I protest.

Shame!

Adam Morris, in "Brainysmurf: Hong Kong batting 1000; America, 0.00,"
compares the United States government to the Chinese government, and the Hong Kong protest of Article 23 to the apathy of the American people with respect to the erosion of civil liberties after 9/11.

Adam lives in Tianjin in the People's Republic of China. He is well aware of the authoritarian rule of the Communist Party in China and was apparently not surprised by Article 23, the legislative act that would have destroyed most civil liberties in Hong Kong in the name of "national security." As Adam says,

Before making an about face and practically killing Article 23 from the table, Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa asked the people to trust him and bring the idea of state to that of unquestioned hero. We are the state and we can only do good. No law-abiding citizen had anything to fear, Tung said.

This is, indeed, the attitude of the government of China. It treats its citizens as children for whom it must care and who must not be allowed too much freedom. Of course, this leaves any civil rights as merely those rights not being trampled by that government at any particular moment. Adam goes on to say, though, that

Bush and those directly under him make the exact same arguments in every single press conference available when defending the military tribunals, questions over post-Saddam Iraq, and just about every other foreign policy issue there is. Even on taxation, the administration's line that the cuts were exactly what the economy needed occured at just the right time is treated as a kind of open state secret that one is woefully wrong to stamp as incorrect. The aristocracy's policies have the flavor of ye olde time stamps on official documents that is intended to dodge activist resurgence.

That is exactly right. The Bush administration's attitude toward the American people is virtually the same as the Communist Party's toward the Chinese people. This is despicable, but it isn't the whole story.

So how does this result in my lacking respect for America, and not just despising the mostly isolated group in the American government that is responsible?

Because the Hong Kong people get the issue, fought for it using freedom of act and speech and protest, that was direct cause for the embarrassment of the politicians who are to blame. That is what America is supposed to be good at. That is supposed to be a binding trait. Checks and balances. Have our politicians reap what they sow. That we aren’t getting it while a small island community on the other side of the world is shows how far America has fluttered from its roots.

Beijing tried to assert power over Hong Kong and failed. It failed because a half million people out of a total population of 6.8 million took to the streets in protest. In a "special administrative region" without a democratic government those protestors prevailed and that government has withdrawn the legislation, at least for the moment.

Here in the "land of the free," though, the so-called "USA PATRIOT" Act was passed without a word of protest from our democratically elected representatives. Robert Ashcroft uses that legislation every day to infringe civil rights. In a country that supposedly values "liberty," where those accused of crimes are "presumed innocent" until they are proven guilty (unlike China, where they must often prove their innocence), American citizens are held as "enemy combatants," without trial, without charge, without representation or the right to confront their accusers or to even know of what crime they are charged!

This is all done in the name of "national security." George W. Bush demands that we trust him. Robert Ashcroft assures us that only terrorists need fear the sweeping powers granted by the "USA PATRIOT" Act and its kin.

The citizens of Hong Kong didn't believe their leaders when they said the same things. Instead, they took to the streets in protest. Here, though, those who protest are reviled and derided as "traitors" and "unpatriotic." The overwhelming majority who do not protest, meanwhile, meekly accept more and more restrictions that, they are told, are meant to keep them "safe." The American public embraces the easy lie and rejects the difficult truth, even when the lies are blatant and the truth undeniable.

As Adam says,

I have no choice but to hang my head in shame.