Introduction

In 1841, Britain, by then a constitutional monarchy with democratic voting, seized Hong Hong from China’s Quing dynasty as part of Britain’s colonial expansion. In 1997, Britain returned Hong Kong to one-party rule China, as part of China’s expansion. 

China, quite predictably, is working hard to break its 1997 

promises of non-interference with freedom-loving, capitalist Hong Kong. Tens of thousands of Hong Kong protesters, the real Antifa, are struggling to resist absorption by Communist China. There are important lessons for us in America in the broken promises from China and in the pro-freedom struggle.

That is the subject of today’s 10-minute episode.

Continuing

Despite what China promised in 1997, and has reiterated ever since, China is hell bent on swallowing freedom-loving Hong Kong, and making it a part of its one-party rule regime. If you think about it, China has never experienced anything like freedom. From the Emperors to Mao to today’s Communist Party, China and the Chinese have always been under autocratic rule. And they are not about to change. They will eventually swallow Hong Kong. In part because they planned on doing exactly that all along, and in part because they know that an island of freedom in a sea of greatly restricted freedoms is simply too dangerous to be allowed to stand. If you have a piece of cheese with mold on it, you need to cut the mold out before it spreads. To China’s rulers, freedom is the mold that needs to be removed, either surgically or by simply smashing it. 

China infamously smashed a 1989 pro-freedom protest in mainland China in Tiananmen Square. The well publicized photo showing a confrontation between an individual citizen and the tanks that the rulers had called out to suppress the thousands of protesters is hard to forget--once you have seen it. Was the ruling Communist Party in China at all embarrassed? Not a bit of it. This was just a hiccup to them. Did the world’s free countries do anything but huff and posture? Barely a whimper.

And the Communist Party of China has the patience to out-wait everyone, to wait until all the storms blow over, and swallow freedom-loving Hong Kong in relative silence. Oh, there will be the obligatory huffing and puffing, but no one will do a thing. China will continue to slaughter Muslims, deny many basic freedoms to its own citizens, cheat in international dealings, swallow Hong Kong whole--and get away with it.

So, Will, I get all of this, but what is the lesson for us, for Americans? Answer. Hong Kong, long free, is being gobbled up by autocratic China. Worse, far worse, we Americans are eroding, carving up, our own freedoms. Like a snake eating its own tail. 

We are allowing our freedoms to erode on a multitude of fronts. The demand for correct speech, PC speech, is one. Cancelling, basically declaring a PC violator to be a nonperson, in another. And cancelling is not at all benign; it often ruins careers and one’s ability to produce income along with destroying reputations. 

Cancelling raises it ugly head everywhere from Hollywood to the Internet to campuses to charities. Kevin Hart, a black American stand-up comedian, actor, and producer, had been selected to host the 2018 Academy Awards, but in December of that year he stepped down as host in response to a backlash due to several alleged homophobic tweets from 2010 and 2011--7 and 8 years prior. Hart stated "If you don’t believe people change, grow as they get older, I don’t know what to tell you." Hart issued an apology to the LGBTQ comnmunity and stepped down as the host. Hart later announced he was going to reconsider stepping down, after openly lesbian comedian Ellen DeGeneres, who has hosted the Academy Awards multiple times, expressed support for Hart to be the host and said she telephoned the Academy to...