Taipei Times, one of the world’s only pro-Taiwan news organizations. That is a tragic turn of events.

In the Taipei Times on June 6th on Page 8, an editorial was published entitled “States Risk Public’s Violent Anger”, written by Nigel Li, a student at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. The first major mistake in the premise of the article is somehow conflating what is happening in the United States with either the Hong Kong protests, or with action taken by any number of totalitarian states against violent protests. There can be no comparison between the democratic system of government and justice in the United States and those dictatorships, where democracy and justice are unknown. Because the United States has one of the most objective legal systems in the world, and a strong constitution protecting freedom and justice, especially under the First Amendment and the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, there is no need for violence except to wreak havoc or cause chaos, which is the objective of anarchy and revolution, two features of the current socialist/communist wing of the Democratic Party, pushing the Democratic Party run districts so far to the left it has become frightening. Thus every opportunity to cause chaos has been fully supported and in fact instigated by the Democratic Party, including the current riots regarding the death of George Floyd in police custody, which have been taken over by the extreme left.

Anyone familiar with the political climate in the US should by now understand the fear of the Democratic Party that the Wuhan Virus will be mostly resolved in the next few months, that the economy may come roaring back, and that these juggernauts will make it impossible to defeat the incumbent president, Donald Trump. Thus, racial chaos and anarchy is helpful the Democrats believe, to their cause. However, the Democrats are completely tone deaf because they still do not understand the extraordinarily high percentage of Americans who support the protests and yet loathe the riots, and can understand the difference. The calls by the Democrats to “defund the police” is simply another leftist wet dream to leave the state undefended in the face of the anarchy and socialist/communist revolution currently being instigated. Left up to the Democrats, any conservative who doesn’t use the latest leftist approved language should be arrested, but those who loot, steal, sell drugs, commit assault, murder or commit other felonies should not even be arrested, hence “defund the police”. But there are very few in the US who want to go down that road, and the cacophony in the media, which is overwhelmingly in opposition to the President, makes it seem the country is united in opposition to the president and hostile to the police. The left made the same mistake in 2016 and were shocked they lost the election. They are in for another rude awakening.

Secondly, “journalists” (in quotes here because almost all of the liberal press have been reduced to propaganda writers for the Democratic Party, not journalists) should not conflate protests and violence in the United States with those things in totalitarian countries, like Communist China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, and other dictatorships or with the life in Taiwan during the KMT rule, when it inevitably tried to deliver Taiwan into Communist China’s orbit permanently. There is a system of law and justice in the US which has been a model for the developed world for more than 200 years. Protests and even riots against the totalitarian rule of the KMT were justified. If anything, the socialist/communist wing of the Democratic Party is far more like China, the old Soviet Union, Cuba or Venezuela than like the US or Taiwan.

As for racial justice in the United States, the Democratic Party was the party I might remind you of slavery in the United States until Republic Party President Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves with his Emancipation Proclamation and the success of the Civil War in America in the 1860’s. Moreover, the Democratic Party was hardly the party of justice for blacks in the US or for civil rights until the 1960s, and then the Democratic party embarked on a process to buy the votes of minorities in the US through welfare and other programs and to basically establish institutions of government that would spend the next 60 years keeping minorities dependent on welfare and similar programs in order to maintain their voting power. This prevails until today, and we are witnessing yet another step in the process of using race as a justification for anarchy.

When the Democratic Party lost to President Trump in 2016, it was shocked and dismayed, and has spent the past 4 years attempting a coup by a thousand cuts, beginning with a impeachment based on phantom charges of so-called Russian Collusion (failed coup), and then coming up with issue after issue as attempts to justify impeaching the President (all failed). The threshold for impeachment was lowered to ridiculous levels in the US by the desperate Democrats, and their willingness to try anything and everything to unseat the President has possibly damaged the US institution of government permanently.

When impeachment failed, the Democrats decided to use the pandemic as a new justification for criticism of the President and for renewed calls for impeachment, despite it being clear China and the World Health Organization at China’s behest misled the world on the origins of the Wuhan Virus. That failed as well. When the pandemic was turning the corner, cases and deaths dropped to far lower levels, and the economy was on the verge of reopening, the death of George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer engaging in brutal force provided yet another opportunity for the Democratic party to interrupt the recovery by encouraging and supporting weeks of chaos and riots, including murder, violence and looting. The Democratic party, always the party that thrives on chaos, dead bodies and the promise of government money, is now calling for “defunding” the police (whatever the hell that is), and basically reducing the US to a nation without the ability to enforce its law. That is of course the end aim of a party wishing to foment a socialists/communist revolution. In order to do that, the police must be neutered.

