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July 2020

The Meaning of Hong Kong China snuffs out a beacon of freedom, a warning to the world.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-meaning-of-hong-kong-11593645526?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

China’s decision to impose its national-security law on Hong Kong is a seismic event that goes well beyond the sad fate of its 7.5 million people. The illegal takeover shows that Beijing’s Communist rulers are willing to violate their international commitments with impunity as they spread their authoritarian model.

We say this with regret because we were among those who hoped, amid China’s reform era that began in the 1980s, that the Middle Kingdom could be drawn into a world of peaceful global norms. Hong Kong, a showcase of the prosperity that economic freedom and the rule of law can produce, was a lesson for Beijing to learn from.

Now those hopes are crushed, as China’s Communist legislature imposed the national-security law that ends Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems” governance and subverts the rights promised under the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984. Beijing promised to preserve Hong Kong’s legal autonomy and freedom of speech, assembly, the press and other liberties. The 7.5 million now subject to this sweeping legislation weren’t even permitted to read the text until it passed.

In a statement Tuesday, Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam claimed that the national-security law “only targets an extremely small minority of offenders while the life and property as well as various legitimate basic rights and freedoms enjoyed by the overwhelming majority of citizens will be protected.”

‘You Know You’re on the Right Side of History When…’ Mark Alexander

https://patriotpost.us/alexander/71847-you-know-youre-on-the-right-side-of-history-when-dot-dot-dot-2020-07-01?

“A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable.” —Thomas Jefferson (1817)

You know you’re on the right side of history when the other side burns our flag and topples our monuments and obstructs the march toward American Liberty that these symbols represent.

Joe Biden remains largely hunkered down in his basement bunker so as not to risk further exposure of his non compos mentis cognitive slide. Until yesterday, when he made an unpublicized appearance and fumbled his remarks, it had been 89 days since he last answered an unscripted media question. Apparently, his campaign’s strategy is “less is more” — and who can blame his handlers?

On Monday, from his sequestered safe house, Biden posted a social-media comment, asserting, “White supremacy should be rooted out and relegated to the pages of history — not promoted by the President of the United States.”

That immediately prompted a question he should be (but won’t be) asked in response: Given the violent racist history of the Democrat Party, shouldn’t any and all references to it be “canceled” and stricken from history, and anyone who refuses to disassociate themselves from the party thrown out of office?

After all, Democrats were the party of slavery before Republicans emancipated black people in the 19th century. Then Democrats became the party of racist oppression in the century that followed. And in the 55 years since the Civil Rights movement was met by the policy failures of Lyndon Johnson’s so-called “Great Society,” the Democrat Party is still enslaving poor people on what amount to socialist urban poverty plantations.

Arguably, the Democrat Party is, at the same time, the author and beneficiary of “systemic racism.” As the old saw goes, “If not for double standards, Democrats would have no standards.”

If only woke protesters knew how close they were to meaningful police reform By Kelsey Bolar

https://thehill.com/opinion/civil-rights/505295-if-only-woke-protesters-knew-how-close-they-were-to-meaningful-police

Shamelessly denying Republicans the 60 votes needed to openly debate a GOP-proposed bill, Senate Democrats stripped Americans of the opportunity to pass meaningful reforms for an issue that’s turned the nation upside down.

The vote, which occurred last week, provides further evidence that the ongoing riots and protests aren’t about George Floyd or police reform. They’re about control. 

The media, for its part, hardly cared. They enabled obstruction while hardly pressing Democrats to explain their objections. 

“Tim Scott’s bill is a half-assed bill that doesn’t do what we should be doing, which is doing honest police reform,” Hawaii Sen. Mazie Hirono (D) offered.                            

The “watered-down policing bill is meant to derail meaningful reform,” said California Sen. Kamala Harris (D).

“The Republican bill is really just disastrously weak,” said Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D).

These statements were only to be outdone by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who unapologetically accused Senate Republicans of “trying to get away with murder, actually — the murder of George Floyd.”

Truly, a remarkable statement about her colleagues in Congress.

