Posted on 06/09/2014 11:19:28 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
China's top newspaper on Monday warned against aping Western-style democracy just a week after the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown, pointing to Thailand and Ukraine as examples of the kind of chaos the system can bring.
President Xi Jinping's ascendancy in a once-in-a-decade generational leadership transition had given many Chinese hope for political reform, mainly due to his folksy style and the legacy of his father, Xi Zhongxun, a former reformist vice-premier.
But the repeated message the party has given out since Xi became president last year is that there will be no political liberalization.
China has been on high alert over the past few weeks in the run-up to the 25th anniversary of the bloody suppression of pro-democracy demonstrations around Beijing's Tiananmen Square, detaining dissidents and tightening internet controls.
In a lengthy commentary, the ruling Communist Party's official People's Daily newspaper said the country needed to be on guard against falling into the "trap" of Western-style democracy.
"Over the past few months, from Kiev to Bangkok, the politics of the street and public clashes have caused deep sorrow," the newspaper said.
"Looking back at the 'color revolutions' which have occurred in recent years ... how can we not say with deep feeling: rejoice that we have resolutely upheld socialism with Chinese characteristics. Otherwise, would China have peace?"
"From western Asia to North Africa, many countries have slipped into the confused madness of 'western democracy', which has neither brought happiness nor stability," the paper said.
It also took aim at British democracy.
"In Britain's parliament to this day there are still hereditary nobles. For Chinese people, this is unthinkable," the paper said, adding that China should continue going down its own path.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
That purge wasn’t chaotic. It was totally planned and orchestrated.
Maybe they are right.
You know, Nietzsche says, "Out of chaos comes order."
The New York Times could have printed that
“Oh, blow it out your a$$, Howard.”
Think of Obamacare taken to the limits.
Maybe they should tell that to their pal in Pyongyang.
A lot of communist ideas tend to go to the extreme. But in all of these communist schemes, the chaos is always used as an excuse or motivation to clamp down ever more tightly on society.
I wonder whether Chinese society will ever become democratic. They have no tradition of it. Same with the Russians. It seems they like they crave the whip.
Neither country experienced either the Reformation or the Enlightenment and so have no tradition of liberalism in the classic sense of the word. Both actually despise democracy, or representative government if you prefer, much as Hitler and Mussolini despised democracy in the 20s and 30s.
An obvious example of a society with no tradition of the Enlightenment and hence no attachment for democracy is Islam. It is more than merely to say that Islam is authoritarian, it is authoritarian because it has no exposure to the scientific method, to the Enlightenment, to the liberal tradition. It is wholly superstitious and deductive rather than inductive in its epistemology.
Communism, contrary to its bleatings about being the product of science as opposed to religion and superstition, is a deductive methodology proceeding from a premise, communism, and everything is organized to conform to that rationale.
Neoliberalism in America has evolved into statism and, under the influence of Saul Alinsky and The Frankfurt School with Its Critical Theory has in effect abandoned the scientific method as well and committed the nation to the swamps of relativism.
How we come to believe what we believe is so terribly critical, if we get it wrong it kills us.
What?
There is also clearly a Christian element in the Reformation and Enlightenment; that an individual has a soul, has a direct relationship with God, and therefore has individual rights and liberties granted directly by God. And not by the State, which has to power not only to grant, but to take away.
All statist systems of government seek to deny these truths by herding men into “collectives” and deny them of their individuality. After all, if you can deny that a man has a soul, then he is nothing more than a piece of meat to be disposed of as the state sees fit.
Our neoliberalist society is clearly going down this past, with its concept of “positive rights” and “collective rights.” I do not believe the concept of collective rights can co-exist with individual liberty, nor are “collective rights” really rights at all, but rather the burden of obligation. They are thus an extension of the power of the state.
Thus has the Classical Judeo-Christian social construct that permitted western civilization to thrive and flourish been undermined.
Sorry; “path,” not “past.”
Good observations. I think most people crave the whip no matter where they are from. It takes a special society to instill good intentions and trust with it’s own people, and use that to forge a benevolent gov’t.
Chaos can be used to clamp down on any people or gov’t. Look at us now by God!
Without that Christian element we have historically no Declaration of Independence, no Bill of Rights, no civil society.
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