I was thinking today about what a travesty it is that the people of China are forbidden by their government to practice religion. This, of course, has been true in every communist tyranny, but that it should be so in the Earth's most populous nation is a terrifying fact. Yet China is a country much admired in left-wing circles, and diligently courted by both the U.S. Government and American corporations. Leaving aside China's continuing rape of Tibet (the only example of absolute colonialism left in the world), of its history, its culture and its religion, that Hillary Clinton should have gone to Beijing hat in hand to beg the Chinese to bail out our economy is an act of unspeakable shame.
History would indicate that the worst dictators target religion first. That this should be so is no surprise. In order for people to become subjugated to an all-powerful state, they must first be stripped of private devotion to a deity that gives their lives transcendent meaning, and which represents an alternative to secular power. In short, the purveyors of tyranny fear God above all, because people worship God above all. Ironically, their position is that Thou shalt not have strange gods before us. It is the first commandment of communism.
And yet, our own nation is not immune from this tendency to strip the people of their ability to express religion. Increasingly in my lifetime, the secular left has systematically and aggressively targeted religion in its attempt to make America over in its own jaundiced image. In America now, just as in China, any expression of religious sentiment in a public place will be suppressed and punished. Students who attempt to pray in school or even to make use of a classroom for purposes of religious gatherings are made the victims of ACLU lawsuits. Teachers who support their right to do what the Founding Fathers urged - make religion the centerpiece of American democracy - are warned, or suspended or even fired. Try to put up a creche in a public square at Christmas, or a menorah at Hanukkah, and watch what happens. And try to suggest in a public school that there may be an alternative to evolution, even merely for the purpose of discussion, and you will be reviled and shouted down or worse.
This is how things are routinely done in China, and as they were in the old Soviet Union. But that they should be done in the United States is a fact of forbidding implications. The Founders were clear: The source of freedom and the legitimacy of government is God. They prayed, they urged their fellow citizens to pray, and Lincoln, the greatest of all American presidents, invoked God as both the source and the solution of the Civil War. Yet this is not good enough for the secular gadflies who wish to purge American public life of any form of religion. (Except those of which it approves, apparently. Students at the University of Michigan demanded without challenge that Muslim foot baths be installed on campus. But what would have happened had Catholic students demanded holy water fonts in the dorms, or Jewish students, that mezuzahs be placed in the classroom doorways? )
The Founding Fathers, fearful of government's ability to suppress even the eternal longings of the human spirit, guaranteed us freedom of religion - not freedom from religion. There is a critical difference inherent in those prepositions. I do not, myself, subscribe to any particular religious tradition (as those who read this site will know), but I should be free to express my religious beliefs, or keep silent about them, or have none at all, in the public sphere as well as the private. That is my birthright as an American, and it is slowly being eroded away by forces that have more in common with the communist bureaucrats in China than with the traditions of the American republic.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
I cannot quite understand your demonization of China as the ills of all America is today. Pointing fingers outbound in a world that points all it is fingers back at the U.S.
The mission to organize and administrate the population of China was done so without any help from the U.S until the early 1980's. Thanks to the likes of Senator McCarthy and the extreme right wing and their support of the Nationalists. Who by the way did what the Communists did in Tibet with the indigenous people of Taiwan thorough invasion. (Didn't hear anybody, stand up for them.) And even then that support was only in the areas of selling into China technology that was deemed non-strategic. However I do not see an outcry on your part against Mexico's insidious strategy across the porous southern border to repopulate the U.S.
Have you been yet to China? It is always great for a rich country to tell the poor how they should administer when at home...
Do you believe that China is truly communistic? Is the U.S. truly democratic?
You compare democracy and freedom and God to China citing the U.S. as reference. But what may be more appropriate in citing a democracy is to compare the largest democracy ever....India. Strangely, the births of both modern countries are but one year apart. India was supported by the British-infrastructure of administration and transportation was left intact. China began with what? Virtually nothing, a rail system built in various gauges. Idealists in the communist way, yet look at them today. Visit every main city in both countries and see the differences. India a democracy can barely get their act together with their freedoms of and language. In fact debates in Indian parliament are nothing more than monologues of superfluous verbiage to which end....nothing is done.
