"It profits me but little that a vigilant authority always protects the tranquillity of my pleasures and constantly averts all dangers from my path, without my care or concern, if this same authority is the absolute master of my liberty and my life."

--Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

Friday, August 26, 2011

Slow Joe and the China Gaffe


The White House moved quickly to spin Joe Biden's unconscionable gaffe in China in which he said he "fully understood" China's one-child policy and wouldn't "second-guess" it.   The story will probably have a short shelf-life, since the mainstream media is dominated by ardent pro-choice partisans who have strange and hypocritical views of women's rights -- if a conservative merely speaks against abortion, trying to persuade American women to think about the morality of abortion, he's threatening to take us back to the days of back-alleys and coat hangers, even though he's not forcing anyone to do anything; but if China actually forces women against their will to kill their children, well, see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.   

But it's worth recalling what the U.S. Congressional/Executive Joint Commission on China actually has stated about the "one-child policy."   Here, for instance, is a chilling paragraph from the Commission's 2010 report: 

Local officials continue to monitor the reproductive cycles of Chinese women in order to prevent unauthorized births. The Chinese government requires married couples to obtain a birth permit before they can lawfully bear a child and forces them to employ contraceptive methods at other times. Although Chinese law prohibits officials from infringing upon the rights and interests of citizens while promoting compliance with population planning policies, reports from recent years indicate that abuses continue. Violators of the policy are routinely punished with fines, and in some cases, subjected to forced sterilization, forced abortion, arbitrary detention, and torture. In some cases surgical sterilization may be required of Chinese women following the birth of their second child.  Mandatory abortion, which is often referred to as ‘‘remedial measures’’ (bujiu cuoshi) in government reports, is endorsed explicitly as an official policy instrument in the regulations of 18 of China’s 31 provincial-level jurisdictions. In 2010, the Commission found that local officials continued to coerce women with unauthorized pregnancies to undergo abortions in both urban and rural areas across China’s major regions.Biden can't say that he didn't know about the Chinese policy.   It's a freakin' U.S. government report, for crying out loud.   He knew.   And he "fully understood" and wouldn't "second-guess" it.

Shameful.  

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