In this morning’s Washington Post was a piece on the Chinese government’s shutdown of access to vasectomies by Chinese men who wish not to have children. Inasmuch as China seems to have gotten itself in a place where the birthrate is well below sustainability of the present population, Xi Jinping has evidently made a unilateral decision to fool around with sex among the Chinese.
The commentary, as usual in the Post, was lively. Lot of opinions on how bad authoritarian governments are, most highly critical of the one state/one party/one leader system that prevails in that China. And of course no lack of brickbats for Xi who, in a companion piece in the paper mocked the American claim to being a functioning democracy.
Does U.S.-style democracy “realize dreams or create nightmares?” It appears to have turned evil like Voldemort, the dark wizard of the Harry Potter franchise. Young President Biden must have eaten too much KFC and McDonald’s, leading to a belief that democracy is like a fast-food chain with the United States supplying the ingredients.
These are among the odd arguments and analogies deployed in recent days during a Chinese Communist Party propaganda blitz to claim that China is as much a democracy as the United States. After China was excluded — along with Russia and other nations deemed autocratic — from Biden’s “Summit for Democracy” this week, Chinese state media, think tanks and officials have lined up to take potshots at the event.
I commented that truth told, Xi has a point. And we all are missing it unless something is done by the courts, which is highly unlikely.
Consider what is going on with the highjacking/suppression of our electoral process. Republican state legislatures have jiggered the electoral process in 18 "battleground" states so as to prevent any possibiity of a Democrat winning even a fair election, much less a rigged one. Republican legislatures have stripped secretries of state of their power to conduct fair elections. These legislatures have given themselves the power to nullify a vote of the people if the outcome doesn't satisfy the results they want. They have made voting harder, not easier. In short, the Republican Party, a distinct numeric minority, has completely politicized the process of electing—democratically—our governmental representatives.
The entire concept of representative democracy—the notion that power is derived from We the People; that we give representatives the power to govern us through free and fair elections has been turned on its head. This drift away from that core idea has been going on for decades. Really, since Ronald Reagan proclaimed "government is the problem."
Meanwhile, we argue over the Chinese? We're in the process of losing our democracy. The so-called "Republican" Party has captured the machinery of government. Watch out 2022 and 2024. We're about to be given the oranage monster all over again. Are we waltzing to disaster as “the band plays on?” Where is the outrage? Where is the refusal to accept this theft of a core American value?
As the saying goes: "Physician, heal thyself." And quickly.