The Flaws of Democracy and Humanitarianism – Part 3/7

December 14, 2010

Left Coast Voices posted a piece about Liu Xiabo, a leader of the Chinese democracy movement, who won the latest Nobel Peace Prize.

It is a fact that today’s concept of Western style democracy, which Liu Xiabo and the Nobel Peace Prize committee seem to want for China and the rest of the world is seriously flawed.

This flaw was the reason the Founding Fathers of the United States despised democracy, which John Adams, America’s second president, said leads to “mob rule”.

The result of this “mob rule” has led to overcrowded US prisons housing thousands of extremely dangerous felons such as Thomas Silverstein, Ted Kaczynski, Terry Nichols, Richard Reid, and Ramzi Yousef.  Source: Searchwarp.com

There are more than a hundred thousand inmates in US prisons serving life sentences. About 30% of all lifers have no chance of parole since many are too dangerous to go free.

In addition, the Policy Almanac says, “gangs remain a problem in many areas throughout the nation.”

Then in 2008, Science Daily reported, “a survey of 17 countries has found that despite its punitive drug policies the United States has the highest levels of illegal cocaine and cannabis use.”

These examples show what Western style democratic freedoms deliver.

In China, most of these criminals would have been executed soon after being convicted of the horrible crimes they committed.

It’s true that in China, the execution rate is the highest in the world, but in the US, the murder rate is higher. At least most of the criminals that are executed in China are the bad guys—not honest, hard working victims.

Return to The Flaws of Democracy and Humanitarianism – Part 2

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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.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The Qing Dynasty (1644 – 1911) – Part 2/2

December 14, 2010

The Yongzheng Emperor ruled from 1722 to 1735. He was frugal like his father, the Kangxi Emperor.

Yongzheng created an effective government and used military force to preserve the dynasty’s position as his father had. Under his leadership, he continued the era of peace and prosperity by cracking down on corruption and waste while reforming the financial administration of the empire.

The Qianlong Emperor (birth/death 1711 – 1799) ruled China for much of the 18th century (1735 – 1796). He subdued about ten rebellions known as the “ten successful campaigns”, which drained the Qing Dynasty’s treasury. These rebellions stretched from 1747 to 1792.

However, when the Qianlong Emperor died, China was unified, at peace and strong. He was a brilliant military leader and expanded the empire further into Mongolia and Tibet.

During the rule of the Qianlong Emperor, Manchu and Chinese armies proved the Qing sovereignty over Burma and Nepal.

Chinese settlers in Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan and Taiwan dealt with rebellions of the aboriginal tribes that could only be subdued by military force. Muslim people also resisted the Qing regime in Gansu and Xinjiang.

During the 19th century, the two Opium Wars started by Britain and France weakened the Qing Dynasty.

Besides the Opium Wars, there was also the Taiping Rebellion, which lasted more than a decade and cost about 20 million lives.

In 1900, The so-called Boxer Rebellion (known as “I-ho Chuan” or the “Righteous and Harmonious Fists”) was originally started against the Manchu Qing Dynasty but the Qing government managed to redirect this rebellion against the foreigner invaders that had defeated China during the earlier Opium Wars.

This ended in a worse defeat after the foreign powers formed an alliance and marched on Beijing slaughtering the rebels.

The driving force behind the revolution of 1911 that ended the Qing Dynasty was Dr. Sun Yat-sen.

However, once the Qing Dynasty fell, warlords tore China apart and it would take years of struggle to reunify China under one government in 1949 after the Communist Party defeated the Nationalists, who fled to Taiwan with much of China’s imperial treasures and gold.

Return to The Qing Dynasty (1644 – 1911) – Part 1

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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.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The Flaws of Democracy and Humanitarianism – Part 2/7

December 13, 2010

Left Coast Voices posted a piece about Liu Xiabo, a leader of the Chinese democracy movement, who won the latest Nobel Peace Prize. This is Part 2 of my response.

Liu Xiabo won the Nobel Peace Prize for his activism in China. The Nobel Peace Prize is the West’s medal of honor for those who work hardest to spread Western style democracy and Humanitarianism to countries that have not accepted these theories.

In case you are not aware of whom awards the Nobel Peace Prize, I’m going to tell you—a committee of five persons elected by the Norwegian Parliament (four women and one man–all Caucasians).

More than 85% of Norway is Christian and about 82% are Lutheran.