And today, who are the biggest travelers in the world? Who will be the biggest consumers in the world?
China has taken a "don't ask/don't tell" attitude toward religion. I agree not with its policy of inhabitation of Tibet or forced Hanicization....There is much more freedom in China than one believes. QQ the social internet system boasts a membership over 100 million. Dwarfing Facebook and others. Change is yet to come and it will not be from the U.S.
But who is the ultimate culprit for your demonization of China?
The ultimate culprit is that person whose body mass index is most aptly described with the adjective of morbidly or that person who must have the latest plastic electronic device. The people who require two seats on an airliner and larger buttons on their tv remote controllers so that they make sure they press only one number at a time! Those corn and wheat fed persons who believed that breakfast cereals and crap carbohydrates were the staple of American productivity as well as the corporations who did their quarterly best to see that all demands were kept. The same people who believe that the viability of the American lifestyle cornucopia was what the world needs.
We don't demonize Mc D, Pizza hut, KFC for their invasion into other cultures with clinically proven addicting carbohydrates and Trans fats, do we? Yet we decry the pandemics of obesity, diabetes, and heart problems. These are the American way. And yet do you see God in any of these chains? What choices do we have at Pizza Hut for a Coke? Are you truly democratic or is it a blind insidious corporate encroachment that makes everything ok because it is sweet? Corporate America did their damage with longer shelf lived crap food and funded the original food pyramid-which by the way has been revised because the American way of life is proving hazardous to Americans!
The greed of the U.S is enormous. More, more, more, and more. Who built the foreign reserve surplus in Asia? Those same members of every union and guild in the U.S. with the reason of living wage and can't everybody have a living wage. Exclusion is democracy? or is it conditional? It is the economics of comparative advantage.
How quickly did "Give us your tired your poor" mutate to "Give us your rocket scientists, doctors, and researchers" that we may build the bomb to end all wars! And end it the U.S. did.....not. The U.S. created the situation of the Taliban in Afghanistan. History is full of the misattributed and misfinanced policies. But Bush is but one culprit.
Hillary! yes, how demeaning to send the likes of her into China. If there is a God, He knows the number of bodies afloat in White Water. Maybe that is why the Chinese may respect the U.S. The current administration's version of Luca Brazil!
Freedom, Is the U.S. truly free? Free to have strip malls and convenience foods and endless mass merchandising chains that all feed the China money machine. Democracy is the freedom to complain about the adverse outcomes of choice! Easy to criticize a system only 60 years old when compared to one over 200. Yes, they should learn faster.
Is there true freedom in Hollywood? You yourself look at it as totally commercial. Yet how free is someone to participate? You can't make a movie until you have made a movie. You can't be an actor until you’re discovered in the right sequence of layers of what? Nepotism and dishonesty (tell me the casting couch no longer exists!). That those who have made it big don't take chances to help those who aspire. Go prove yourself elsewhere, they say. Yet the biggest box office draw this year is from India! One wonders if they were all paid guild rates?
Does the specter of foreign Indies scare the pants off of Hollywood? Less we forget the growing box office takes of China and India....no wonder the theatre chains are moving in this direction. China adds 1.5 new screens per day. No wonder the big boys are flocking to China and India!
Freedom and Democracy do not mean equality as we see it extant in India and the U.S. Is China a static communist regime? Was the U.S. a static democracy? One certainly does not exonerate the other. The power that is China was built by the greed of the U.S. consumers and corporations.
Dudete
Dudete, 'very' well said, and written, by far better then I can do. America has long built its corporations in China, and for what, for cheap labor. That's what. America, blames China, for being polluted, when it is America's plants that are doing the pollution. Hopefully a form of government will help out the many truly hard working people, one day, one day. As government can hurt it can help. America, not that it is all wrong, is the only country claiming America is the greatest, partly because the money, which is being lost, and because the sin. Though, what powerhouse has not fallen?
