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general freedom international affairs

Look Around

Yesterday marked the 34th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Not in China, where the Communist Party (CCP) has always clubbed down any public remembrance of the thousands murdered on that day by the bullets from the so-called People’s Liberation Army. 

While Hong Kong long witnessed massive June 4 vigils — even under COVID restrictions — that changed after the draconian National Security Law in 2020. Still, this year public silence required the Chinazis to arrest more than 30 Hong Kongers, some for “suspicion of carrying out acts with seditious intent.”

Seems our “leaders” quite quickly forgot about the Butchers of Beijing . . . and only now are waking up to the threat the CCP poses via their embrace of totalitarianism, their military build-up, the biggest since World War II, and their claims to Taiwan as well as the entire South China Sea.

“China has been bullying its neighbors for years,” explains Chris Chappell, host of China Uncensored on Rumble, before adding: “Now its bullying is coming back to bite it.”

Chappell notes that “[e]ven countries that kinda hate each other, like Japan and South Korea, have been teaming up because of the China threat.”

Mr. Chappell offers:

  • “Thanks to China, last year Japan announced a plan to double its military budget.”
  • South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol recently called Taiwan “a global issue” and joined President Biden in “[opposing] any unilateral attempts to change the status quo.”
  • “Australia is beefing up its military — specifically in response to China.”
  • “The Philippines . . . has moved back to closer ties with the United States, allowing the U.S. to expand its military presence there.” 
  • “India is also increasing its defense budget.”

This allied response has been spurred not by U.S. arm-twisting, but good old-fashioned fear. 

Chappell also applauded open collaboration with the U.S. and NATO by South Korea, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. But he dubbed NATO’s declaration of China as “a security challenge” “the understatement of the year.”

Attested by the weekend’s near collision of Chinese and U.S. naval vessels in the Taiwan Strait.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 


Note: China Uncensored also plays on YouTube, but, as Chappell complains, “YouTube frequently demonetizes, suppresses, and secretly unsubscribes people from this channel.” 

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Illustration created with PicFinder.ai / DALL-E2

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Thought

E. O. Wilson

The real problem of humanity is the following: we have paleolithic emotions; medieval institutions; and god-like technology. 

Edward Osborne Wilson, as quoted in Harvard Magazine from a public discussion between Wilson and James Watson moderated by NPR correspondent Robert Krulwich, September 10, 2009.
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Today

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

On June 5, 1851, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slavery serial, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly, started its ten-month run in the National Era abolitionist newspaper.

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audio podcast

Listen: Civilization Ceases To Be?

Paul Jacob upholds property rights as the foundation of civilization:

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Thought

Colton Briggs

Nothing belongs to the dead, because the dead don’t need anything. Only the living need to possess things. The living need food, water, shelter, clothes, family, money, land. But the dead, the dead have already been tended to. Once they’re put in the ground, they have all they need. They’re not selfish. I like the dead.

The character Colton Briggs, as played by Nicolas Cage in The Old Way (2023), written by Carl W. Lucas.
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by Paul Jacob video

Watch: It Ceases to Be a Civilization

Paul looks at a fundamental problem with the current course of our society: the disrespect for property rights, and upholding a rule of law.

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Arsène Houssaye

Plato did not believe any more in his republic than old Homer did in his gods.

Arsène Houssaye, Philosophers and Actresses (1886).
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Singapore

On June 3, 1959, Singapore adopted a constitution.

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Fifth Amendment rights general freedom property rights

Government Greed Swept in Double-Header

Geraldine Tyler lived long enough to see the U.S. Supreme Court rule against those who robbed her. She is 94.

On May 25, 2023, the Court determined in a 9-0 ruling that Hennepin County, Minnesota, is not constitutionally entitled to pocket the entire sale-price value of a condo in massive excess of the property taxes that Geraldine Tyler owed on the property when the government seized it for unpaid taxes.

Including penalties and interest, Tyler had owed about $15,000. But after selling the condo for $40,000, the county government seemed to think that $25,000 was a reasonable brokerage fee.

Pacific Legal Foundation, which represented Tyler in the case, argued that the county violated the Takings Clause of the Constitution by taking private property for public use “without just compensation.”

The Court agreed, saying that exploiting the debt “to confiscate more property than was due” effected “a ‘classic taking in which the government directly appropriates private property for its own use.’ ”

The ruling also rejects the county’s argument that Tyler somehow forfeited her constitutional rights by failing to pay her property taxes.

The same day, PLF also won another huge victory in the U.S. Supreme Court when the Court ruled that the EPA does not have limitless authority to block property owners from building on their own land if the agency chooses to designate a soggy part of the land a protected “wetland.”

Two for two. Not a bad batting average.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Ralph Waldo Emerson

Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance,” Essays: First Series, quoted from the 1847 edition.