The Islamic religion is worshiped by less than 2% of the population of Norway and Buddhism by one tenth of one percent. Almost 84% Norway is of North Germanic/Nordic descent or Caucasians.

These are the people that decides who wins a Nobel Peace Prize.

There is no international body made of representatives of all races and most nations to decide who wins the Noble Peace Prize.

Instead, a Western, democratic, Christian bias heavily influences these decisions.

For that reason, it is wrong to assume that most Chinese want all of freedoms the West’s Christian dominated democracies offer.

Return to The Flaws of Democracy and Humanitarianism – Part 1

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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.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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The Qing Dynasty (1644 – 1911) – Part 1/2

December 13, 2010

Since the Qing Dynasty was the last imperial dynasty to rule China, I searched for a YouTube video that would do it justice.

A student for a history class produced the best YouTube video I discovered. 

The student narrator spends about two-and-a-half minutes in the first segment summarizing China’s history from Qin Shi Huangdi, China’s first emperor, to the fall of the Ming Dynasty.

The Qing Dynasty had its roots from the 1580s when a Manchurian chieftain Nurachi (1558–1626) unified the Jurchen tribes of the region.

Over the next several decades, Nurachi took control over most of Manchuria.

In 1616, he declared himself khan, and founded the Later Jin Dynasty (which his successors renamed in 1636 to the Qing Dynasty).

The Chinese peasant revolt that ended the Ming Dynasty (1368-1643) was quickly defeated by the Manchurian Qing Dynasty in 1644.

However, the Chinese fought hard to drive the Manchurians from China and continued resistance in southern China until crushed.

The Kangxi Emperor (1654 – 1722) ruled for 62 years and is considered by many historians one of the ablest emperors to govern the vast Chinese empire. He laid the foundation for a long period of political stability and economic prosperity for China.

The rebellions he put down was called the Rebellion of the Three Feudatories, which lasted from 1673 to 1681.

Then there was the pirate-merchant Zheng Chenggong, who set up an independent kingdom on the island of Taiwan. Eventually, that kingdom was defeated and brought back into the Qing empire.

The Kangxi emperor also fought wars with Russia from 1685 until 1689 when the Treaty of Nerchinsk was signed.

Then there were campaigns against the Mongols until they were defeated. In 1720, the Qing Dynasty occupied Tibet and incorporated that country into the empire.

However, even in times of war, the Kangxi emperor provided tax relief for the people, and he was a frugal and wise leader. He left China strong and in good financial condition.

Discover more about the lifestyles of The Qing – China’s Last Dynasty

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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.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

1 Comment | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, history | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The Flaws of Democracy and Humanitarianism – Part 1/7

December 13, 2010

A Western activist Blog, Left Coast Voices, posted a piece about Liu Xiabo, a leader of the Chinese democracy movement, who won the latest Nobel Peace Prize.

The host of this Blog, Alon Shalev, has an impressive resume in activism. Shalev campaigned for the anti-apartheid movement, the release of Jews from the Soviet Union and the burgeoning green movement.

Today, he is the Executive Director of the San Francisco Hillel Foundation—an eighty year old nonprofit.

Hillel helps students find a balance in being distinctively Jewish and universally human by encouraging them to pursue tzedek (social justice), tikkun olam (repairing the world) and Jewish learning, and to support Israel and global Jewish peoplehood.

Similar to Hillel’s goals, Shalev’s novels highlight social injustices and individual empowerment.

I’ve read Shalev’s The Accidental Activist, and I cheered for his heroes to beat the evil oil conglomerate. Since I don’t want to spoil the story, I won’t say what happens.

Incidentally, The Accidental Activist is based loosely on a real court case that took place in England.

In his Left Coast Voices post about Liu Xiabo, Shalev says, “I have news for you, Chinese Communist Party: freedom is addictive, and it ain’t that bad.”

I agree that freedom “ain’t that bad”, but the Chinese (contrary to public opinion in the West) enjoy many of the same freedoms people in the West enjoy with a few exceptions, which I will deal with in part 7.

This, of course, is Shalev’s response to China locking up Liu Xiabo for 11 years.

Discover what really happened at the “so-called democracy” movement that did not take place at the Tiananmen Square Incident in 1989.

In fact, there was no popular, organized democracy movement in China and there never has been. Only a few thousand people in today’s China, such as Liu Xiabo, want to import the Noble Peace Prize, Christian influenced, Western Humanitarianism style of democracy to China.

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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.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

Leave a Comment » | America, American culture, China, Chinese Culture, cultural differences | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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