Tag: human rights

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defense & war national politics & policies

The War on Drugs War

Rand Paul, Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, drug war, human rights

The Trump Administration is at war … with Senator Rand Paul. 

Tensions between the President and Senator Paul have heated up noticeably since mid-​October, with Trump taking sharp public swipes at Paul, a longtime ally. This scuffle seems primarily driven by Paul’s outspoken criticism of the Venezuelan boat strikes, which Trump sees as a betrayal of his “tough on drugs” agenda and a threat to GOP unity. 

The budget hawk angle — mentioned here in a weekend update — is a secondary irritant, tied to Paul’s broader push for fiscal restraint. But it hasn’t dominated the feud.

While Trump decries a lack of unity, Paul offers Trump’s bellicosity as “detrimental to the party.”

Against the Kentucky senator’s war-​powers/​war-​crimes critiques, the president is acerbic: “Rand wants trials for narco-​terrorists 2,000 miles away? Tell that to the fentanyl orphans.”

Tough zinger, sure, but think about it: it’s the standard argument against all civil liberties. The idea that those suspected by the government of awful crimes, even lacking any proof or semblance of due process, do not deserve rights. 

Leading to a modern adaptation of “Kill them all and let God sort them out” in the Carribean.

Meanwhile, in a bizarre reversal of the ongoing marijuana legalization and hemp deregulation trend, the federal government has “turned back the clock”: Tucked into the continuing resolution (CR) that ended the 43-​day government shutdown, Congress passed (and Mr. Trump signed) language that effectively bans most hemp-​derived products containing more than 0.4 milligrams of THC per container — a threshold so low it sweeps up even basic CBD items, which naturally contain trace THC.

Since Kentucky sports over 5000 acres devoted to the ancient industrial product, you might suspect that this could be part of Trump’s war on Kentucky’s junior senator.

But it appears the state’s senior senator was behind the move!

New War on Drugs, meet the old War on Drugs.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment First Amendment rights international affairs

Don’t Be China

Xi, China, censorship, Winnie the Pooh

China is one of the world’s top censors.

The Chinazi regime bans all kinds of communication, even images of Winnie the Pooh (because of its use as a symbol of chubby Dictator Xi). It has imposed all manner of censorship on the Internet, often with the help of western technology companies. And it has imprisoned many of its critics.

China would like the whole world to be the same way. It would be easier to shut critics up if they had no place to escape to, no place where they could continue publicly rebuking the Chinese government.

And China has a new weapon with which to expand its censorship regime, the globally popular excuse for outlawing disagreement with official doctrines that consists of characterizing all contrary opinion as “misinformation” or “disinformation.”

The Chinese government wants nations to go much further than merely urging social media companies to ban posts or suspend users, the approach that U.S. officials have been following in recent years. At a recent United Nations meeting on cybercrime and in a related document (p. 18), China has urged that disseminating “false information that could result in serious social disorder” be everywhere established as “criminal offenses.”

Reclaim the Net observes that this proposal “is likely to be contested by Western countries, even though many of them have been copying parts of China’s playbook.”

Certainly, the governments of other countries would be in a better position to oppose China’s global censorship agenda if they relinquished their own censorship agendas.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Fifth Amendment rights Fourth Amendment rights international affairs

The Chinazis Next Door

China, spies, police, Canada, USA, America

The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!

This 1966 comedy about the accidental grounding of a Soviet submarine off the coast of New England was nominated for four Academy Awards and captured the Golden Globe Award for best motion picture.

But a remake exclaiming “The Chinese Are Coming!” would be old hat: They’re already here. 

“The People’s Republic of China has opened at least three police stations on Canadian soil as part of an alleged attempt by the country’s security state to keep an eye on the Chinese-​Canadian diaspora,” The National Post informed last month.

“Canada-​based dissidents of the Beijing government have long warned Canadian authorities that they face organized harassment from Chinese authorities,” The Post added.

A new report by Safeguard Defenders, a Spain-​based foundation working for human rights in Asia, reveals there are now 54 of these Chinese “service stations” in 30 countries … including one in New York City.

The organization warns of “China’s growing global transnational repression,” explaining that in the last year 230,000 expats were “persuaded to return” to China but “these returns are often obtained by visiting extreme sanctions on the families of those targeted, such as asset seizures and prohibition from seeking government health care or education.”

In another recent report noted by The Globe and Mail, “the United Nations human-​rights office said it found ‘patterns of intimidations, threats and reprisals’ against Uyghurs and other Chinese nationals living overseas who had spoken out against Beijing.”

Just last week, “El Correo published direct corroboration from Chinese authorities” of “illegal policing operations” with an anonymous Chinese official telling the Spanish paper, “The bilateral treaties are very cumbersome, and Europe is reluctant to extradite to China. I don’t see what is wrong with pressuring criminals to face justice.…”

The message to Chinese dissidents is clear: “You’re not safe anywhere.”

