Dakota Beacon

China has been a textbook example of what goes wrong when freedom is extinguished and the state becomes all-powerful.  Just take a look at the history of these totalitarian states.  In the 1990s the Soviet Union, communism's flagship, collapsed, revealing the weakness of such a system of intimidation and oppression.  Unfortunately, the same guys rose to the top again under a different name - oligarchs.  The same weaknesses persist.

At the moment, however, our big world headache is communist China.  It has festered ever since it began by driving freedom out.  The elements of a free China were exiled to Taiwan, which today functions as a successful democracy absent the kinds of mischief we see on a daily basis with communist mainland.  This has been showcased in the current Chinese pandemic.  Early on, Taiwan exhibited exemplary judgment in addressing the threat.  Banished from the United Nations and consequently the World Health Organization, Taiwan was not deterred from self-preservation by the WHO’s erroneous or deliberate misinformation which misled other western countries to ignore the threat of the coronavirus.  Taiwan began screening those entering the country and quarantining those who were ill and stepped up their production of protective and other medical supplies - manufacturing enough for their own people and some to spare for others.  In fact, they sent their manufacturing technology to other nations so that they could duplicate Taiwan’s success in addressing these problems.  Through it all, Taiwan’t people have remained both free and peaceful . . . and businesses have remained open.

Contrast this with the bizarre behavior of the communist government of mainland China.  First, the virus appears (at least as of now) to have emerged, probably accidentally, from a lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a facility known for negligent and unsafe conditions and for their research on bat viruses.  They were also generously funded by western institutions and governments, including some in Canada and the United States.  Their behavior toward all other nations has been nothing less than treacherous.  Those unfortunate enough to have welcomed the communist Chinese investment in their infrastructure found they’d let the wolf come into their house.  First, like a loan shark, China offers financial assistance in some desired or needed project.  Then comes the bite.  The unhappy country that accepted this investment finds itself taken over, its systems in the hands of these “investors” . It’s one way that a nation can conquer another nation without a soldier or a gun.  Some countries have wised up - India has prohibited the Chinese from investing there - while others are blindly falling into the trap in spite of the horrible experience of others.  At the moment China is about to buy a gold mine in northern Canada.  As it insinuates itself into other countries it implants its spy technology, mostly through the infamous Huawei.  

China, while bullying other nations both with a belligerent attitude in the waters of the South China Sea and among its own neighbors and attempting to crush the spirit of freedom which is flowering in Hong Kong, is mistreating its own citizens shamefully.  People suspected of being sick last winter were literally welded into their homes - metal bars were welded to the buildings across their doorways, trapping and imprisoning them inside.  Those who attempted to warn others were harshly threatened and reprimanded and forced to recant.  Those who protest are thrown into mental hospitals.  Journalists are expelled.  Supposedly independent organizations like the WHO are to a great extent controlled by the government of China.  No independent investigators are allowed into the country.  It is doubtful there is much left to investigate - China ordered all samples from its lab to be destroyed, along with other documents and evidence.  The wet market, subject of off-again, on-again speculation as to its role in the spread of the virus, was demolished.  No evidence left there.  And instead of alerting the world of a dangerous virus and stopping flights, they allowed some 7 million people to fly out of China to the rest of the world, while prohibiting travel within their own borders, isolating them behind their iron bars and punished whistleblowers.

Meanwhile their government has accused other countries of what it did.  They are now threatening various leaders, notably American leaders, for questioning them on any of this.  

Right now there is a massive crackdown on people’s attempts to speak out against the brutality of their government.  People who criticize the government are by their definition, “insane” and are dragged off to mental hospitals for abuse.  Doctors are hauled before some committee and intimidated into silence.  People who government suspects might possibly participate in a demonstration are followed around and snatched off of trains before they reach their destination.  If they have “legitimate” business they are followed around - just to make sure.