The Rayshard Brooks case is tragic but, legally, straightforward Andrew C. McCarthy

https://spectator.us/rule-law-collapsing-rayshard-brooks/

It is the law that makes us ‘the best of animals.’ So saying, Aristotle had a very specific conception of justice in mind: ‘The law is reason free from passion.’ Committed to live under it, mankind is ‘perfected.’ There is, however, a flip side. ‘When separated from law and justice,’ as happens when passion overwhelms reason, mankind ‘is the worst of all.’

Which would make this the worst of times.

The streets of America’s greatest cities are aflame. Some of it is anarchic. Most of it is methodical mayhem. Cultural Marxists are not merely desecrating statuary, they are erasing history. Naturally, this is done under the guise of ideals such as ‘anti-racism’, ‘anti-fascism’, and ‘equality’. Up close, the anti-racists are race-obsessives, the anti-fascists are totalitarian ideologues, and the radical egalitarianism on offer is a perversion that would supplant equality of opportunity with coerced results and an inevitable caste system. As woke white campus reactionaries, clad in their ‘BLM’ t-shirts, confront beleaguered African American police officers, a vignette repeatedly seen but studiously unnoticed in media coverage, you can’t help but wonder as to whether black lives matter to Black Lives Matter.

But the campaign is working, not because it is effacing iconic images of our society, culture, and history, but because it is destroying the rule of law that makes possible a civilization worth having. Its replacement is the rule of the mob.

Thomas Sowell at 90 Is More Relevant Than Ever By Steve H. Hanke & Richard M. Ebeling

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/07/thomas-sowell-90-indispensable-voice-more-relevant-than-ever/

An indispensable voice over the decades speaks to our present moment.

Y esterday, Thomas Sowell turned 90. And he is more relevant than ever. Sowell, a frequent contributor to National Review and prodigious scholar, has delivered yet another insightful and accessible book, Charter Schools and Their Enemies. It was released on his birthday — a gift from Sowell to the rest of us.

In his new book, Sowell puts primary sources and facts under the powerful microscope of his analysis. His findings are, as is often the case, inconvenient, not to say explosive, truths. Indeed, Charter Schools and Their Enemies documents how non-white students thrive in charter schools and close the performance gap with their white peers. It’s no surprise, then, that there are long waiting lists to enter charter schools. So why aren’t there more of them? Well, public schools and their teachers’ unions don’t like the competition. This, of course, traps non-white students in inferior public schools.

Just who is Thomas Sowell and why is he a larger-than-life figure in today’s world? Sowell was born on June 30, 1930, in North Carolina. He grew up in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood and served in the Marine Corps during the Korean War. He earned three economics degrees, one from Harvard (1958), one from Columbia (1959), and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago (1968). After holding down faculty positions at prestigious universities, Sowell settled at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, where he has been for the past 40 years.

As Sowell recounts in his autobiography, A Personal Odyssey (2000), he considered himself a Marxist during most of his student years. Chicago put an end to that infatuation. But Sowell’s study of classical economists included the works of Marx, and in 1985 he published Marxism: Philosophy and Economics. As anyone steeped in Marx knows, all symbols of the capitalist, exploitive past must be uprooted and destroyed before a workers’ paradise can be constructed. It turns out that Marxism is of the moment: Yes, the removal of statues and the changing of street and building names is straight out of Marx’s playbook.

Coco Pops: Where Western Civilization Makes Its Stand David Isaac

spectator.org

spectator.org

If guilt were a vat of acid, then Western civilization is something that readily dissolves in acid. Maybe acidic guilt is what dissolves all civilizations. Or maybe the key is statues. Rome had lots of statues. It lasted 1,000 years. It took the forces of destruction a long time to get to them all. Western civilization is in trouble. It’s only got like nine more statues, and that’s counting Mount Rushmore as four. If Western civilization is going to last, it better find another measure of survival fast.

I propose cereal. It’s what the West’s opponents are focusing on. We already lost Quaker Oats, which went down when it  gave up on Aunt Jemima. But Kellogg’s is hanging in there. The mob wanted its Coco Pops on a stick. Rice Krispies, too. Chocolate Coco Pops’ mascot is a monkey. Rice Krispies’ mascots are three white guys named Snap, Crackle, and Pop.

