Mouthpiece For China Laments US Gun Ownership

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2nd amendment, china, gun rights

China — land of forced abortions, prisoners being used for transplant “donation”, censorship of the internet, forced labor — is hammering the United States on its civil rights record. The main issues the Chinese government sees? “The United States prioritizes the right to keep and bear arms over the protection of citizens’ lives and personal security…”

That’s right. Our violence rate is too high for Chinese…at least our “unofficial” violence rates, and for that, they blame gun ownership. (Apparently, they haven’t heard of the violence rates on housing estates in urban England…) I am quite sure they’d approve of the official violence rates — after all the police are enforcing the law.

And there’s the difference in thinking: the Chinese are an ancient society of bureaucrats. They have, for millennia, had a massive, useless set fo rent seekers who look to lord it over their charges for the sake of order. Very Confucian. The inverse view was taken by those thinkers of the Enlightenment in Europe, who had experienced the dangers of unchecked authority — be it kings or lord protectors — and decided that limited governance (and with it increased self-responsibility) was the way to go. One of the only ways to protect oneself from the steady encroachment of titled thieves and busybodies looking to take your salt and soda away was to have an armed population that could, if needed, rise up and quash the inevitable meddling of “smart folks” and wannabe aristocrats. (The Founders recognized these impulses even in themselves.)

I doubt seriously anyone outside of the usual “useful travelers” in the Progressive end of the political pool is going to view China’s “analysis” with any credence. But there’s the problem: Progressivism is a weed that cannot be eradicated. It is the philosophy of the political class and academia (who long to be part of the former.) Gun ownership is an anathema, a moral sin, to people who feel they have the right to tell you how to live your life. Along with Big Gulp sodas and cigarettes. This is the reason every totalitarian regime loves to rid the people of the means to resistance — be it 1930s Germany, the Soviet Union, China, Iran, Venezuela, or even Jolly Ol’ England, which banned guns to pull the teeth of Irish and socialist revolutionaries in the 1920s.

To those who would like to be left alone, and who recognize that police forces rarely have the ability or wherewithal to protect you, look at weapons ownership as key to self-reliance, or at the very least, the ability to defend one’s self and property when the police are 20 minutes away…or are the one’s at your door.

 

House Republicans Introduce Bill to Protect Our Rights From UN Power Grab; Plus! Internet Power Grab via the UN

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china, international telecommunications union, internet freedom, political speech, russia, united nations

U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-KS) introduced the Second Amendment Sovereignty Act (S.2205), a bill that would protect the rights of American gun owners from the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty. Over in the House, Rep. Ben Quayle (R-AZ) and Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-MT) introduced the Second Amendment Sovereignty Act, H.R.5846. It doesn’t matter what you think of guns or gun control, the attempt to interfere with any enumerated right by foreign, unelected bureaucrats should chill any American’s blood.

The treaty would create an international body to police the sale and distribution of arms and ammunition both internationally and inside member nations. it would also set up a compensation fund for gun violence victims — yet another attempt to open another revenue stream from the United States to the UN. The bill introduced would,

No funds may be obligated or expended to use the voice, vote, and influence of the United States, in connection with negotiations for a United Nations Arms Trade Treaty, to restrict in any way the rights of United States citizens under the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States, or to otherwise regulate domestic manufacture, assembly, possession, use, transfer, or purchase of firearms, ammunition, or related items, including small arms, light weapons, or related materials.

Meanwhile, the United Nations is attempting to push through modifications to the treaty that deregulated international communications. Russia, China, and other autocratic regimes hope to wrest more control of the internet from multi-stakeholder process and shift them to the United Nation’s International Telecommunications Union, where an unelected and corrupt bureaucracy could them dictate “fairness” (which would, I’m sure, have nothing to do with restricting speech and political expression…no…)

Richard Beaird, Senior Deputy United States Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy in the State Department is on record, saying, “We have made this point repeatedly, and we will continue to make it,” said Beaird. “The United Nations and the ITU can do many things, and they can do those things effectively and importantly. In the areas of development, in the areas of training as a forum of discussion for international policy matters, and [in] the case of the ITU of course, preemintently, in the area of spectrum allocation and management on an international basis. But managing the Internet is certainly not one of the U.N.’s roles.”

