As Hong Kong citizens grieve the loss of their democracy, American protesters seek to overthrow theirs.
It’s heartbreaking to see the end of Hong Kong’s push toward greater democratic liberty. Communist China asserting its power to reabsorb this flourishing capitalist hub was always the worst option on the table since it threatened the end of the British legal system and liberties, including a free press.
The activists were originally protesting the extradition law which would see Hong Kong citizens be tried on the Chinese mainland under the oppressive laws of the Communist Party, but it evolved into 5 key demands:
- the withdrawal of the extradition bill;
- the release of arrested protesters;
- an independent inquiry into heavy police tactics;
- a retraction of the word “rioters” when describing protesters;
- the full implementation of a Western-styled democracy.
After a year of massive protests, which inevitably became more violent as the stakes got higher (they were up against hard-core Communists and a secret police), they got none of it. What they ended up with was a new Security Law originating from Beijing and brought into force on June 30 2020, which saw the arrests of 370 people and counting.
Fearing retribution, and expecting to soon be placed behind mainland China’s “Great Firewall,” Hong Kong’s social media users have already begun to scrub their accounts and delete pro democracy messages, as have the many shops and businesses standing in solidarity with the protesters; they quickly removed their colourful posters and signs.
Hong Kong was the last and most successful of the British Empire’s colonies. Now it is China’s.
The new law makes subversive or secessionist activities illegal, including shouting slogans or flying flags that communicate any notion of independence. For Hong Kong citizens, even criticising the CCP while in another country can result in arrest. Chinese communism will now crush Hong Kong’s former liberty.
Meanwhile in the West.
Countries which have long, democratic traditions of freedom are now having to face monsters of their own creation: mobs of bored protesters that actually are rioters and nihilistic vandals. These gangs of vaunted liberality have so much liberty they don’t know what to do with it – aside from vandalising historic statuary and acting as if they are profoundly aggrieved as a way of life; they are literally begging to be taken over by Marxists, who refer to themselves as Black Lives Matter since referring to themselves as Democrats just doesn’t sound bad-ass enough, even though they vote in that direction when they don’t miss the bus.
In America, where the BLM movement began, they change their official demands every other day but here’s part of their “What We Believe” statement taken from their official website:
“We practice empathy. We engage comrades with the intent to learn about and connect with their contexts.
We make our spaces family-friendly and enable parents to fully participate with their children. We dismantle the patriarchal practice that requires mothers to work “double shifts” so that they can mother in private even as they participate in public justice work.
We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.
We foster a queer?affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking, or rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual (unless s/he or they disclose otherwise).”
Here’s a recent iteration of BLM’s 5 issued demands from June of this year:
- Surrender. Empty the precincts. Disarm and defund the police. Justice for George Floyd;
- Stand Down. End curfews and road closures. Withdraw the National Guard;
- Free Food & Supplies. Allow the free redistribution of goods from damaged businesses;
- Amnesty for all. Drop all charges. Cease investigations;
- Free Assembly. Right to protest and grieve however we feel necessary.
Note demand 3, where they feel they have the right to rampage around smashing and destroying businesses and then claiming the goods and products for themselves, like plundering thieves.
Note also demand 5. The American Constitution already gives them the right to peaceably assemble to ask their government for a redress of grievances, but that’s nowhere near good enough for their entitled bad-asses. They want to protest and “grieve” in their own special way, which is code for violently and destructively.
I just wish America could transport all the BLM protesters into Hong Kong to get a real taste of the coming communism which they crave (plus no TikTok), and transport all the freedom-loving Hong Kong protesters into the United States to get the liberty that they know what it’s like to have to go to the wall for. They lost, and an emboldened China claws its former territory back – COVID-19, the bio-weapon they unleashed on the world, helped them do it so easily.
It’s heartening to see Boris Johnson and Scott Morrison offer sanctuary to Hong Kong citizens who want to get out. Countries are struggling for their most essential natural rights – or for their totalitarian opposite. Right at the time when Hong Kong grieves the loss of its liberties and many prepare to flee into exile, to watch President Trump define America’s national character at Mount Rushmore – and also name the enemy which constantly seeks to assassinate it – all while underneath the giant, ghostly faces of the forefathers who authored the nation into liberty, felt like an epic distinction to remind us that liberty is indeed quite a fragile thing which requires our utmost vigilance, not our inbred apathy.