A former British Labour MP, Fiona Onasanya, who was kicked out of the party for “perverting the course of justice,” is trying to claw her way back to power on the backs of our cereal bowls. She tweeted on June 15, “Coco Pops and Rice Krispies have the same composition (except for the fact CP’s are brown and chocolate flavoured)… so I was wondering why Rice Krispies have three white boys representing the brand and Coco Pops have a monkey?”

In a blow for Western civilization, Kellogg’s replied — to paraphrase — “Nothing doing.”

“The monkey mascot that appears on both white and milk chocolate Coco Pops was created in the 1980s to highlight the playful personality of the brand,” the company said in a statement, according to Missy Crane at WayneDupree.com. “As part of our ambition to bring fun to the breakfast table, we have a range of characters that we show on our cereal boxes, including tigers, giraffes, crocodiles, elves and a narwhal.”

If guilt were a vat of acid, then Western civilization is something that readily dissolves in acid. Maybe acidic guilt is what dissolves all civilizations. Or maybe the key is statues. Rome had lots of statues. It lasted 1,000 years. It took the forces of destruction a long time to get to them all. Western civilization is in trouble. It’s only got like nine more statues, and that’s counting Mount Rushmore as four. If Western civilization is going to last, it better find another measure of survival fast.

I propose cereal. It’s what the West’s opponents are focusing on. We already lost Quaker Oats, which went down when it  gave up on Aunt Jemima. But Kellogg’s is hanging in there. The mob wanted its Coco Pops on a stick. Rice Krispies, too. Chocolate Coco Pops’ mascot is a monkey. Rice Krispies’ mascots are three white guys named Snap, Crackle, and Pop.

A former British Labour MP, Fiona Onasanya, who was kicked out of the party for “perverting the course of justice,” is trying to claw her way back to power on the backs of our cereal bowls. She tweeted on June 15, “Coco Pops and Rice Krispies have the same composition (except for the fact CP’s are brown and chocolate flavoured)… so I was wondering why Rice Krispies have three white boys representing the brand and Coco Pops have a monkey?”

In a blow for Western civilization, Kellogg’s replied — to paraphrase — “Nothing doing.”

“The monkey mascot that appears on both white and milk chocolate Coco Pops was created in the 1980s to highlight the playful personality of the brand,” the company said in a statement, according to Missy Crane at WayneDupree.com. “As part of our ambition to bring fun to the breakfast table, we have a range of characters that we show on our cereal boxes, including tigers, giraffes, crocodiles, elves and a narwhal.”

Breakdown The unwinding of law and order in our cities has happened with stunning speed. Heather Mac Donald

https://www.city-journal.org/ferguson-effect-inner-cities

It took several months for the first iteration of the Ferguson Effect to become obvious. Michael Brown was fatally shot by a Ferguson, Missouri, police officer in August 2014, triggering local riots and a national narrative about lethally racist police. Officers backed off proactive policing in minority neighborhoods, having been told that such discretionary enforcement was racially oppressive. By early 2015, the resulting spike in shootings and homicides had become patent and would lead to an additional 2,000 black homicide victims in 2015 and 2016, compared with 2014 numbers.

Today’s violent-crime increase—call it Ferguson Effect 2.0 or the Minneapolis Effect—has come on with a speed and magnitude that make Ferguson 1.0 seem tranquil. George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police in late May was justly condemned—but the event has now spurred an outpouring of contempt against the pillars of law and order that has no precedent in American history. Every day, another mainstream institution—from McDonald’s to Harvard—denounces the police, claiming without evidence that law enforcement is a threat to black lives.

