Tag: tyranny

Categories
media and media people

Too Much Truth

Both what to report and when to report it can be legitimately debated in an editorial room. But not whether to accept demands to conceal “unflattering” truth for the sake of being allowed to report at all.

That’s the “dilemma” some news organizations face when they wish to report from within a country whose government will deny access unless they toe the line.

The reportage by longtime Reuters journalist Paul Mooney, who specializes in China, has apparently been too candid. The Chinese government has denied him a visa. His career there may be over. What should Reuters do?

Not what Bloomberg News did when its reporting incurred the displeasure of Chinese officials. Bloomberg spiked an investigative report about the financial ties between billionaire businessmen and Politiburo officials, for fear of being ejected from the country. Bloomberg insists that it has merely delayed the story. But the motive is clearly a desire to appease the Chinese government, which has already blocked the Bloomberg News website inside China and refused new visas to Bloomberg journalists.

Instead of killing or deferring disapproved journalism, any news outfit threatened with expulsion by an authoritarian government should publish its honest reports and let the chips fall where they may. If kicked out, it should seek other ways to report on the country. Covert communiqués from careful Chinese citizens. Secondary sources if necessary. That’s better than actively cooperating with wrongdoers to hide their sins.

It’s really not too different from crime reporting. Crime bosses don’t like a nosy press, either.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ideological culture initiative, referendum, and recall term limits too much government

Don’t Copy Chávez

Americans eager to weaken various limits on political power here at home should pay closer attention to news from abroad.

Around the globe, killing presidential term limits is high on the to-do list of aspiring presidents-for-life.

Autocrats also dislike the right of citizen initiative. Even when they abstain from trying to kill initiative rights altogether, they often seek outrageous restrictions on them, or even stoop to harassing petitioners and voters.Hugo Cloned

One such enemy of the people was Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez, now dead. Chávez was an equal-opportunity attacker of citizen rights. He expropriated businesses, bullied media, once even ordered soldiers to fire on anti-Chávez protesters (they refused). He also succeeded in eliminating presidential term limits.

In 2003, his government arranged for the public release of the names of Venezuelans who had signed a petition to recall Chávez. The names were stolen from the office charged with overseeing the petition drive and leaked to a pro-Chávez legislator, who then published them on his website. Many signers lost jobs, loans, and other opportunities controlled by the state.

American foes of term limits, initiative rights, and other constraints on concentrated power may think there’s no comparison. But every chipping away at protections against tyranny is dangerous.

While it is true that no single limit on power can substitute for all the cultural values and ideas that underlie our rights as free citizens, it is also the case that institutions and culture reinforce each other. The foundation of a building has more than one cornerstone.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
general freedom

Libre from Cuba?

Some Cubans will soon be free to escape the Cuban dictatorship.

The Cuban government recently announced it would end exit visa requirements by mid-January. After which, Cubans wanting to go abroad will simply need a passport and a visa from the country they’re headed to.

Some of them, at least.

Cuba won’t simply let its people go. Emigration will remain a privilege — one more often accorded now, but still a privilege — not a right. A privilege the government may revoke at will by invoking, for example, “national security” to stop dissidents who might cause trouble abroad. Skilled professionals may be kept to “preserve the human capital created by the Revolution” — you know, on the “You Didn’t Build That” principle.

For a government (whether a dictatorship or a prelude to one) to treat rights as mere provisional gifts is nothing new. The Weimar constitution of 1919 held the rights of the individual to be “inviolable” — unless a law were passed to violate them. (Article 114.) The German’s home was “an asylum and inviolable” — unless a law were passed to violate it. (115.) Freedom of speech, freedom of movement, etc., were all guaranteed — except when the state deemed otherwise.

Yes, Cuba’s loosening of emigration rules will be a boon for those Cubans free to leave under the new rules. But the situation resembles that of a prison in which everybody is wrongly incarcerated, from which half the inmates are one day graciously released. Well, great, except . . . shouldn’t they all be released?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
general freedom too much government

Prisoners of Conscience

The crusade against political dissent under Venezuelan socialism rages on. The latest victim of President Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías is former presidential candidate Oswaldo Ålvarez Paz. In March, Paz contended that Venezuelan officials had ties with drug traffickers and terrorists. For articulating this conclusion he is charged with “conspiracy” and “spreading false information.”

The president of the Human Rights Foundation, Thor Halvorssen, notes: “Ålvarez Paz said Venezuela was ruled by a ‘totalitarian regime.’ The Chávez government disagreed so strongly with this that they proved him right by arresting him and keeping him imprisoned.”

Guillermo Zuloaga, who owns the independent television network Globovisión, on which Paz uttered his opinion, was also arrested recently for saying things “offensive” to Chávez.

Touchy, touchy, El Presidente.

“If the Venezuelan government can imprison a former presidential candidate and the head of the country’s only independent TV network because their opinions ‘offended’ the president,” asks Javier El-Hage, HRF’s general counsel, “then what options are left for a college student who wants to protest against the government, or an independent journalist wanting to write a critical investigation?”

The Human Rights Foundation is one of many organizations rebuking Chávez’s conduct and calling for the release of persons arrested for what has been called the “crime of opinion.” They will have earned a large share of the credit if Chávez is ever forced to change course — or Venezuela manages to change course by getting rid of Chávez.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Second Amendment rights

The Idiotic Extremes of Prohibitionist Tyranny

Tyrants don’t like an armed populace. The extent tyrannies will go to make sure citizens are disarmed can boggle the mind.

Take England. Please.

In Great Britain, private gun ownership is now illegal. This is not just a policy of trying to reduce concealed carrying of firearms — it’s a complete and utter prohibition, with no leniency.

Consider the recent case of 27-year-old Paul Clarke, a former soldier. He spied a garbage bag in the wrong place, went to look, and found a shotgun with ammo inside. He new guns were illegal, so he made an appointment with the local Chief Superintendent, and took it to the police station in the morning.

He was then arrested and imprisoned for possessing a firearm. He didn’t know that the law was so stringent as to make even touching a firearm, with the intention of giving it to the police, a no-no. But he was prosecuted and convicted for doing just that. By the time you hear/read this, he’ll have been sentenced.  I’m hoping the judge is lenient. The five years minimum, which is how the law reads, is idiotic in the extreme.

The law is more than just dumb, it’s tyrannical. There’s no excuse for such nonsense.

Free Paul Clarke! And weep for Britain, where some say liberty was born. Liberty sure seems dead there now — as is common sense.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.