On the issue of race in the US, I don’t know what “institutional racism” is. Prominent black leaders (including President Obama) and commentators have for years advised the black communities that single father households and persistent crime do far more to keep blacks from breaking out of ghettos and poverty than racism (“More than half of all black children live in single-parent households, a number that has doubled — doubled — since we were children.”). There is no doubt racism exists, and there is no doubt blacks die at higher rates from gun violence. But the overwhelming number of deaths of blacks by gun violence are not at the hands of white police, or even white shooters, but at the hands of other young black men (over 80%, or more). These statistics are hard to dig out, as the prevailing statistical analysis (to support the Democratic Party narrative of institutional racism) is the number of black victims, not the number of black perpetrators. President Obama over his 8 years at President of the US did nothing to address this “black on black” crime, or the single father home in over 50% of black families, and the effect that has on sons and daughters. The welfare system designed by Democrats, that is paying money to families with a single mother with children and no partner, also encouraged these developments in single parent homes. Obama did speak of this problem a few times between 2008 and 2014, but his administration did nothing to address it. “In 1960, the year before Obama was born, 22 percent of black children lived with single parents. In 1968, the number rose to 31.4 percent. By 2006, the 1960 percentage had more than doubled to 56 percent.” [Politifact fact check]. 

What makes the US different from totalitarian nations like China, Russia, Cuba, Venezuela, N. Korea, Iran and many others is the US has a well-defined system of law and justice in effect and . The police involved in the George Floyd matter have been arrested and will be charged, and tried. They will be permitted to make a defense and a jury will decide their guilt or innocence when all of the facts are known. This does not take place in dictatorships.

The left at this moment does not wish for there to be a trial. They wish for there to be a lynching, and steps in that direction are censorship (e.g. if anyone questions BLM, they are censored), disbanding the police, controlling the populace to conform to the Democratic party’s ideology, changing history and destroying historical icons (e.g. Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln, John Kennedy, Andrew Jackson, and many many others), pulling down statues and monuments, desecrating the US national flag and National Anthem, imposing new language and banning common language (Drew Brees, a celebrated NFL Quarterback spoke about disagreeing with anyone desecrating the flag or the anthem, and he was pounced on by the MSM and the BLM movement, and forced to retract his statement – oddly, his statement is supported by a huge overwhelming majority of Americans). These things are happening now, and have happened before in every instance where socialist/communist revolutions occurred. Those revolutions were accompanied by millions and millions of deaths (in Cambodia over 1.5 million, in Communist China at the hands of Mao between 50-80 million), commonly of professionals, including lawyers, teachers, and others, and murder of capitalism, replaced by state control over every aspect of life. This is what the Democratic Party now seeks, as it is unhappy with a majority of American’s rejecting the Party’s extremist views on most aspects of American life, especially free speech.

The world should be quite worried. If the Democratic party prevails, the US will withdraw as it did under Obama, Taiwan and Israel will be under assault, and Europe will be required to lead the world, and it has demonstrated over and over and over, even today, it does not have the backbone to stand up to Russia, China, Iran, and many other nations determined to resist freedom as a way of life and destroy the West, and lacks the morals or the will or the ability to protect Taiwan or Israel. The world needs the US to be the defender of human rights and freedom, because frankly there is no one else on Earth suited to it or capable of doing it.

Bloomberg’s latest anti-Israel editorial is not only surprising, it is inane – Bloomberg says Israel is 100% responsible for the plight of Palestinians, not Hamas, not the PLO, not Abbas

Don’t look for the words Hamas, PLO or Abbas in the latest anti-Israel editorial offered by Bloomberg in the August 21, 2018 edition of the Taipei Times on P.9 entitled “The Palestinians cannot keep living under Israeli apartheid” penned by Hussein Ibish.

How is it possible to write a 3 page article about the “Palestinians'” misery and not mention the word “Hamas” or the term “PLO” or the name “Abbas”, lingering President of the PLO since 2005 (is there an election in sight)? The “Palestinians” are under the heel of those organizations and that man, not Israel. Israel affords more rights to its Arab citizens than most other Arab countries afford their own citizens. Tens of billions of dollars of aid to the Palestinians are wasted each year on terrorism, bombs, tunnels, brainwashing and corruption, and not to schools, hospitals, education and the betterment of the “Palestinian” people. Hamas and the PLO are dedicated to keeping the “Palestinian” people poor and wretched so that someone can write an article like this. In Bloomberg no less. What a travesty.