'Dear' Sir,
You feel one good being should receive desserts, while another equal being not? Should a good man fall in fire, while another good man not? For many, hard is life. Perhaps I misunderstand you? Do not misunderstand me, there is much goodness in America, to my mind.
Thank you so "much", Mr. Anonymous. I do not misunderstand you at all, no worries, I am very eclectic. Do not take me as being haughty. But I must say that: It is easy for Ivory Tower Intellectuals to opine and pontificate. Go and see for yourself. The truth in understanding begins by observation. It is not the case of a good man falling in a fire and another not. It is a man pushing another into the fire and perhaps calling himself good. You feel one good being should receive desserts, while another equal being not? Are we not but one family of Man, that he dines as a family, he receives his dessert to the proportion that others receive none at all as the dish is passed around? America is founded on the ideal that "all men are created equal". The warranty expires at birth as that is about as equal as all men are. Communism says "all men are equal". Both have failed. Deng Xiao Ping said embrace communism. John Fitzgerald Kennedy said, "Embraces Marilyn" Ooops. Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country Sorry Retract Deng Xiao Ping said "Embrace capitalism" while retaining Communism. So the forces of equilibrium are working in China albeit at a rate faster than what it took in the U.S. Is one better than the other? Walk down the streets of Beijing look at the faces of the people, walk down the streets of Washington (but be sure you have a flak jacket). Walk down the streets of Delhi. I made no judgment other than not understanding our author’s demonization of China as to culprit of America's ills. I did not say I don't not like or even hate American. In that we are in agreement. There is much good there. There could be better there. A wise man once said, “You must be the change you want to see in the world”. I for one am not of America and I believe as Emma Lazarus has written: "Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp! Cries she With silent lips. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, and the wretched refuse of your teeming shore”. Yet freedom is mine not! And Liberty beckons not to me to reside in this land of the free.” We might be far from each other, but talk this over a plate of pasta it will seem like a scene from "The Godfather". I wish you well :)
Dudete
thank you- may wellness be with you
My reflections on freedom of religion in China appear to have sparked a lively discussion. I am grateful for the comments, though I find it a bit difficult to respond to them. They actually have very little to do with my remarks; however, I will try to answer to the extent that I can understand what has been written.
The premise of Dudete's posting as stated in the first sentence is completely erroneous. One does not refrain from citing evil because others also commit evil deeds. The fact remains that China is a communist dictatorship which suppresses freedom of religion, and all other basic freedoms, regardless of what America does or does not do.
That you do not see any outrage on my part at what you call Mexico's insidious attempt to repopulate America is a curious observation. I am, in fact, very concerned about illegal immigration across the Mexican border, and I am dismayed at the pathetic farce of our attempts either to rationalize it or, in some cases, even to promote it. I believe I have written somewhere here that, rather than try to make Southern California look like Mexico, the people of Mexico ought to be working to make their country look like Southern California. But the government of Mexico is so corrupt and so cynical that it actually encourages its poorest citizens to migrate so as to, on the one hand, secure foreign capital (dollars sent to Mexico by illegals in America now exceeds oil revenue as the country's largest source of foreign currency), and, on the other, to reduce the prospect of revolution. All of this is a cynical calculation by Mexico's oligarchy, which certain of our craven leaders appear to accept.
You ask whether I have been to China. The answer is no. I refuse to travel to any communist country. You ask whether I think that China is communist. The answer is yes, and you don't have to take my word for it - that is how the Chinese government describes itself. Do I think that America is democratic? Yes. And that, too, is indisputable. The question is whether this democracy is as free as it can be, or even once was. And if you have read my postings on the subject, you will know that I do not think it is, and am very fearful for the future of our democracy. This is largely due to the growing socialist impulse in this nation, which I think is the single greatest threat to individual liberty that we face today.
You refer me to the democracy of India. I do not know very much about India's government, but I do know that it is a desperately poor country with much civil and ethnic strife, and I am not sure that it serves as a legitimate parallel to American democracy. But if your intention is to attack the idea of democracy itself, then I would refer you to the Winston's Churchill's assertion that democracy is a very bad form of government, but all the others are so much worse.