Are we?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability insider corruption international affairs

Xinjiang’s Hacked Police Files

China, internet

The Chinese government’s internment, rape, torture, and murder of Uyghurs and other minorities in Xinjiang “reeducation” camps, supposedly to prevent terrorism, has long been confirmed by the testimony of many of the victims.

No honest person could deny the evidence.

Nevertheless, there are denials. 

In February 2021, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, uttering a standard denial, told the United Nations that “basic facts show that there has never been so-​called genocide, forced labor or religious oppression in Xinjiang.”

But now a hack of China’s police computers has unearthed a trove of documents showing what is happening in the camps according to the regime itself.

The files include mug shots of prisoners and records of protocols to be followed as police subdue detainees, handcuff and blindfold them while moving them between buildings, and shoot to kill anyone who tries to escape.

The xinjianpolicefiles​.org site also hosts an explanation of the files by Adrian Denz, an expert on Chinese documents.

The “thousands of documents, speeches, policy directives, spreadsheets, images” come “directly from police computers in two ethnic minority counties in Xinjiang,” Denz says. “They for the first time give us a firsthand account of police operations inside reeducation camps.”

Unsurprisingly, they confirm the involvement of government officials.

Basic facts, abundantly documented. 

Can Chinese officials still deny them?

Yes, but the job of controverting the incontrovertible is harder now. It will also be harder for appeasers in the West to pretend that none of this horror matters.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom

China Double-​Faults

Peng Shuai, China, tennis, disappearance

Whew! Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai has not been “disappeared.” 

Three weeks ago, Peng publicly accused China’s former vice premier, Zhang Gaoli, of sexual assault. “Her accusation on social media was removed within minutes” by “the Chinese government,” notes Fox News. 

“News of the controversy,” The Washington Post adds, “remains almost universally censored within China.”

No one heard from Peng for weeks after she made the charge, understandably concerning sports officials and fellow players. Adding to the ugly optics was a phony email scam — obviously perpetrated by Chinese state media — claiming that she was okay. Then, last Thursday, Women’s Tennis Association Chairman Steve Simon put Beijing on notice that over Peng’s safety his organization was “willing to pull out of China, potentially losing hundreds of millions of dollars.”

On Sunday, China responded, allowing Peng to join a video chat with International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, along with a Chinese sports official and the chair of the IOC Athlete’s Commission.

“Peng Shuai has officially reappeared in China,” explains The Washington Post, “but with silence surrounding her sexual assault allegations against a senior government official.”

“It was good to see Peng Shuai in recent videos,” a WTA spokesmen informed CNN, “but they don’t alleviate or address the WTA’s concern about her well-​being and ability to communicate without censorship or coercion.”

Well, that applies to almost everyone in China. Censorship and coercion are what the Chinazis do. 

So what will the world’s athletes do … when, in ten weeks’ time, they are scheduled to appear in Beijing at the 2022 Winter Olympics?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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international affairs

The China Syndrome

China, flag, blood, red

Is the Chinese government under Xi Jinping becoming as murderously totalitarian as it was in the time of Mao?

Since Mao was responsible for the slaughter of tens of millions, today’s China is not, at least yet, Maoist bad. But as Doug Bandow reports in a recent overview (“China’s Terrifying Return to Maoism”), it is indeed awful.

The scuttling of presidential term limits is the merest tip of a titanic iceberg of tyranny. 

Beneath the surface is China’s intensified repression of the Uyghurs, Tibet, and Hong Kong; prolific use of torture; a rise in coerced televised confessions; increased censorship and detaining of foreign journalists; massive expansion of the surveillance state with the help of technology firms like Huawei; and new crackdowns on practices of religion.

A few years ago, churches in many provinces of China could carry on without interference as long as they steered clear of politics. Hardly a minor restriction. But today, writes Bandow, “ministers are arrested, churches are closed or destroyed, members are barred from bringing their children and forced to display communist agitprop, and the [Chinese Communist Party] even wants to rewrite Scripture. Islam, Buddhism, and Daoism are also under sustained attack.”

Bandow bases his observations in part on a Human Rights Commission report just published by the UK Conservative Party.

Too often, journalists, politicians and others ignore or whitewash what the Chinese regime is doing at home and abroad. Whatever our policies toward China should be, they should be based on eyes-​wide-​open reality.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability folly general freedom ideological culture moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies privacy responsibility too much government

UK Death Panel

healthcare, socialism, rationing, government

Six days ago, the European Court of Human Rights sided against the parents of Charlie Gard, a severely ill boy, refusing to allow them to take their infant son to America where he could receive full (and privately funded) experimental treatment. The court ruled that removing the child from the hospital would cause him “significant harm” — and authorized the termination of life support.

Yesterday, this site quoted Ben Shapiro on the case. Shapiro sees this sad story as a grand demonstration of what is wrong with government-​funded and ‑managed health care: 

Bernie Sanders tweets about how nobody should be denied care because they can’t afford it? But that’s what happens all the time under socialized medicine — the difference being, it’s not about you not being able to afford it, it is about the government not being able to afford it.

