"We believe....

...in democracy, except when we don't."

That seems to be the going thing, especially by the arrogant elitists out there.  (I know the arguments that there are no "democracies," not per se.  I don't agree and have written about that before.)  Apparently, if the people decide/vote the ways the upper crust want them to vote, all is fine and dandy.  Democracy works!  But if they don't, well, it doesn't and the arrogant ones have to save us from ourselves.

I was reminded of this with the continuing Brexit battle in Britain.  In 2016, if I remember, British voters opted to leave the European Union.  The margin was slim, about 5%, but the turnout was pretty high.  The reasons aren't important here.  The British voters may have been right, may have been wrong.  But, if one believes in a democracy, that people can rule themselves (at least indirectly), don't people also have the right to be wrong?  And if one believes in democracy, one also believes that, eventually, people will get things right.  In Britain, those who know better are putting up a whale of a battle to prevent Brexit.  Apparently they are winning.

I think that is happening here in the US.  The arrogant elitists are trying and have been for going on three years now, to overturn the 2016 Presidential election.  Like Don Trump or not (and I don't), he was duly--legally and Constitutionally--chosen President of the US.  But those who are smarter than the rest of us have worked hard, expending and wasting how much time, energy, money, and other resources, to undo what Americans did.  The doo-gooders (and I do mean "doo") are trying to save us from outselves.

This one is more tenuous, especially here in Michigan.  I am not a fan of "emergency manager laws."  They have been used, with moderate success, by governors to save citizens from themselves.  Duly elected, say, school boards have been replaced by appointed emergency managers.  I understand that sometimes money comes from other sources than the school districts or cities and an argument might be made that, having a vested financial interest, outside bodies/people can step in.  I'm not sure I buy that.  Is it naive of me to believe that if people/voters choose the wrong paths, they should be able to sink or swim on their own?  Should cities and school districts (at least their government functions)  be allowed to collapse from the weight of their own incompetence and/or corruption?  It's a tough question. 

But it leads me back to my original statement, "We believe in democracy except when we don't."  It reminds me of what I've said about schools for years.  Those who run them are fond of the refrain, "We're here for the kids."  I add something.  "We're here for the kids except when we're not."  By the way, I don't necessarily believe in that, that education is necessarily primarily "for the kids." But that's a topic for a future post.

China?

I got a big laugh out of all this kerfuffle (and that's a pretty cool word!) over the NBA and China.  What's the big deal?  Other than NBA players (according to one sports column I read), "who are caught in a mess they know little about," who doesn't know all about Communist China?  It's been, since 1949 (and before) a brutal dictatorship.  But who cares? 

Our President offered "Congratulations" for the seventy years of brutal dictatorship, complete with massive human rights violations, millions of imprisonments, and ten millions of murders.  (No, I don't believe Trump was sending any sort of subliminal message.)  Our former governor frequently lauded his efforts to open trade between Michigan and  China.  A past state superintendent of schools, now some sort of consultant, often refers to "my friends the Chinese."  And how many of our corporations have overlooked all these abuses to do business with the commies in China?  All that money......

Besides the human rights violations and perhaps up to a million murders in the past seven decades, the commies have stolen our corporate patents and intellectual property, hacked into our government and military secrets, etc.  Yet, how proud Americans are with their relationship with such murdering tyrants!  Nothing of such dealings with the US can occur without commie approval; so, then, who are the Americans dealing with?  Yep......

But, that's OK.  It's all about the money.  It's always all about the money.  The Chinese government can run over protesting individuals with tanks.  They can shoot, in cold blood, protesters in Hong Kong.  Let's go back a few decades and remember the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. 

It's not just the NBA which is groveling to the commies.  It seems like most of corporate and political America has been doing the same thing.  We've had Presidents sell US techonology secrets to the Chinese military.  US-based airlines, clothing manufacturers, and hotel chains have kowtowed to the commies, fearful of offending them and putting all that money in peril.  Again, I ask, what's the big deal with the NBA?  We've already sold our souls to the devil.  (Remember, "...but the economy's good.")  Surely we don't want to offend our friends the Chinese.  Money-grubbing takes precdence.

When Congress voted to open trade with the Chinese several decades ago, many of the so-called "experts" hypothesized that would liberalize China, that society and government there would open up, with more rights, economic and political.  That doesn't appear to have happened, does it? 

(Remember, though, the NBA didn't stop players from wearing "Hands Up, Don't Shoot," despite that meme being false.  The NBA punished Charlotte, NC by taking away the All-Star game because of a law requiring transgenders to use the rest rooms that coincided with their gender at birth.  It was critical of President Trump's ban on immigrants from several Muslim nations that export terrorism.  Apparently the NBA is fine with protesting injustices in the US, but not with far more egregious ones in China.  And don't get me started on Nike and that Kaepernick guy.  "Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything."  Well, we can't expect billions of dollars to be "sacrificed," can we?)

Granted, there probably isn't much we can do to help the Hong Kong protesters, who are, after all, just seeking the same rights we have.  But we don't have to grovel to the despots for the sake of getting all that money from the lucrative Chinese market.  But do we turn our backs of those seeking freedom to defend one of the most brutal regimes in all of human history?  Apparently we do.

I would say, of the money grubbers, "Shame on you!"  But I have long thought shame is something which has disappeared in these United States.

Please excuse any typos and other errors.  I'm too tired to proofread.