Golda Meir, President of Israel said 60 years ago “Peace? We will have no peace with the Arabs until they love their children more than they hate us.” Until they educate their children to be better and stop teaching them to hate Jews, the ultimate racism and Antisemitism in the world, there will be no solution. Israel’s motto is Never Again and it means Never. Ever. Surrounding nations should look to Israel as an example of how to have a successful democratic country in the midst of a sea of tyranny. Israel took a desert and turned it into an oasis. The Palestinians took an oasis and turned it into a desert, and now weep for living in a desert – like a child who murdered his parents and throws himself on the mercy of the Court as an orphan, seeking sympathy. The path to peace runs through Gaza and the PLO, not through Jerusalem. There is no negotiating peace with people who do not want peace, only genocide against the Jews once more. Israel, like Taiwan, is a unique nation, in Israel’s case fighting alone against a sea of racism, and in the case of Taiwan, against international greed and addiction for Chinese lucre. Great people and great ideas persist in the midst of adversity. Israel and Taiwan will prevail.

The fact Mr. Ibish’s article argues for Israel to be prevented from being a Jewish state (among a surrounding and nearby 24 nations which are Islamic states or Arab states where Jews are not welcome) is telling. This is another stab at destroying Israel, with immigration if necessary. The problem of the “Palestinians” is not Israel, it is Hamas and the PLO, both corrupt, both happiest when the people are the most pathetic, their “governments” are oppressive, there are no human rights, no women’s rights, no freedom, no due process (due process in Gaza means summary execution at the pleasure and fiat of Hamas leadership) and no accountability (and oddly no mention of either of them in this 3 page article). Abbas was “elected” in 2005 and he is still in power after 13 years and the people have not benefited one single bit in all that time. When the PLO and Hamas are thrown out of governing the people, there will be hope for a future. As long as the world, the U.N. especially, and anyone who wishes to destroy the notion of a Jewish state continue to support the “Palestinians” as cannon fodder, there will be no peace. Israel is a tiny Jewish state in its historical homeland of more than 3,000 years, the one place in the world Jews can be safe. That will never change again. Never. Ever.

Project Syndicate Adores China (and seems to Despise Israel) – Read Project Syndicate with Great Care, it is NOT Our Friend

I am writing with regard to the article published by Project Syndicate, and republished in the Taipei Times on May 1, 2018 on p. 8 entitled China Should Follow WTO Rules written by Martin Feldstein.

While not bashing Israel, Project Syndicate seems to make great efforts to glorify Communist China and the new Emperor Xi. This is another Project Syndicate “hail China” article. Is it any surprise? What is wrong with these people? George Soros continues to seek a revolution with totalitarian flavor in the world (a “World with Chinese Characteristics” – he would really love that, it seems). Truthfully, this article and Martin Feldstein, disgusted me from the very first line: “I am a great admirer of China and its ability to adjust its economic policies to maintain rapid growth, but now that it has risen to the top of the global economy…” WHAT ABOUT ITS TOTALITARIAN DICTATORSHIP AND CRUSHING OPPRESSION OF ITS PEOPLE? Not one word. Not one.

Professor Feldstein recounts how he traveled to China in 1982, and how poor it was, and governed by a communist regime. Even then he makes no reference to the nature of the regime – and that is the point – very little has changed since 1982 aside from having beguiled the world into sending trillions of dollars into building up the world’s biggest threat to freedom. I think as an economist, Martin looks at the Chinese economic experiment and marvels at it, sort of like a biologist might examine anthrax or the plague and marvel at the complexity and efficiency at killing. At least the biologist recognizes the threat to humanity. Here, well….only marveling. This kind of appeasement of China is one of the most dangerous aspects of this platform, filling heads around the world with glowing praise for China, a silent killer adept at its own propaganda and blackmail.

Where does Project Syndicate find these pro-China hacks with stellar resumes? You would think that as a member of the Reagan and Bush administrations, Feldstein might have developed a healthy perspective on China’s menace to the world. Perhaps he was brainwashed and turned sappy when he served in the Obama administration and then the Council on Foreign Relations.

Here is an example of another Harvard economist overwhelmed with admiration by the ease with which a totalitarian government can manipulate its economy to become whatever it wishes on the backs of over a billion peasants. Amazing what killing 80 million of its own people, and oppressing billions, strictly controlling every aspect of society and foreign competition at will, and stealing every single item of technology within its sticky, greedy hands, and elevating industrial espionage to a national duty can do for your economy.