Of course, there may be some cause to worry if this is the positon of everyone involved in the negotiations…

China Asks US to Respect Pakistani Sovereignty

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china, pakistan

The Statesman out of India is reporting that China’s playing the brinksmanship game, threatening that “any attack on Pakistan would be construed as an attack on China…” While this is most likely simple saber-rattling, it shows the perception in Beijing that the United States — thanks to its patchwork foreign policy and weak leadership — is weak.

The Chinese are propping up a nation that is actively aiding and abetting US enemies, like American intelligence agencies did during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan — bleeding us dry of money and political will. That Pakistan has been exposed as perfidious is ratcheting up tensions and could mean US forces defang Pakistan-entrenched Taliban and al-Qaida elements without Pakistani iad, which would show that nation the weakness of their leadership, who desperately need foreign, powerful help to remain in power. The US is regarding Pakistan with suspicion, so Islamabad turns to Beijing for help.

That Pakistan is turning to China shows that they, as well as the Chinese don’t understand how precarious Beijing’s economic, hence political and military, clout is…the Chinese strength is a soap bubble: illusory and waiting to pop. They are propping up their GDP with massive building projects — huge city and shopping complexes that stand empty. They have a rapidly escalating wealth disparity between a few cities and the rest of the nation. They have their currency overinflated. All this could collapse if the United States took one sole action: default on our debt to them and close the country to their products.

If they want to play hardball, the best way to hit the Chinese hard is the simplest. Without a steady influx of American cash, China folds like a deck chair.

Unfortunately, we don’t have an administration with the balls to remind them of this.

China: The Bubble Waiting to Burst

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china, economic bubble

Building just to build — a prime example of government’s disconnect from market pressures.

Another Example of Top-Notch Chinese Manufacturing

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china, condoms

Forget lead-painted toys for tots, forget 50cc scooters than can’t get within 10mph of any of the other machines out there (and worse quality than a car from British Leyland), forget pirated DVDs and Rolexes…the Chinese can’t even get a condom right!

Just in Case You thought the Financial Crisis Was Over

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china, financial bubble

…here’s a little piece from The Christian Science Monitor concerning the next big collapse of the global economy.  For too long the developed world has been living on credit and Ponzi schemes — doling out lavish entitlements, guaranteeing massive student loan and housing debt…none of which it can do without a stable tax base.  In Europe, the tax base is being gutted by slow to no population growth — no new people to pay for the elderly and their state-funded retirements.  In the United States, we’re just starting to see the same thing as the baby boomers/Me Generation start to retire and expect free health care on top of their Social Security checks (for which the money is already spent.)

The global collapse started when the European welfare states started to go bankrupt — banks couldn’t afford the subprime housing bubble bursting in England (the Northern Rock scandal), which contracted investment.  This caused other big economies like Ireland to contract sharply…POP!  The Big Two in Europe — Germany and France have been staggering along for a while, hoping no one would notice all the red ink — especially from the leeches of the EU — Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal — which were eating up the European coffers.

In the States, GW Bush and the kleptocrats like Bawney Fwank were systematically destroying the economy by “letting it ride” on the housing market, as foreign investment dried up and fuel expenses shot up, gutting American’s abilities to pay for things like…well, that new subprime mortgage they should never have taken out.  As with 1929 — bad housing and farming loans, coupled with a collapse of foreign investment (or in the case of 1929 the ability to repay loans) put a round through our economic ship below the waterline.

Now it’s China’s turn.  As seen in the CSM article (see the link above), China has been keeping the renminbi artificially low to keep their staggering GDP growth.  Unfortunately, just like the exuberance of the Bush years market, China is ready to pop.  The US cannot repay the debt in the shape we’re in, especially if ObamaCare passes (the equivalent to having that round through our ship’s hull igniting boiler or magazine…BOOM!)

China is about to have their 1929.  The US can’t repay the massive loans we’ve taken, their currency cannot be depressed much longer, and much like Dubai, their spending spree has cost them their reserves of cash.  Unlike the developed world, their political and state-operated economic system is ripe for dissension when their billion or so people start starving because they have no jobs.

And when China goes, our ChinaBank Unobtanium Card will no longer be useful.  Congress, which has been doing the equivalent of a student padding his income with student loans, will find the bill is due and their people either don’t have the dough to fill their coffers…or the will.

There’s an old curse: May You Live in Interesting Times.

Now would be a good time to stock up on food, water, and ammo.