I am sorry, but you are mistaken on China's official attitude toward religion. There is no freedom of religion in China, and religion is actively suppressed there, as it has always been in communist countries. Just as in the old Soviet Union, the Chinese constitution guarantees freedom of religion, but this guarantee is meaningless. Religions are forced to register with the state, which monitors their activities. At any moment, the government can take measures to suppress the expression of religion, as it has done with the Falung Gong sect. And just like the Soviet Union, the official state religion of China is atheism. All other religions are carefully regulated as threats to the government.
You state that change will not come to China from the U.S., and I agree. There is no reason that it should. Change must, and will come to China from the people of China, for you cannot oppress a people and deny their rights indefinitely. The fact that you cite, namely that China has the world's largest Internet network, is, to my mind, the most promising sign that the people of China cannot be denied freedom for much longer. And realizing this, the government of China very carefully scrutinizes and tries to control the Internet. You may recall that when Google entered China a few years ago, the government permitted it to do so with the stipulation that it be allowed to censor its content. And, in a cowardly submission, Google agreed. I think that the Chinese communist dictators fear the Internet almost as much as they fear religion, for it is thought that can flow freely and cannot be controlled. And that a government fears such free flow of information is its ultimate condemnation.
You then pass from a discussion of democracy and communism to obesity, and there you start to lose me. What body mass and sugar content have to do with the questions under consideration I cannot tell. However, I gather that you are deeply troubled by the nature of popular food products and the way in which they are marketed. And so am I. But remember that no one is forcing you to eat them; you are free to eat what you want, and to urge others to do so. And such freedom you appear to take for granted in this country, which is an underlying contradiction in your arguments. You are free to say what you want and write what you want and think what you want about America, which is a right you simply would not have in China, or any of the four remaining communist tyrannies left on Earth. I ask you, please, not to forget this fact. In American freedom, such as it is, you are like a fish in the ocean - you sometimes forget the element in which you live and move.
I do not understand your reference to unions, simply because the syntax seems to make no sense. But on the question of a living wage for everyone, I would point out that no one in this country is guaranteed a living wage (unless you consider the minimum wage a living wage). And this is a good thing to my mind, so long as it is coupled with the guarantee of opportunity. We still have in this nation, perhaps uniquely among all nations, the opportunity for anyone to succeed or fail according to his wants and needs and talents and desires, and aspirations and ambitions. That opportunity - to succeed greatly or to fail greatly - is a great gift to the human spirit, and the reason that people risk their lives to get here. And I for one would not trade that possibility and risk for any government-guaranteed concept of fairness. My attitude is, I think, characteristically American: let the government leave me alone, and I will take my own risks; I will succeed or fail according to my ambitions and abilities. But above all, I want the government out of my life, and the lives of my fellow citizens, so that we may all have the maximum of liberty and hope and aspiration. Government can only kill those desires of the human spirit, as the Founders knew. And as I have done elsewhere here, I urge you to read the documents on which this nation was founded - the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Federalist Papers among them - and then decide what America was meant to be for its citizens and for the world, and whether we are not selling that birthright for a cheap loaf of bread or a visit to a doctor's office.
You then move on to the atomic bomb, the Taliban, and George Bush, all in one paragraph, and I confess I have a hard time following you. With regard to the bomb, I regret as much as anyone that such things exist, but we must understand how and why they came into existence. In my view, in brief, the bomb was the result of many decades of research in physics, which would have led to the splitting of the atom whether there had been a war or not. But the fact remains that the Nazis were in hot pursuit of atomic weapons (and there is reason to believe that the Japanese militarists were too), and so we had no choice but to forestall them. I have expressed my view that the bomb, once created, ought to have been demonstrated to the Japanese rather than simply used against them, and it should certainly not have been used a second time in three days. But after much reflection I cannot resist the argument that tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of American lives would have been lost in an invasion of Japan. I think that the Japanese defense of Manila, in which that city was totally destroyed in suicidal resistance, proves that point. But such matters are of surpassing moral complexity, and deserve to be debated for a long time to come. I can only be grateful that I have never been called upon to make such an apocalyptic decision.