Remarkably, Feldstein focuses only on China’s compliance with WTO requirements to admit China into the world as an international leader, and nothing else. He already puts their economy at the top. However, not one time, not one word, not a whisper is devoted to China’s horrendous treatment of its people, the complete absence of any freedom, rights, justice, free will, license, democracy, free enterprise, its aggression towards the South China Sea, its neighbors and in particular its obsession with destroying Taiwan’s democracy, a threat to China’s malignant one-party dictatorship. How is it possible that Feldstein, a member of three Presidential administrations, a supposedly world class economist cannot even recognize China’s hegemonic intentions (e.g. his glowing view of One Belt One Road, ignoring its threat to the world) and complete domination of its people, or that its economic “success” is done with blood on the Emperor’s hands?

This is why we are in danger. People like this, like Feldstein, with long resumes, appointments at the best universities (Harvard in his case), a large platform and absolutely no brains whatsoever in their empty Project Syndicate heads (empty aside from some economic guidelines, formulae and statistics, devoid of morality apparently). In my opinion, Mr. Feldstein is a brilliant economist and a complete idiot (something I feel he has in common with Joseph Stiglitz).

 

 

 

Women’s rights are universal, not political – the left kidnapped the cause, making it exclusive, not “inclusive”

“The march in Washington took on the feel of a political rally when US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and US Representative Nancy Pelosi, both Democrats, urged women to run for office and vote to oppose Trump and the Republicans’ agenda.”  Washington Post, 1/21/18 (Celebrities join march for women’s rights, encourage voting)

I agree with most of the principles of women’s rights, especially equality on all levels. Most people in the U.S. do abide by those principles, even the President.

By turning the women’s movement into a leftist movement of the Democratic Party, it becomes not “inclusive”, but in fact “exclusive”. The idea that emerges is that women who do not support the “Party” (the Democratic Party) are not deserving of the same rights (in fact, the idea floated is that if you support the President, as a woman you definitely do not deserve any rights at all). This is the legacy of President Obama, the Great Divider. He championed the concept of “us or them”, either his disastrous ultra-leftist views or extremism on the right. As it turned out, there were 60 million people who voted otherwise, and an enormous legion of people who eschewed both the left and the right. But women’s rights should not be political.

Women’s rights are universal, not political. Yesterday, in Los Angeles, the marches for women were replete with political speeches against the current administration and any policies the Democratic Party does not support. Those issues have nothing to do with Women’s Rights.

In fact, and most importantly, many of the men who have been caught up in sexual harrassment cases (like Harvey Weinstein, a very high level high roller in the Democratic Party, and also Michael Oreskes, Chief of the news division of National Public Radio (who actually managed NPR’s coverage of the sexual harrassment narrative at NPR in recent months), and other TV and Screen stars) were high level members of, or supporters of the Democratic Party and extreme liberal views, proving that women’s rights transcend party lines. By co-opting the movement, the liberal wing of the Democratic Party has isolated at least half the women in the world. Now how is that “inclusive”?

The “women’s movement” as defined by the Democratic Party, has been designed to include many issues irrelevant to the woman’s movement itself, such as BLM, anti-Trumpism, and illegal immigration. By swelling the ranks with many people with other axes to grind, it makes it appear the movement is bigger than it might be, and also part of the Democratic Party’s platform, but also in doing so it robs the women’s movement of its absolute purity and righteousness, and obscures the universality of women’s rights. Actually, the women’s movement needs to reach all women, not just liberals. Women’s right’s advocates have said that already, only the Democrats, so worried about economic success of the administration, have sought to piggyback on the opportunity of opening Pandora’s box of sexual harassment (and much to its chagrin, many of the casualties have been their very own male “treasures”).

Hypocrisy has come to reside in the left, to infect it really, and it is very scary and tragic. It is one of the chief reasons I abandoned the Party some years ago, because when I saw the ideological table, I was shocked to find the Obama wing of the Democratic Party sitting right next to the most extreme right wing acolytes, both adamant that their own speech is the only permissible speech, that only their own ideas were worthy of protection, and that everyone and everything else had to be suppressed, stopped, destroyed, even questioning the wisdom of free speech, and seeming to support China’s totalitarian system and Palestinian terrorism.  College campuses have become infected with this rot, and Obama’s political correctness has produced calls for many unconstitutional restrictions on speech. There is a name for that – fascism.

Grave Danger Posed by China’s Trojan Horse – One Belt One Road

I have written before here about the grave danger posed by China’s One Belt One Road initiative – it is China’s Trojan Horse in Europe, Communist Chinese lucre a smokescreen for the Chinese Communist Party’s power grab, continuing battle with the U.S. for influence, and for the Communist Party’s hegemonic designs.