To be sure, the first manifestation of the Black Lives Matter movement had a mouthpiece in the Oval Office, lacking now. It doesn’t matter. Presidential imprimatur or no, the reborn Black Lives Matter has gained billions of dollars in corporate support, more billions in free round-the-clock media promotion, and a ruthless power to crush dissent from the now-universal narrative about murderous police bigots. During the two weeks of national anarchy that followed the death of George Floyd, cops were shot, slashed, and assaulted; their vehicles and station houses were firebombed and destroyed. American elites stayed silent. Since then, police have continued to be shot at and attacked; the elites remain silent. Monuments to America’s greatest leaders are being defaced with impunity; anarchists took over a significant swathe of a major American city, including a police precinct, without resistance from the authorities. And a push to defund the police gains traction by the day.

Media Ignores Facts to Claim a Trump Gotcha By John Lott

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/07/01/media_ignores_facts_to_claim_a_trump_gotcha.html

The media keeps going out of its way to fact check President Trump’s claims as false. The Washington Post’s Philip Bump is one of many journalists who can’t be bothered with considering the most obvious interpretations of what Trump says. Instead, he ventures into the nonsensical.

Last week, Trump said the 20 most dangerous U.S. cities are run by Democrats; Bump then wrote an article saying Trump erred — by Bump’s count, only 17 of the 20 cities are run by Democrats. Social media mocked Bump’s analysis for quibbling over whether Trump was exactly right or not, but what they failed to point out is that Bump’s underlying numbers are wrong. 

Trump earned Bump’s ire by saying that if you are going to blame anyone for the condition of police departments in American cities, you need to blame the Democrats who have been running them.

“You hear about certain places like Chicago and you hear about what’s going on in Detroit and other — other cities, all Democrat run,” Trump said last Wednesday. “Every one of them is Democrat run. Twenty out of twenty. The 20 worst, the 20 most dangerous are Democrat run.” He has made similar statements many times.

The Post’s headline summarizes Bump’s conclusion: “Trump keeps claiming that the most dangerous cities in America are all run by Democrats. They aren’t.”

ABOUT AUNT JEMIMA

The world knew her as “Aunt Jemima,” but her given name was Nancy Green and she was a true American success story. Born a slave in 1834 Montgomery County, KY, she became a wealthy superstar in the advertising world, as its first living trademark.

While in Kentucky, Green was employed by Charles Walker, then an attorney and later a distinguished Circuit Judge. She moved with the family to Chicago just after the Great Fire in 1872.

Walker heard that a friend was looking for a model for the Aunt Jemima character, and he suggested Green who, by that time, had served the family for many years. She was instantly recognized with the characteristics the guy was looking for… charisma, humor, and a fantastic cook. 

Green was 56-yrs old when she was selected as spokesperson for the new ready-mixed, self-rising pancake flour and made her public debut in 1893 at the World’s Fair in Chicago. She demonstrated the pancake mix while serving up thousands of pancakes… and became an immediate star.  She was a wonderful storyteller, her personality was warm and appealing, and her showmanship was exceptional.  Her exhibition booth drew so many people that special security personnel were assigned to keep the crowds moving. 

Trashing Leaders at Home Weakens America Abroad By Lawrence J. Haas

https://www.newsweek.com/trashing-leaders-home-weakens-america-abroad-opinion-1514542

Many historians rank Woodrow Wilson “among the nation’s greatest leaders,” the trustees of Princeton University-where Wilson was president before becoming New Jersey’s governor and America’s president-wrote the other day, “and credit him with visionary ideas that shaped the world for the better.”

Indeed, Wilson’s “14 Points” for a post-World War I world set the stage for the rules-based global order that his successors created after World War II, his League of Nations laid the groundwork for a more effective (though hardly perfect) United Nations and his call to make the world “safe for democracy” was the precursor for America’s post-World War II efforts to promote freedom abroad.

All of that, however, didn’t stop Princeton’s trustees from voting to remove Wilson’s name from its School of Public and International Affairs and one of its residential colleges, due to the ugly racism that Wilson espoused and which shaped some of his domestic actions as America’s president.

Princeton’s decision is understandable, coming at a powerful moment of national reckoning over race, but it nevertheless should give us pause. Like the efforts to topple monuments of all kinds, it reflects a broad push to judge our past wholly through a racial lens and to disdain all the notables of our past who don’t measure up to today’s new standards-whatever the notables’ other virtues and accomplishments.