You then move on to Afghanistan. We did not create the Taliban; that was an indigenous movement of religion zealots which opposed the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. As a fact of Cold War politics, we supported them, on the principle that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. I thought then that it was a miscalculation, and I think so still.
I do not know to what you refer when you talk about the bodies afloat in White Water. Unless you count the death of Vince Foster as a victim of that scandal, I am unaware that the Clintons have ever been accused of murdering anyone. Murder is not my brief against that odd pair; corruption, greed, cynicism and lust for power are. I assume your reference to 'Luca Brazil' is, in fact, to Lucca Brazzi, the cold-blooded killer of The Godfather movies. Much as I disdain the Clintons and all they stand for, I would not compare them to him.
Your next paragraph, about strip malls, is nearly indecipherable to me. But if you mean by democracy being the freedom to complain about the adverse outcomes of choice, a criticism of democracy, then I would say you have completely misunderstood the meaning of democracy. Yes, it does offer us the opportunity to complain about the adverse outcomes of our choices - just as you are doing - but it is the choices and not the outcomes that democracy promotes. Democracy, and democratic capitalism, were never intended to make people happy or fulfilled, they were never meant to eliminate the risk of failure from their lives, or guarantee them prosperity. Democratic capitalism was meant to offer people the greatest possible opportunity and the personal liberty to pursue their own dreams. And with this liberty comes the risk of failure. That risk is what the purveyors of socialism focus on when they criticize capitalist democracy, and yet, under their system, there is neither democracy nor opportunity. The socialist ideal is what Dostoevsky referred to as 'the ant hill,' in which all individuals exist to serve the state. But the Founders believed that the state must exist to serve the individual, or it becomes a tyranny. And that, to my mind, is what we are seeing more and more these days.
You then move on to complaints about Hollywood. Now, as I recall, it was you who asked me to write about how one breaks into Hollywood, and I suspect that you wish to do so. It is a difficult task, as I have said, but not an impossible one if you have talent, persistence and a bit of luck. You complain that you have to make a film or work your way up through layers of labor - but what else would you expect? You say that established people do not help others. This is simply not true. I and many of my colleagues are always looking for new talent. I know of many cases in which established writers, actors, directors and producers have given a chance to newcomers. Is Hollywood commercial; is there freedom in Hollywood? Hollywood is a business, not a government, and it operates pretty much as any business does. But if you have talent and desire, you can make it. I have seen it many times. But you will never make it if all you do is moan and complain about how unfair the business is. No one, in business or government, owes you a living or a success. Those you must secure for yourself by your own efforts. And I can tell you, as a producer myself, I would never consider giving a break to anyone who took that attitude. You remark that an Indian film, presumably Slumdog Millionaire, was the highest grossing film of 2008. The fact is that Slumdog, while it did wonderfully well, was number 16 in worldwide grosses.
Is China a static communist dictatorship? No. In fact, it appears to be moving more and more in the direction of capitalism and, inevitably because of that fact, it will be forced, either through gradualism or revolution, in the direction of democracy. This is precisely what happened in Russia and Eastern Europe, for the simple reason that people cannot be denied their freedom forever. The Chinese people will throw over communism, as people in every corner of the world have done. It is only a matter of time. I never thought to see an end to communism in Russia in my lifetime. Now I am hopeful that I will see an end to it in China before I die. I will feel much more sanguine about my childrens' future if that happens.
One final note: Complaining about the deficiencies of America will get you nowhere. If you truly believe what you are saying, then you have an obligation to do something about it. When I was in college, my generation of Americans organized to end the war in Vietnam and institutionalized racial discrimination. We succeeded. I would suggest to you that you take one point - any one - on which you feel passionately, and organize an effort to make people aware of it and try to change it. That is the act of a heroic and committed person - that, as we used to say, you put your body on the line for your beliefs. If you do not - if all you do is carp and complain, then you are a hypocrite at best, and a coward at worst. And if you want to get into the Hollywood film business (and with your loathing of commercialism I don't see why you would), then write a film or act in a showcase, or do something to make your talent known. But short of that, neither I nor anyone else in the business, is going to offer you anything.
