China – Douglas Ernst Blog

Blind lawyer Matt Murdock scales walls at night and takes on villains as Daredevil. Blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng scales walls at night and takes on Communist China. The difference? Chen is a real hero whose story needs to be told.

It’s the story of a blind lawyer, one who fights for the rights of those less fortunate. He’s hunted by his powerful enemies. He’s been forced into hiding. His heroism puts his family in danger. He scales massive walls in the middle of the night to secure his freedom. Sounds like we’re talking about the Marvel Comics hero Daredevil, right? Wrong. Instead, we’re talking about Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng.

The dramatic nighttime escape of a blind rights lawyer from extralegal house arrest in his village dealt a major embarrassment to the Chinese government and left the United States, which may be sheltering him, with a new diplomatic quandary as it seeks to improve its fraught relationship with Beijing. …

[With] Mr. Chen now believed to be on the grounds of the American Embassy in Beijing, administration officials are likely to be far more cautious in handling his case. His advocacy for the handicapped and for families subject to forced abortions and other coercive population control methods is widely known in the West. He also became a symbol of the deficiencies of China’s legal system after he was convicted of criminal charges in 2006 in a prosecution that Chinese lawyers — and even some officials in Beijing — felt made a mockery of China’s claims to be developing better legal norms.

We all love our fictional heroes. Millions will see The Avengers on May 4th, and millions will see The Dark Knight Rises on July 20th. But there are real heroes among us, and their stories are often times more exciting than what you see on the big screen. Since Hollywood types couldn’t even manage Red Dawn remake featuring China (they apparently went with North Korea to avoid annoying China), something tells me Chen’s story won’t be given the green light anytime soon. Add in his activism in opposition to China’s forced-abortion policy (the one Joe Biden “understands”) and it’s hard to imagine Hollywood investment in such an amazing story.

Chen Guangcheng may be blind, but he’s opening the eyes of millions of people to what Communist China really stands for. Like Shin In Geun, who somehow managed to escape from a North Korean gulag, the free world needs to familiarize itself with the story. We need to see what Chen sees. Tiny sparks can often create big flames, and fires are not always a bad thing—particularly if they’re burning oppressive regimes.

chinesecensorshipcops — China's full potential will never be realized until it trusts its own people.

Perhaps one of the reasons 10 Russian spies were apprehended (and quickly released) by the U.S. government is because the Chinese government is too busy spying on its own people to send agents here. Okay, maybe not—we all know that Chinese agents are here in droves… However, it’s interesting to remind everyone that Commies are always just as terrified (if not more) of their own people than foreign powers. It’s really hard to “plan” economies if you can’t control the behavior of human beings, each with their own individual wants, needs, concerns, and desires. China hasn’t gotten the memo:

BEIJING — A Chinese government-backed think tank has accused the U.S. and other Western governments of using social-networking sites such as Facebook to spur political unrest and called for stepped-up scrutiny of the wildly popular sites…

“We must pay attention to the potential risks and threats to state security as the popularity of social-networking sites continues to grow…We must immediately step up supervision of social-networking sites.”

One of the reasons why our little experiment in self governance is the best thing to ever happen to the world, was covered at the start of the summer movie season:

“The Christian elements of our nation’s founding guarantee that the innate creativity of man is encouraged to blossom. God gave each of us gifts, and wants us to take full advantage of them. Capitalism, Science, and The Rule of Law fused in America to produce a system that churns out ideas and innovation and entrepreneurs at an astounding rate—when the government gets out of the way.”

As long as China views its own people and the free flow of information as a “security” concern, their full potential will never be realized. I suppose their ruling elite’s attempts to create a nation of semi-automous drones has worked well enough to grow its economy, but it’s still sad. And, like I said, their full potential is so much more; anyone who understands freedom and liberty knows that. Sure, there will always be free people who will squander their talents spending obscene amounts of time trying to “know” narcissists like Lebron James, but many more will take advantage of a chance to tap the entrepreneurial skills inside them if given the opportunity.

The United States sees itself in characters like entrepreneur Tony Stark. China opts for something akin to the cyborg Specreman (a Japanese creation, no less!).

“A mystery with the name Specreman…He’ll save the human race, yet they’ll never know the face of Specreman! We will never know the source of his power and his force as he guides this planets course!”

I’ll take the individual creative genius who loves his country (while maintaining his own distinct personality) over a no name force acting on the behalf of the collective any day of the week. If you’re an American and you’re finished reading this, go out there and Kick Ass. If you’re from China: think about why this page will probably be blocked tomorrow…and then do something about it.