Possumblog

Not in the clamor of the crowded street, not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

REDIRECT ALERT! (Scroll down past this mess if you're trying to read an archived post. Thanks. No, really, thanks.)

Due to my inability to control my temper and complacently accept continued silliness with not-quite-as-reliable-as-it-ought-to-be Blogger/Blogspot, your beloved Possumblog will now waddle across the Information Dirt Road and park its prehensile tail at http://possumblog.mu.nu.

This site will remain in place as a backup in case Munuvia gets hit by a bus or something, but I don't think they have as much trouble with this as some places do. ::cough::blogspot::cough:: So click here and adjust your links. I apologize for the inconvenience, but it's one of those things.

Wednesday, March 20, 2002

Human Rights Pariah, USA
Dave Koppel's editorial in today's National Review Online, discussing China's view of the United States' record on human rights, developed with help from our good friends on the Left:

The Chinese government frets that "The United States is the country with the biggest number of private guns." We are also, of course, the country with the biggest number of private books, private churches, private newspapers, private computers, private single-family homes, and other tools and incidents of freedom. It is no coincidence that America is a simultaneously a well-armed and a prosperous nation, for both traits stem from America's culture of freedom and individualism. [...] The gun-banning Chinese regime unintentionally proves its illegitimacy by distributing Mao's "Little Red Book," which contains Mao's dictum: "Every Communist must grasp the truth, 'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.'" (From "Problems of War and Strategy," Nov. 6, 1938.) Neither Mao nor his successors wanted "the common people" to have any political power, and therefore the common people are prevented from possessing arms. If the Chinese people were as well armed as the American people, China would soon have a very different government.

As the Declaration of Independence affirms, the only legitimate governments are those whose power derives from the consent of the governed. Because, as China's gun laws demonstrate, China's rulers lack such consent, China's dictators are no more of a legitimate "government" than the hundred marchers in Washington were really a "million" mothers.

I'm sure the Chinese will also embrace Comrade Bellisiles for his exposure of the false idea of a national gun culture in the U.S.

posted by Terry at 9:05:00 AM

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