Economists tell us that, in a world of scarcity, there will be rationing, willy nilly: either by price (according to consumer and producer choices) or else by government diktat. 

Last week, the European Court of Human Rights did its due diligence to ration resources — serving as a Death Panel. 

The scheduled to pull the plug on Charlie last Friday, but there’s been a last-​minute reprieve — no doubt a result of pressure from America and the Vatican.

Though the doctor who testified before the court insisted that any American medical institution would have provided the treatment he offers, the best the Gards can apparently hope for, now, is to be allowed to take Charlie home to die.

Think of it as socialized medicine in action.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability folly general freedom moral hazard national politics & policies

An Inconvenient Empire

realpolitik, human rights, dictators, chess, empire, John McCain, Rex Tillerson, Glenn Greenwald, Trump

“Don’t look to the United States for hope. Our values make us sympathetic to your plight, and, when it’s convenient, we might officially express that sympathy. But we make policy to serve our interests, which are not related to our values. So, if you happen to be in the way of our forging relationships with your oppressors that could serve our security and economic interests … You’re on your own.”

That’s Senator John McCain’s New York Times op-​ed mockery of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who recently told State Department employees that conditioning our foreign policy “on someone adopting our values … creates obstacles to our ability to advance our national security interests, our economic interests.”

In his op-​ed, entitled “Why We Must Support Human Rights,” McCain recounted the hope it gave him to know America would not abandon him as a prisoner of war during Vietnam. But, of course, Tillerson wasn’t suggesting the U.S. abandon POWs. 

McCain highlighted dissidents throughout the world, urging the U.S. to speak out for them, to provide “hope … a powerful defense against oppression.” 

No fan of President Trump*, the senator is playing up the praise Trump has awkwardly offered despots, including Russia’s Vladimir Putin, the Chinese leaders behind the Tiananmen Square massacre and recently North Korea’s Kim Jong-​un. Still, recent successes in freeing Americans and others from the grasp of tyrants in Egypt, Iran and China suggest some degree of caring by Tillerson, Trump and Co.

The inconvenient truth? American foreign policy has long pursued certain political and economic interests at the expense of extolling human rights. As Glenn Greenwald wrote in The Intercept: “The list of U.S.-supported tyrants is too long to count.…” 

Hypocrisy alone won’t change that.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Very early in the presidential campaign, Trump needled the senator and reacted to McCain being called a war hero, by echoing a four-​lettered Chris Rock routine: “He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured, okay. I hate to tell you.” 

In 1967, McCain was shot down over Hanoi, North Vietnam, on his 23rd bombing mission of the war. He broke both arms and one leg and nearly drowned after parachuting into a lake. Denied medical treatment by the North Vietnamese, McCain spent the next five and a half years as a POW, some of it at the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” prison, where he was tortured.

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general freedom individual achievement

Crybaby

San Francisco Freedom Forum, Paul Jacob, Common Sense, Illustration

I’m not a crybaby. “Believe me” … as one fellow running for president is fond of saying.

Yesterday, however, at the San Francisco Freedom Forum, I was admittedly glad that the ballroom was dimly lit. Listening to speakers from across the globe tell their stories of struggling for freedom, I became … well, verklempt.

The event, organized by the Human Rights Foundation, is an expansion of the long-​running Oslo Freedom Forum. It featured speakers such as:

  • Hyeonseo Lee, who not only escaped from North Korea, the world’s most totalitarian regime, but later returned to help her family get out as well.
  • Yulia Marushevska, the Ukrainian anti-​corruption crusader, whose powerful YouTube video, entitled “I Am a Ukrainian,” helped the world see the Euromaidan protests.
  • Anjan Sundaram, the journalist with chilling tales of the totalitarian regime of Rwanda’s President Kagame, who recently overcame term limits through a referendum wherein 98 percent of the country supposedly voted to allow him to stay in power until 2034. Embarrassingly, Kagame spoke at Harvard and Yale on democracy and human rights. Sundaram recalled a Rwandan who explained, “We don’t know where the state ends and we begin.”
  • Zineb El Rhazoui, who co-​authored the comic book The Life of Mohamed with slain Charlie Hebdo editor Stéphane Charbonnier, and now lives facing an ISIS death sentence.

And many more.

For me, Rosa María Payá, with the Cuba Decides campaign, was the biggest tear-​jerker. She spoke about the murder of her activist father, Oswaldo Payá, at the bloody hands of the Castro regime.

As a father, it made me … (give me a moment) … think about how important freedom is.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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San Francisco Freedom Forum, Paul Jacob, Common Sense, Illustration

 

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general freedom ideological culture meme moral hazard nannyism too much government U.S. Constitution

Dear Bernie: Here’s How Rights Work…

Dear Bernie, rights, violation, violates, how rights work, meme, Common Sense

A new “right” that violates other fundamental rights, can’t be a right.

Dear Bernie, rights, violation, violates, how rights work, meme, Common Sense

 

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