Greece fell prey to China because it has been the EU’s pauper, and bristled at its treatment at the hands of German/EU austerity in response to Greece’s uncontrolled spending. Hence, China’s offer of billions to Greece was most opportune for the Chinese Communist Party and welcome for Greece – and as usual, any money China “invests” has strings – strings to support its totalitarian system, its political evil, and its continuing assault on Western democracy and any kind of freedom.

In an article published in the Taipei Times on Monday, January 8, 2018 on p. 5 (Europe Wary of ‘One Belt One Road’), the article notes “The former NATO chief said that Greece — a major recipient of Chinese largesse — had in June last year blocked an EU declaration condemning Chinese rights abuses.” Here is the rub – take money from China, kneel to Uncle Xi and his political agenda. The march of the Chinese Communists begins with the infection wrought from within its Trojan Horses. Greece bent over for Uncle Xi. More to come in Europe.

I for one don’t trust France’s Macron to resist China’s Trojan Horse offerings, trading access to a fake Chinese market (there is no Chinese market except for Chinese companies so long as foreign companies are required to partner with Chinese local partners, themselves Communist Party Trojan Horses) for softness on Communist China’s political demands and violations of human rights and every other fundamental French principle. France has been perennially rushing to China to get better market position and to tell the Emperor Xi his clothes are most lovely. I haven’t trusted President Trump with such issues either, the bright light of China’s phantom market a very juicy mirage hard to resist. Trump also is not so enamored with Democracy as he is with Businessocracy, and evening out the playing field with Communist China is a priority – but even that comes with risks of Trojan Horses. There is also the North Korea chess game that China has been playing with the U.S. for 25 years, and playing it very well against the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations, and continuing with the current administration, though Trump’s unpredictability and bullish attitude has China unnerved. The EU’s stance on North Korea and Iran is disappointing – appeasement at its worst.

Europe does not have the backbone to resist Communist China’s hegemony and political moves, because Europe has no stomach for conflict (its foreign policy is basically “appease, appease, appease”) and is so eager to jump on any advantage over the US with Chinese trade when there are conflicts, such as North Korea or the South China Sea. We do not see Europe sending carriers to the region or supporting the US in its opposition to North Korea’s nuclear ambitions (only softness, weakness and more appeasement). The same can be said of Iran, where Europe has lined up with China and Russia in failing to comprehend the value of a strong hand against a rogue enemy like Iran. Europe’s suicidal embrace of the enemies of democracy is both surprising and disgusting, turning my stomach every time I see it (note the loving comments made yesterday by High Representative of the European Union (EU) for Foreign Affairs and Vice-President of the European Commission Federica Mogherini about Cuba and dictator Raul Castro, like the words of a lover). Consequently, I have no faith that Europe can resist Communist China’s quest to plant as many Trojan Horses as possible around Europe. Let’s remember that Europe failed to act to stop the conflagration in Syria, instead following Obama’s Oppeasement policy there, and the result was millions of refugees flooding Europe, something that will change adversely European culture, society and politics for many generations. Already many people are fearful of travel to Europe, caring about where it is safe…

One Belt, One Road will look bright and shiny to the EU’s infrastructure starved members. But the cost of that infrastructure is political suicide and being indebted to Communist China, a tyrant who demands obedience to its “life with Chinese characteristics.”

Opposition to Legislation Against Israel on the Spurious Grounds of Violating Palestinian Children’s Human Rights – Pro-Palestinian Groups using Palestinian Kids as “Human Shields”

This is an email I just sent to Betty McCollum, Congresswoman for the 4th District in Minnesota after learning of her sponsorship of a bill entitled Promoting Human Rights by Ending Israeli Military Detention of Palestinian Children Act.  It seems the BDS lobby is now using Palestinian kids as human shields to try to hide the malice in the Palestinian campaign to end Israel and Jews. It is embarrassing there are actually people in Congress who have bought this ruse.

1. I am appalled at your bill regarding Israel.

2. A child aged 8 walks into a department store in downtown St. Paul wearing a suicide bomb vest. What should you do? After the child is tackled to the ground by an heroic officer, and apprehended before the vest can be detonated, what to do with the child? Catch and release? Release to parents (who armed the child in the first place, or failed to stop Uncle X from teaching the child to kill)? Detain the child pending further investigation? How about if the story is about thousands of child/teen bombers over a longer time period?

