On Friday, the Nobel committee will award the Nobel Peace Prize to someone who truly deserves it, a Chinese dissident named Liu Xiaobo. Mr. Liu won’t be there to receive his award because he is in a Chinese prison, serving an 11-year sentence for “subversion”. His wife won’t be there either, because the tyrants in Beijing has placed her under house arrest. In fact, the Chinese government is rounding up dissidents and family members of dissidents all over the country and the only ones who will be there in Liu’s stead are those who have already escaped the tyrants’ brutal clutches.
China will not be represented at the awards ceremony either. The Chinese government has declined the committee’s invitation and has called Liu’s award “flagrant interference in China‘s sovereignty”. China is not alone in the boycott either. Eighteen other nations declined their invitations, including such bastions of decency and civilization as Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Russia, and Cuba.
They are also joined by an ally here in America, Congressman Ron Paul, who was the lone vote against a Congressional resolution honoring Mr. Liu. I have no good explanation for why Dr. Paul would deny Mr. Liu the honor he had no problem bestowing on Chi Chi Rodriguez and winning football teams, and I suspect his supporters won’t either, except to say that he’s brilliant or some such nonsense.
His vote notwithstanding, I’m glad that Congress made a public statement in support of Mr. Liu and against the wicked ChiComs. Freedom needs every boost we can give it, no matter how small. Congratulations to Liu Xiaobo. I very much hope he is freed to receive his reward soon.
Tags: China, No More Tyrants, Ron Paul
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Hey retard, Ron Paul ALWAYS votes against these kinds of things. He's consistent, loser.
You obviously didn’t follow the links. If you did, you’d know he doesn’t always vote against these sort of things and that he’s not consistent.
Want to try that again?
Ron Paul is a screwey guy. Reminds me of Ross Perot.
Correct on some issues and in outer space with others.
His son Rand is more to my liking.
Suddenly I don't feel so alone any more. Thank you. I think this is par for the course for him.
We are already on China's side, though, in our attacks on Wikileaks. To honor a Chinese dissident while attacking a Western one — they are delighted in China at this hypocrisy.
Hi again!
Hi again. Your comparison is pretty ridiculous, for reasons that ought to be obvious.
Sorry, it's not obvious to me, and I teach modern Chinese history. Moreover, in my spare time, I translate Liu Xiaobo's literary criticism for several European pro-democracy NGOs, so don't take this as me disagreeing with him.
Please enlighten me, how is it that a country we chastise for lacking transparency won't be emboldened by us operating outside of existing laws to protect government secrets?
The issue isn't transparency, but tyranny. There is no reasonable comparison between the tyrants in Beijing and any free Western nation.
There are some real thugs in the Chinese government, it's true. It's a shame that, as a nation, we've totally undermined our ability to criticize them by pursuing a dissident with no regard for the rule of law.
Right. We're done with this line of conversation. It's a shame that you equate the morally bankrupt infants of WikiLeaks with Liu Xiaobo.
God, that snide, petulant tone of yours, coupled with a complete lack of information… I defy you, without a Google search, to name one thing that your hero, Liu Xiaobo, has written (hint: he did not write Charter 8).
China is not the USA, obviously. It has its own conditions, its own history, its own culture. Despite your clear affection for the word 'tyrant,' it is barely a relevant term in a Chinese context. Again, I'm not a fan of the Chinese government, but to lionize anyone who does them harm, whether or not you know anything about the particular circumstance, is an act of "childish intellectual cynicism," to use a phrase from LXB's criticism of the rightist author Ba Jin.
Delete this, whatever, I'm done too. Either I'm more set in my ways, or you are more aggressively stupid than I remember.
The advantage of having my own blog is that I can take any tone I want. You'd know, since I know that you read the blog regularly, that I have no tolerance at all for tyrants or their apologists.
[...] to their credit. I would have praised the President if he had set an empty place at the table for 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, who could not receive his prize because Hu would not let him leave the country.He could also have [...]