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Chinese Professor



In 11 days, we can do something about it...

Quote chain

I've got little to add to this...

If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.

- George Orwell

Wherever there is a jackboot stomping on a human face there will be a well-heeled Western liberal to explain that the face does, after all, enjoy free health care and 100 percent literacy.

- John Derbyshire

One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century.

- Thomas Friedman

Of course, we all remember those Friedman columns longing for the party in power to be able to unilaterally impose its "politically difficult by critically important policies" during the Bush administration.

Oh, you don't remember those?

Hmm... Come to think of it, neither do I. Well, when the space ants come, I'm sure that Thomas will welcome our new insect overlords, and be happy to help them round up others to toil in their underground sugar caves. As long as they're Democrats. Or Communists. Or at least not Republicans...



(The Friedman column also contains this howler: "Mr. Obama is not a socialist; he’s a centrist." Yes, a centrist who has taken over the banking and auto industries and is gunning for the health care system. A centrist who has appointed 31 different czars to Cabinet-level duties in such a way that they don't need Congressional approval, including avowed Communist and 911 "Truther" Van Jones. A centrist whose first major piece of legislation was a $750 Billion grab-bag for leftist special interest groups which has provided no stimulus whatsoever to the economy. A centrist who wants to redistribute the wealth, who jokingly threatened to have a college audited, and less-jokingly threatened to allow mobs to attack bankers. That kind of centrist. It's no wonder the people at the Times think that moderates are arch-conservatives if they think that Obama's a centrist.)

UPDATE: Thanks, Jonah, for linking. Welcome newcomers - feel free to take a look around. I've got a bunch of Obama stuff, a lot of linking but some original analysis. I write a lot about the Boston Red Sox, as well, and whatever happens to come up that inspires me...

If I were a Freudian, what would I make of this?

Interesting little "dust-up" in The Corner this morning, which started with Mark Levin posting a little observation:

Attention Christopher Hitchens and the other faith-bashers. The faith-denying Marxist Nirvana known as the People's Republic of China is murdering Tibetans. Just thought you'd want to know ... or maybe not.

Not a big deal, one would suppose. But Andrew Stuttaford and John Derbyshire have, as near as I can tell, completely read something into it which just isn't there.

Stuttaford: "...the current atrocities in Lhasa have little or nothing to do with the communist regime's godlessness and almost everything to with its nationalism, imperialism, and authoritarianism."

Derbyshire: "I am glad to know that Mark has some sympathy for the Tibetans and their religion. He does know that Tibetan religion is atheist, doesn't he?"

Talk about missing the point. Levin, of course, said absolutely nothing about the religion of Tibet. Nor did he suggest that the atheistic attitude of the Chinese was driving the atrocities. What he pointing out, and addressing to Christopher Hitchens and those of his ilk who argue that religion is one of the primary sources of woe in the world, is that the atheistic "faith-denying Marxist Nirvana known as the People's Republic of China is murdering Tibetans." You know, committing atrocities. Not in the name of religion. Not because of Tibet's religion. It isn't a religious clash at all, and he wasn't suggesting that it was. It was counter-example addressed to the proponents of a worldview which holds that religion is the source of evil in the world, that atrocities occur because religious mindsets prevail, that "religion poisons everything."

Which is debatable at best, preposterous at worst. But the objections offered by Mr. Stuttaford and Mr. Derbyshire don't even address Mr. Levin's point. They are non-sequiturs, offered by the two Corner contributors who seem most embarrassed to be associated with religious people whenever the topic of religion comes up, and it would seem to say far more about them and their attitudes than about Mr. Levin, Tibet or China...