3. Instead of focusing on a tiny nation fighting against a billion adversaries all religiously committed to exterminating them and all Jews worldwide, how about focusing on the brainwashing in Palestinian schools? How about preventing a child from taking part in terrorism by halting aid to a regime that indoctrinates its children with the notion that suicide bombing Jews is the highest achievement they can attain, and that all Jews must be killed? This is the basic curriculum in Palestinian schools. Not be a doctor. Not be a lawyer. Not be an artist. Not be a scientist. Be a terrorist, be a Jew killer.

4. There are hundreds of millions of children suffering around the world, many many many many of them suffering at the hands of Islamic societies using them as child soldiers or as child brides or as slaves. And yet, you focus on Israel, the only true democracy in the region, a nation of around 8 million people, not on the 1.5 billion in Arab nations surrounding it eager to kill every Jew alive. Imagine, if only the region were focused on actually educating their children instead of indoctrinating them to murder? Golda Meir said “Peace? There will be no peace until the Arabs love their children more than they hate us.” She said that 60 years ago. It is still completely true today. By the way. The doctrine for Israel is “Never again.” I wonder. Have you ever visited Dachau? Auschwitz? Buchenwald? If you haven’t been to a concentration camp, you cannot viscerally understand what Israel is dealing with.

5. Palestinians always have had the opportunity for normalcy. But having been chosen by the Arab world as cannon fodder, they have decided to torture their people to try to destroy Israel. Congratulations for buying into the lie that Israel is persecuting Palestinians. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been given to the Palestinians and used there to pay terrorists’ families when they have murdered Jewish children, or to build bombs, or tunnels, not build schools, hospitals or commercial enterprises. Israel created an oasis out of a desert. The Palestinians have turned an oasis into a desert. Go figure.

6. My fervent hope is that this legislation dies an ignominious death in some Committee somewhere. However, given the recent insanity gripping my Democratic Party, I am not sure of the support. Imagine having to turn to Republicans for common sense. What a strange and twisted thing liberalism has become. You were among a group who sponsored the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 2017 – are  you really going to conflate the Holocaust with Palestinians opposed to Israel’s battle for survival against all adversaries determined to kill all Jews? Perhaps you believe that Hamas is a charitable organization?

The Chinese Communist Party Emperor’s New Clothes – Buck Naked and Waiting for the Truth from the World

Taiwan is completely independent, it is just mildly schizophrenic, because one very small side of it (the die-hards of the Chinese Nationalist Party (a/k/a KMT)) keeps mistaking itself for Communist China.

We are in fact stuck in the fairy tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, and in this tale, the entire world, fearful that the Chinese Communist Party will bar them from selling their goods at the Communist Party kasbah, is willing to tell the CCP that the “Emperor’s” new clothes are delightful, and anything else it wants to hear, including that they believe Taiwan is not independent and is a part of Communist China (nudge nudge, wink, wink). In fact, as we know, the Emperor is buck naked, and the Chinese Communist Party is simply delusional if it thinks Taiwan’s full-fledged democracy is going to go back to the stone age of tyranny (Japan for 50 years and the KMT for 50 years), except this time with Communist China’s communist dictatorship.

Oh. And no one believes Taiwan is actually part of Communist China. They just say that so they can sell their whatever to China, or buy China’s really cheap stuff, get Kommunist Kash from it, or avoid China squeezing off their oxygen because they made the mistake of telling the truth.

We are waiting for the day the rest of the world actually has the guts to tell the Emperor that he is naked, and Taiwan is a great independent democratic nation of 23 million fantastic people who are not communists. Only when the world has the courage of its convictions and stands up as one to tell this to the Emperor’s face will the world be free from Communist China’s blackmail, propaganda, prevarication, and bullying, and the people of China free from the Chinese Communist Party’s 70 years of suffocating tyranny.

Gay Rights in Modern Society and the Democratic Debate: A Reply to Marco Chu’s Article “No space for ‘pluralism’ on equality committee”

Marco Chu wrote an article in the Taipei Times on Wednesday, July 25, 2017 P. 8 entitled “No space for ‘pluralism’ on equality committee”  http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2017/07/26/2003675304/1

Here is some tough love, Marco.

Sorry Marco, while I completely agree with you that it is right that LGBTQ people are entitled to the same protections in law as a consequence of their inherent gender identity, and I agree that gay people are entitled to be free of discrimination and are entitled to live openly as they choose according to their gender identity, I completely disagree with how you arrive at that conclusion and your typically “progressive” selectivity of ideas and controversies as “enlightened”, and for lack of another term the opposition to those ideas as “evil”.

You have not said anything in your Taipei Times article that has not been hashed out for the past umpteen years in the United States, which, unlike Taiwan, is 80% or more Christian, and where religion is as much a part of daily life as is freedom of religion and freedom of speech, and all of the rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution, which, by the way, have been heavily litigated for two hundred years.

