Democratic trumpets are sounding the charge against China.
Sinophobes are shouting, “I told you so!”
The Western media is splashing the news on the Internet, across the front pages of newspapers and reporting it on TV and radio.
For example, The Huffington Post says, “Imprisoned Chinese democracy campaigner Liu Xiaobo on Friday won the Nobel Peace Prize, an award that drew furious condemnation from the authoritarian government and calls from world leaders including President Barack Obama for Liu’s quick release.”
Outside the Middle Kingdom, the government of China cannot win this public relations battle against democratic nations unified in their condemnation of non-democratic governments—at least those governments that do not have lots of underground oil as the authoritarian government in Saudi Arabia.
I’m sure that Liu Xiaobo believes in his mission as many in the West do that live in democracies.
However, I agree with America’s Founding Fathers, who in 1776 founded a republic—not the democracy the U.S. has today.
President John Adams (1735 – 1826), the second president of the U.S., said, “That the desires of the majority of the people are often for injustice and inhumanity against the minority is demonstrated by every page of the history of the whole world,” and “Democracy … while it lasts is more bloody than either [aristocracy or monarchy]. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.”
Mao was a dictator known as China’s modern emperor.
A few years after coming to power in 1949, Mao launched the disastrous Great Leap Forward followed by the infamy of The Cultural Revolution—both were driven by the mob and the results were about 30 million dead from famine, disease and tyranny.
In fact, before the communists came to power in China, there was more than a century of madness that almost destroyed China, which was caused by the West.
Soon after Mao died, Deng Xiaoping launched China’s capitalist revolution.
Then in 1982, China wrote the first draft of a constitution designed to build a republic – not a democracy.
Since then, China has been moving slowly down a road toward a more representative republic that fits China’s culture, which will probably never include democratic activists like Liu Xiaobo.
I hope China never becomes the kind of democracy President John Adams warned America against. It may be too late for the U.S. to return to the republic America’s Founding Fathers built, but it isn’t too late for China to avoid the same trap as they mature into a freer republic for the Chinese people.
Right or wrong, China’s central government does not want mob rule and that is the reason they locked up Liu Xiaobo and silenced his voice in China.
It is obvious that The Nobel Peace Prize has become a political tool to spread the mob rule of democracy that America’s Founding Fathers warned us about.
I urge China to release Liu Xiaobo from prison then send him to the democracy of his choice and never let him return.
Once living in Norway or France, maybe Liu Xiaobo will write a book about his experiences then win the Noble Prize for Literature.
I wonder what America’s Founding Fathers would have done with a Liu Xiaobo – probably ignored him as most Americans would have done then.
Nobel Prizes are awarded by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which has been accused of having a political agenda. They have also been accused of Eurocentrism.
For the 2010 Nobel Prizes, there were five committee members, one man and four women.
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.
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This is an interesting take on the Liu Xiaobo/democracy issue and has caused me to re-think what it might mean to have Western-style democracy in China.
While human rights, rule of law, and corruption are big issues that need to be rectified, I am skeptical that democracy as we know it is the be-all-end-all solution. In order for democracy to work, society must be highly educated and free thinking. This is one reason why democracy in America receives a failing grade in my book. Where once there was a republic, the U.S. has become – well, I don’t even think it’s even a democracy any more. I sure as hell don’t waste time voting.
As for China… the idea of free thinking educated citizens runs counter to an ancient culture rooted in obedience to authority, conformity, and provincialism.
From my boots-on-the-ground perspective in one of China’s top universities, getting students to vote on their preference for KFC or McDonald’s is like pulling teeth with a pair of pliers and a teaspoon of baijiu.
If they’re having problems with that, then they certainly aren’t ready for the voting booth.
Matt,
When I was teaching high school English, the average reader in the U.S. read at or below fifth grade level and people at this level have trouble understanding contracts for buying a car or house let alone figuring out the complicated political issues of our time, which explains why political pundits like Rush Limbaugh and Beck and authors like Anne Coulter have become rock stars, who influence people how to think and vote, which is turning America into the mob democracy the US Founding Fathers warned us of.
As for the so-called free press, most print-on-paper newspapers like the NY Times, etc., write copy (except the opinion page-maybe) for fifth grade readers so they appeal to a wider audience and the media often gets things wrong in what they report due to daily deadlines and pressure on reporters.
TV and radio news is worse because of time constraints. A story that might get several pages in a monthly magazine gets less than a minute on TV or radio.
Then, the average American watches several hours of TV daily (mostly America has Talent and scripted Realty TV), has a short attention span and little patience for anything that takes longer than a few minutes to read. Studies show that most people on the Internet will spend less than 30 seconds on a site or Blog before they surf away, which has led to Blog posts, which want to be read from beginning to end to average 200 words.
When most Internet surfers see a text heavy post, they leave almost immediately not wanting to spend the time reading.
With habits like those, a democracy soon becomes a dictatorship run by popular mob demand led by the Limbaughs of the world–clowns who are great on radio or TV hooking an audience with Bull Shit.
Feces! If Liu doesn´t like it in China…why doesn´t he move to the United States if he thinks it is so great here? We ONCE had a 100 sq foot free speech area 5 miles from the Republican Conventions that nominated George W. Bush who then became president…by loosing two elections. And we have a bigger Cult of Incumbents than the defunct communist party ever had. AND this country rapes more of the world´s resources and causes the greatest amount of terror and unbearable poverty by maintaining more weapons of mass destruction than any other two insane nations on the face of the earth. But that still does not even take into account that this land of ¨freedom¨ has more people in prison…than any other country on the face of the earth.
F*ck idolizing Xiaobo and the Noble Peace Prize! WTF have YOU ever done for world peace, jackass? And to keep everyone in ignorance and from finding out what does not get reported…you are forbidden by the Patriot Act to go —>
http://bramin.wordpress.com/page/2/ !
So don´t say you weren´t warned!
PS.
Just love a world where billions live in acceptable obscene poverty and even more billions live in acceptable blasphemous slavery so that petty small minded sites have enough time on their hands to monitor with censorship…words of rage and passion for being unacceptable.
True. I’ve written about some of what you say in other posts.
However, I’m not sure you understood what I wrote. You sound angry at my post about the Nobel Peace Prize as if I approve. I don’t.
As for incumbents in the U.S., you are correct. After all, the Chinese Constitution has term limits (two five-year terms) and an age limit (67), which America doesn’t have. In America, we have Senators so old that they are deaf and sleep most of the time when Congress meets.