Posted on 06/04/2009 5:08:53 PM PDT by Zanton
Today marks the dolorous 20th anniversary of the bloody crackdown and heartless massacre of Tiananmen Square by the loathsome, evil, Chinese dictators. It was a truly black day for world freedom.
The idealistic, noble, and quite-brave student-led protest was basically advocating overall reform, less corruption, democracy, and liberty. But it was called a pro-"democracy" demonstration, and now it is almost exclusively remembered as being part of a pro-"democracy" movement.
Well, democracy has advanced only minutely in the past two decades. Only to a scattered, inconsistent, and tiny extent do the Chinese people actually get to elect their leaders, and decide who will rule them based on majority will.
But freedom has advanced substantially! Too bad neither the Chinese nor the world take much notice of it.
This problem -- and grave philosophical error -- began a long time ago. Indeed, in 1989 the Peking protesters occupying the Square built a statue explicitly called "The Goddess of Democracy" to symbolize their protest. They did not build a "Goddess of Individual Liberty." The difference is telling -- and overwhelming.
The sloppy language and poor thinking of the demonstrators and everyone else -- then and now -- is a rollicking disaster for all. This business of government reformers today stammering: "I want democracy -- you know: majority rule plus individual liberty," is very confusing to everybody.
It renders the all-important battle royal for freedom very difficult indeed. Indeed, it mainly serves to advance the trivial notion and minor goal of a nation getting to choose its political leaders.
As for the chance the newly-empowered "people" of China might have used democracy to advance welfare-statist bureacracy and tyranny far more than the economic capitalism and personal libertarianism recently advanced by the communist Chinese dictators -- well, no-one has an answer for that. No-one even has a bad and absurd answer which embarrasses the speaker as he speaks it!
In the end, post-Tiananmen China has advanced fairly far down the only road that matters: Not towards slimy, worthless "democracy," but towards all-important freedom. When it comes to government, politics, and the law, the only things which matter are liberty, justice, and individual rights. Put more simply, the only thing which counts is individual liberty. And the Chinese people -- altho' still grossly and unconscionably deprived -- have a lot more of this today than they did 20 years ago.
Pei-ping.
I tend to regard “Beijing” as commie talk. :-) I don’t use “Ho Chi Min City” or “Myanmar” either!
I saw The actual Square 2 weeks after the fact and you could see the Charred marks where the Burned the Bodies after the 110 tanks encircled them and ran over close to a 1000 Bodies... the Road was repaved but the Tanks with metal tread left the Main BLVD a Bumpy Mess....
It was a real Shame to go from Downtown to the apt of my Friend 12-16 Checkpoints... they Brought in the farm Boys because the elite squads were turning against the gov’t the farm Boys were discrete but when they saw My american Passport They saluted me in the Back seat... we told them not to so they wouldn’t get in trouble...
My friend’s wife co worker saw the entire event that saturday night.... Some day the Truth will get out but China is still playing for keep see us in our economic predicament!!
TPHCM will always be Sài Gòn to me. :-)
Pretty much everything about Tiananmen Square is depressing to think about. :-( But the painful truth is those heroic protestors were not champions of freedom. And that's the point. All these battles could be won far easier if only people would think much much clearer. We need to shout to the sky about the value of INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY. And shut the hell up about "democracy" for at least the next several generations.
To me too!
Thanks for the ping. China has come a long way. Still not so good though.
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