You go off on a tangent that cannot be accepted, the notion that progressive ideas are somehow entitled to uber-protection and “golden” treatment because….because….well, because they are progressive! That is nonsense.

First, were a poll taken with secret ballots, you would find an overwhelming opposition in Taiwan to some of the LGBTQ issues you have mentioned, including “marriage”. However, since the Constitution is the Constitution and since it has been ruled by Taiwan’s highest legal authority that it allows gay marriage, but that the Government should determine how and when to implement that, debate is now forthcoming. Taiwan is a very traditional culture, with a very progressive epicenter, but those traditions are very strong among a majority of the population. Come back in another generation and the poll would likely change. Such is democracy, and such is human nature, where people are more careful and conservative in middle aged and older generations. Your notion that anyone in opposition to LGBTQ issues should be excluded from the discussion – well, there is a word for that – it is called “tyranny”. You are suggesting that only the LGBTQ voices can be considered in this debate (which takes away the very notion of a debate), and that anyone who opposes does not deserve to be heard.

In the US, the opposition usually takes the form of religious dogma. In Taiwan, it is likely the opposition is deeply rooted in ancient traditions and culture, just as Taiwan independence is naturally accepted among younger generations and harder to accept among the older blue-trained generations saturated with KMT dogma.

Progressive ideas do not necessarily smell better because they are progressive. This is a slippery slope. Some of the statements made in the article are somewhat dangerous.

1. The parallels offered (White Terror and human rights committee) are patently ridiculous and the parties taking part in the debate about LGBTQ are nothing like those named (“military personnel and police who tortured”) and comparing several million amah, who are likely not in favor of gay marriage to secret police is somewhat preposterous, don’t you think? (“Amah (Grandma), it is normal today, it is okay for a girl to dress like a boy, or for that boy next door to wear a dress, and for girls to marry girls and for men to marry men.” “No! Marriage has always been for a man and a woman, no one else, period. You need to see a doctor. Didn’t your parents teach you anything?” Tell me this conversation has not been had at least twenty million times in Taiwan).

2. “If the DPP government accepts religious extremists who have been discriminating against those who are not heterosexually inclined, even taking the lead in oppressing, attacking, ostracizing and cursing gay people, on the committee — imagining that this is diversity — it would not just be wrong” Basically, it is the progressive play book to say that anyone who opposes a liberal or progressive idea is an “extremist”. But this is patently false. There is a huge, huge portion of the population who are in the middle, not deep left and not deep right. Those people are ordinary everyday people who believe in their traditions, go to work, go to school, bai bai when necessary, and live their lives without “oppressing, attacking or ostracizing” anyone. They just disagree with you. Saying these people have no voice in the debate, is tyranny. Of course they should have a voice. They are a majority of the people the government represents.

Ahhh….this is the point. The progressive idea is so golden, it must be shoved down the throats of the populace because it is an enlightened position with which no one can disagree without being crazy or evil. Sorry, Marco. That just doesn’t work. And the people on the committee don’t have to be the extremists you mention, not on either side, LGBTQ or its opposition. You see, you want the extreme pro-LGBTQ voice to be represented, but not any other. Do you see the hypocrisy there? Do you understand that when far far far left ideas become like this, they become far far far right? Like Nicolas Maduro, in Venezuela, who is so far to the left, that he has crossed over into the far right, as a dictator, a socialist dictator.

3.”If a church or religion does not accept gay marriage, it can refuse to conduct same-sex weddings. That is religious freedom and cultural diversity, so while it might not be right, it cannot be criticized.” And yet, in the US, the movement has been to force religious groups, under Obama’s administration, to accept these ideas as givens, without any right to refuse to accept. In the US right now, a baker cannot refuse to bake a cake for a gay wedding. There are huge numbers of people who oppose that. (Personally I think it is ridiculous, a cake is a cake and you are in business, so bake the damn cake already, but it is an explosive issue.)

What I mean is that it is a slippery slope and once you accept one position, you will end up accepting all of it, eventually. Progressives will call this “progress”. Conservatives will call this “revolution”.  Aren’t both voices entitled to be heard in the debate? Is that not what “free speech” is all about?

4. “The state should stand up for minorities and protect them from prosecution [sic] rather than dance to the oppressors’ tune while calling it ‘pluralism.'” Again, characterizing the opposition as “oppressors” certainly is a strong indication of the writer’s refusal to accept any other dissenting voice, and adopting the progressive play book in labeling opposition as “evil” as opposed to simply a contrary position. The progressive’s BM always smells like roses to the progressive.

