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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Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Chinese students suddenly occupied Beijing’s Tiananmen Square for seven beautiful weeks in the Spring of 1989.
Millions more from all walks of life joined them.
Protesting tyranny, they demanded democracy and freedom of speech.
Then, 31 years ago to this very day, the Chinese government sent in tanks and soldiers, opening fire on citizens outside the square, killing thousands. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) followed up the massacre with arrests and lengthy prison terms for those committing the unspeakable crime of speaking out for freedom.
Fast-forward three decades and the ChiNazis in Beijing are currently engaged in snuffing out the civil liberties and democratic aspirations of the people in Hong Kong.*
In mainland China, the CCP has always squelched any mention of the Tiananmen Square massacre, but every year Hongkongers have held a vigil. Not this year. It has been banned.
The world should have learned two obvious lessons: (1) the Chinese people want freedom and democracy, and (2) the ‘Butchers of Beijing’ will brutalize to prevent it.
Far more powerful than in 1989, CCP tyrants now wield a much more effective police state against Chinese citizens.
Now is the time to honor the Tiananmen demonstrators, but clearing Lafayette Park of protesters so President Trump can walk to a church seems . . . disquieting.
Not a memorial.
And suggesting he might invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 to engage the military in domestic policing? Trump’s defense secretary rightly opposes.
Comparisons to Tiananmen Square have not unreasonably been drawn.
The difference? Americans can revolt . . . peacefully, which our government cannot put down.
For the sake of the free world and all those — including 1.4 billion Chinese — in the unfree world, now is no time to abandon peaceful protest and political action for insurrection, riot, and military suppression.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* This is brazen violation of the 1997 turnover agreement made with Britain, of course.
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Juho Kusti Paasikivi
Kaiken viisauden alku on tosiasiain tunnustaminen.
The beginning of all wisdom is acknowledgement of facts.
Juho Kusti Paasikivi, quoted on the Paasikivi monument in Helsinki, supposedly originating from Thomas Carlyle.
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Tankman, Thanks
June 4 marks the 1989 Chinese government crackdown on peaceful protesters in Tiananmen Square, with tanks entering the square and soldiers, who opened fire on citizens outside the square, estimated to have killed thousands.
It also marks Tonga’s Emancipation [or Independence] Day, commemorating the abolition of serfdom in Tonga by King George Tupou in 1862, and the independence of Tonga from the British protectorate in 1970.
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Trumping China?
“You may not like Donald Trump,” argues Dr34mLucid in his latest video on YouTube and Facebook, “but he is the most vocal and has taken the most action in containing China. That is a fact.”
Dr34mLucid is Christopher Raymond Hall, who claims to be “made in Britain, schooled in the U.S., assembled in Taiwan, hardened by China, currently broadcasting from London.” His video, “Trump or China, unite or fall,” created with Dr. Lai from the Sci-tadel channel, is full of worries . . . about “attitudes to China in the West.”
The two YouTubers are troubled that “the West has done its best to ignore” the library of crimes against humanity committed by the Chinese Communist Party. Recognizing that “China has very real ambitions to become THE world superpower,” they ask, “What kind of world would that look like?”
“China invading Taiwan is a very real risk,” insists Dr34mLucid. “The weaker the West becomes the higher the chance of Xi Jinping making a move on Taiwan. . . . with the riots in the US . . . now is an excellent time for Xi to invade.”
“If you think Hong Kong looks bad,” he offers, “wait until they get to Taiwan.”
“We shouldn’t be waiting until they get to Taiwan,” replies Dr. Lai.
Dr34mLucid and Dr. Lai applaud President Trump for standing up to China and for Taiwan. But they fret about his unpopularity.
“I doubt many people would support Trump if he decided to defend Taiwan,” notes Dr34mLucid. “I doubt they would miss the chance to call him interfering or an imperialist.”
Opposition to totalitarian China and support for free and democratic Taiwan should unite the free world.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Note: In the video, Dr. Lai recounts that President Trump called Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen after his 2016 victory. It was actually Pres. Tsai who phoned to congratulate Mr. Trump.
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On June 3, 1959, Singapore adopted a constitution.
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Yves Guyot
Yves Guyot, The Comedy of Protection, 1906, viii, referring to Frédéric Bastiat’s infamous satires on protectionism, such as “The Candle-makers’ Petition” and the “Negative Railroad.”
When the first fire-engine appeared in Japan the carpenters asked to have it removed because it robbed workmen of the employment provided by fires. Bastiat himself never invented anything better.
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Qualified Backlash
Extreme forms of protest — that is, rioting, looting, and street violence, as well as chanting about killing people, carrying torches, and the like — don’t help the cause of those who engage in it.
You know it; I know it — but is it common knowledge?
So, as a contribution to the common wisdom of Homo (hopefully) sapiens politicus, let us stress the truth, which we can now back up with a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Eric W. Dolan, writing on PsyPost, explains that six experiments involving 3, 399 participants “assessed how different types of protest behaviors influenced support for a variety of progressive and conservative social causes, including the Black Lives Matter movement and the anti-abortion movement. They found that more extreme behaviors — such as the use of inflammatory rhetoric, blocking traffic, and vandalism — consistently resulted in reduced support for social movements.”
While “extreme protest behaviors” garner media attention, they turn away more people than they bring in.
“We found extreme anti-Trump protest actions actually led people to not only dislike the movement and support the cause less, but to be willing to support Trump more,” the researcher who talked to Dolan, said. “It was almost like a backlash.”
Almost?
Protest organizers have to understand that their enemies also know this backlash effect, and have incentives to corrupt peaceful protests by sparking extremism. Infiltrators from governments as well as opposing groups have been known to incite riots or cause destruction simply to discredit protests.
While destruction and mayhem by some do not negate the crying, dying need for criminal justice reform,* the tragedy remains: violence does spoil good will.
And calling in federal troops, as the president threatens, discredits almost everything. What a mess.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* Much better than the turn to violence? Protest morphing into specific legislative and administrative reform. Ending “qualified immunity” for public officials, mentioned here Friday, and proposed by Representative Justin Amash (L-Mich.), would be a great start.
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Ernest Bramah
It is a mark of insincerity of purpose to spend one’s time in looking for the sacred Emperor in the low-class tea shops.
Ernest Bramah, “The Transmutation of Ling,” The Wallet of Kai Lung (1900).
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Run for the border
On May 2, 1989, Hungary began dismantling its border fence with Austria, allowing a number of East Germans to defect.