Thank you for taking the time to respond to my comments on your reflections on “God, Freedom, and China” and keeping this discussion lively. As a neophyte journalist not living under a dictatorship I am allowed to express my opinion. Yes, and for that I am grateful. I am not a communist, never intend to be, and as I have never met you my commentary is not of a personal nature. I merely seek an exchange of ideas.
But I am saddened by the fact that you will never visit a communist country. As you have so much to share of your experiences with the people of China even from the beginning (through Nixon) of Sino American relations. It is not through the official exchanges that the people of China learn about the West but it is the intimate gatherings where people learn. It is by being there that maybe a spark of inspiration happens that can make for a change.
From your reflections I gather that you feel events happening in America that is like a hand closing on the people’s freedoms and I state in my opinion that in China the hand of communism is opening on the people. The people are free to pursue their dreams (‘….to be rich is glorious….”) since the push to modernize began and yes as you state more freedom means also freer to fail. The freedom of choice of religion will come through increasing international relations. Even the strategy to populate Tibet with Han shall fail as even with government subsidy why would people choose to live in Tibet. The rapidly rising standard of living in China will make this non-sustainable.
My complaint is not of myself but pointing out that many of my friends, highly educated and talented, yet denied the right to emigrate to the U.S. as the government would not allow them.
In this the only thing I question is not that things be given but that the opportunity is not hindered. Emigrants have been hardworking contributors to the building of America.
I am glad that you recall I had asked about Hollywood, but, my question was not
“How does one…” it was “how did you…..”
God Bless you.
Dudete
Thank you for your reply, which I find much more moderated than your original posting. I don't know where you live, but please remember that our government, or any government for that matter, reserves the right to admit as many or few people as it wishes. While it is certainly true that emigrants have contributed a great deal to our culture, the U.S. simply cannot absorb everyone who wishes to come here. And that so many millions throughout the world do wish to come, that fact in itself says something about our society. I do not believe that people are clamoring to get into China. In fact, as far as I know, people are trying to get out.
The government of China may declare that it is glorious to be rich, but this merely echoes Lenin's dictum to 'enrich yourselves' issued at the time of the so-called New Economic Policy in the old Soviet Union. The idea in Russia then, as in China now, was to build a viable middle class and an upper class of producers of wealth to fuel the country's economic engine. But in very short order, this effort at individual entrepreneurship and enterprise was seen by the communist bosses as a threat to their power (because it represented a form of individual liberty), and the new policy was very quickly disbanded. The communist bosses in China will tolerate economic incentive and personal freedom only so far as they perceive them as non-threatening to their absolute control of power. When the time comes that the rising consciousness and desires of the people challenge the bosses' power and privileges, they will move against it. Freedoms granted under such circumstances are phony freedoms, because they can be rescinded at any moment by the thugs who hold power without the approval of the people.
What I find ironic is that China appears to be moving more in the direction of American capitalism at precisely the same time that America appears to be moving in the direction of socialism. And yet, as I say, no one is risking his life to get into China. This is symptomatic of the wrong-headed world view of the far left which, having regained power in the U.S., now seems to be moving in a concerted way to centralize and secularize our society and to neutralize the opposition. To my mind, it is a very fearsome prospect.
I certainly do not believe that the people of China are 'free to pursue their dreams' as you say. I think this is nonsense. The people of China do not possess even the most basic human rights, such as freedom of speech, the press, religion, a meaningful secret ballot, and the right to criticize and to oppose their government. And the reason for this is simple: China is a communist dictatorship, and history has shown us what that means. In your posting you criticize democracy as a system of government, but it was the great novelist Solzhenitsyn, who lived and served and suffered under communism, who said that communism is the most inhuman form of government ever devised. This is why it must be imposed on people by force. But eventually, any people, indeed, I think, all people, will rise up against it and consign it to the rubbish heap of history. It happened in Russia and it is bound to happen in China.
Post a Comment