Finally, I understand disappointment with the DPP for it not pushing through the changes that the LBGTQ community hoped would be made. Some changes have begun. To suggest the government has a duty to ignore the populace of the country and to cater to only some of its supporters also smacks of tyranny. Again, that is the tyranny of the left, that is the march towards dictatorship. If you listen to the verbiage of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela and Hugo Chavez before him, you would hear the same progressive mumbo jumbo and the translation of the mumbo jumbo equals “I am your dictator, viva la revolution”. To stand up and argue that only your voice counts in a democracy is wrong.

Yes, pluralism has its dangers. The UN is an excellent example. In the UN a majority of countries often vote against history, fact and logic, because they have the votes for it. So they can vote that there is only one China and that includes Taiwan, even though Taiwan has been de facto independent for 70 years and Communist China has no dominion over Taiwan whatsoever, or that Jerusalem has no connection whatsoever to the Jews and wipe out 3,000 years of Jewish history, simply because there is a plurality. So too, in Iran and some eastern European countries, and in Russia, the leadership has actually said “We have no gays here” reflecting a plurality. That is either because they are hiding or were killed. Pluralism has its dangers too.

Stability requires deliberate action, and deliberate action requires deliberation, which by its very nature requires consideration of all sides in an issue or debate. By arguing the opposition has no voice, a beautiful thing called democracy becomes dictatorship.

There is nothing wrong with, as the DPP has said, promoting reconciliation. There is nothing wrong with considering opposing voices. “Considering” them and “obeying” them are completely different. Rejecting opposition is included within “considering” opposition. The writer’s fear of those opposing voices does not place sufficient faith in the process under the system of government Taiwanese have chosen. The alternative is the Communist Chinese way, where the supreme leader makes the decision, no debate, next case.

The LGBTQ revolution has already taken hold around the world. If you turn on the TV in the U.S., every other TV show involves LGBTQ issues, characters are in every movie, every TV show, on the news, in public life everywhere. While many in the US oppose this, there is not very much that can be done to stop it. It has taken hold in Taiwan too, in many ways. The culture is still a conservative culture. Only time will tell the extent to which the concepts are acceptable. As younger people step into positions of power, the nature of how these issues are decided will likely change. Many times sea change takes time. It requires patience (not less pressure, but patience).

There are still “communist sympathizers” who believe China is their Eden…it is hard to believe, I know

I was reading posts regarding Communist China, and came across a post entitled “Is the People’s Republic of China a Force for Good?” https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/9954326/posts/12507, a post addressing an article discussing the People’s Republic of China’s influence in Australia.

The post is basically more than an apology for the People’s Republic of China, but actually a celebration of its communist roots and a system of government far “superior” to Western “bourgeois democracies”.  As soon as people start using “bourgeois”, I start getting nervous. I wrote a comment on the post, and you can read the original post yourself to see the depths to which an apologist for totalitarianism will go to justify it (even as against those evil human rights proponents such as Liu Xiaobo calling for democracy, because they are committing “treason”). As soon as people start saying it is treasonous to call for human rights, due process and democracy, you have reached that Twilight Zone called Communist China.

Here is my comment on the post in full. I am not sure it will be published there:

“I suppose it is ironic this was posted on June 4th, the day on which the rest of the world remembers Tienanmen Square’s massacre, another dark day in the totalitarian history of murder and oppression in The People’s Republic of China, which is basically the most horrendous “communist” dictatorship, in this case run by the Chinese Communist Party. The only tie remotely between communism and the People’s Republic of China is that it is both a totalitarian nightmare, like every communist regime in history, and the state owns and controls everything, including speech, thought and actions. To pretend, like some book group discussing the writings of Marx, that the PRC is some benign and beneficial nation of peace and harmony requires checking one’s brain and entire nervous center before waking. China is not “cooperating” with the West, it is co-opting the West with its basic capital, which is blackmail, propaganda and prevarication, undertaken under the guise of trade and economic development, using such projects as the One Belt One Road (One Noose One Way), which is a web of influence which will allow China to affect the thinking and policies of all the nations involved and affected. China has corrupted the United Nations into becoming a Communist China mouthpiece and automaton. If people with the principles discussed here reject Liu Xiaobo in favor of Xi Jinping, I really don’t know what to say, except trying having a discussion about Liu in a coffee shop in Beijing and see how long before you end up in jail. And that is free speech with Chinese characteristics. By the way, this website is not available in the PRC, and “Communist Heaven” is actually a room without light in a special corner of Hell.”