The example of mainland China has been grim and bitter for everyone - its neighbors, its trading partners, those who allowed investment and above all the people of China itself.  Whether we look at its predatory trade policies, its relentless pursuit of indoctrination of other nation’s youth through the Confucius Institutes through which it attracts traitors from university faculties and research staffs, to its cruel treatment and control of Chinese people at home and throughout the world, we can see that just like a recidivist criminal perpetrator, China is a failure - an example of what not to do, rather than an example of success.  

All of which leads us to a strange movement in the United States.  In contrast to China, the people of the United States have always enjoyed freedom - freedom to speak and criticize our leaders and others, freedom to pursue what work and careers we choose, freedom to own land and businesses, freedom to travel about as we wish, or to relocate.  As a result we have not had to steal technology or other intellectual property.  Our people are allowed to exercise their creativity and so they create - they make movies, they write books, they design ingenious inventions and advance the world’s technology.  In China these normal activities have been stifled and suppressed, so the Chinese government institutes programs instead whereby they attempt to steal or buy up every kind of technology.  (Of course if they ever acquire it all, progress will stop dead in its tracks at that point.)  And yet there are those in America who really believe we should emulate the rogue behavior of China.  Congressman Bobby Rush (D-IL) is one of them.  He has proposed HR 6666, a bill which would institute “tracking” or “tracing” the movements of heretofore free American citizens.  He does this in the name of “public safety”.  

We have watched over the space of a couple of months a near destruction of our freedoms - freedoms which have survived for 250 years . . . until now.  What has destroyed them?  A virus.  People have always died.  It is the fate of all humankind.  We have never made much of a dent in the length of the human lifespan.  To some degree we have improved the quality of that life and made it in some ways more productive, but we still all die.  It seems strange that a people so steeped in freedom in a nation founded on freedom, should surrender these freedoms in the name of “safety”, as though the all-powerful state could provide “safety” in exchange.

When this pandemic began here we all sought ways to deal with the crisis we thought might be approaching.  We allowed our businesses and schools to be closed, events to be cancelled.  This was intended to - as they said - “flatten the curve” - or slow the incidence of infection long enough to prepare hospitals, to procure medications and treatments and supplies for healthcare workers.  It is now more than two months.  Some people believe, with good reason, that when they try to start again there will be nothing left of their business.  People who have resisted the continued shutdown are arrested and prosecuted.  People who try to do nothing more revolutionary than take their kids to play in the park are cited.  All of this is tragic, but perhaps the worst aspect of the entire nightmare is this proposal of Congressman Rush.  

We simply cannot allow ourselves to be tracked, whether through some kind of electronic means or through some other, invasive means of tracking.  It is easy to tell people that we want everyone to be “safer”.  Who doesn’t want to feel “safe”?  But the government of China has nearly perfected tracing and tracking its people.  They’d like to trace and track us, which is why the phones they sell us provide a flow of information about us to their government.  They’d like it very much if we let our own government trace and track us - then all they’d need to do at some point is take over the job from “our” people.  The bottom line is this:  we don’t need to trace or track Americans.  This won’t make anyone “safe”; rather it will lay the groundwork for endangering our freedom.  This is an unreasonable and unconscionable abuse of our privacy.

The only answer to Rush’s proposal is a resounding NO!  We need to resist this and we further need to begin to disable the machinery of local and state government to behave like the government of China.  There is no question about it - this war is on two fronts - a threat posed by a foreign nation which has shown us enmity since its beginning, and an insidious internal movement to copy their ways.  There is, make no mistake, good and evil.  China and communism are the face of evil.  The closer we get to emulating them the uglier and more evil we become.  The good to all nations of a free country can be seen in Taiwan or any other free and thus productive nation - they are good world citizens and happy in their own freedom with no need or desire to stifle it in themselves or impose restriction on others.  

Instead of copying the worst ideas and the most dystopian features of China’s communist government we should return to our own roots, born in revolution against tyranny and nourished with freedom.  This long weekend we will be kicking off summer with our annual tribute to our war heroes - the men and women who gave their lives to ensure that we would NOT become communist China but rather remain a strong bastion of freedom, a light to the world and perhaps an inspiration to the abused peoples of China that there is something better than pretend “safety” and “order”.  It’s called liberty.