If you recall from Part 1, Hawaii was not a democracy modeled after today’s United States when Sun Yat-sen lived there from the ages of 13 to 17 [1879 – 1883].
In fact, when Sun Yat-sen lived in Hawaii, it was a kingdom ruled by a king and was a Constitutional Monarchy similar to but not the same as Great Britain at the same time.
It wouldn’t be until 1887, that the Hawaiian King Kalākaua was forced to sign the 1887 Constitution [after Sun Yat-sen had returned to China] of the Kingdom of Hawaii, which stripped him of any authority he had making him into a figurehead.
In addition, there was a property qualification in 1887’s Hawaiian Constitution for voting rights similar to what the Founding Fathers wrote into the US Constitution in 1776, and resident whites, who owned the property since Asians were not allowed to own property or could not afford to buy it, were the only ones allowed to vote.
Meanwhile, the American Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 excluded skilled and unskilled Chinese from entering the United States for ten years under penalty of imprisonment and deportation. In the US at this time, many Chinese were relentlessly beaten just because of their race.
Therefore, when Sun Yat-sen lived in Hawaii as a Chinese teenager, it was not a republic or a democracy and he was a second-class person barred from entering the United States.
The structure of the political system in the United States was also dramatically different from the one America has today.
In 1790, the Constitution explicitly says that only “free white” immigrants could become naturalized citizens.
In 1848, Mexican-Americans were granted U.S. Citizenship but not voting rights.
In 1856, voting rights were expanded to all white men and not just property owners.
In 1868, four years after the end of the American Civil War, former slaves were granted citizenship, however only African-American men were allowed to be citizens and the right to vote was left up to each state.
In 1870, the 15th Amendment was passed saying the right to vote could not be denied by the federal or state governments based on race [this still did not include women], but some states restricted the right to vote based on voting taxes and literacy tests.
In 1876, the US Supreme Court ruled that Native Americans were not citizens and could not vote.
In 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act barred people of Chinese ancestry from naturalizing to become U.S. citizens.
In 1920, the right to vote was extended to women when the 19th Amendment passed. Source: U.S. Voting Rights Timeline
What do you think Sun Yat-sen learned from these facts about a democracy?
Continued on January 9, 2012 in The IGNORANCE Factor of Bias – Part 5 or return to Part 3
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.
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Mr. Parfitt asked, “One more thing. Do you vote Lloyd?”
First, since you enjoy pointing out errors in an individual’s comments in a juvenile attempt to belittle or demean them while using such an immature tactic to divert attention away from the topic, I thought I’d mention that you left out a comma — it should be, “Do you vote, Lloyd?”
It is actually none of your business if I vote or what my spiritual or religious beliefs are or what my private life is like or how much I earn.
However, a better question might be to ask, “Why so many Americans eligible to vote do do not vote?”
Since 1960, the biggest voter turnout in a national election was 63.1% and 41 million people that were eligible didn’t vote [I was in high school and wasn’t old enough to vote that year], and 1060 had the largest voter turnout in the last fifty years as reported by the source I used. The lowest voter turnout was in 1998 when 127,174,879 did not vote [I was not one of them].
It would appear that the simplest answer is because many Americans take their freedom for granted and are allowed not to participate in the American democratic experiment, which is more evidence that supports the belief of America’s Founding Fathers regarding the flaws of democracy and allowing everyone to have the right to vote when that right should be earned.
Source: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781453.html
In addition, here is an interesting essay on Why Democracy Failed in America by Michael Peirce
Peirce says, “First, we must determine if the basic premise is correct: has democracy been a failure? For those in doubt, consider Bill Clinton, three trillion in national debt and twenty wars and /or police actions since 1945. The two party system no longer functions, and we are ruled over as surely as if we had anointed a king. Did you vote for the tax measures that consume close to sixty per cent of your income? Un huh… I didn’t think so.”
Source: http://www.lewrockwell.com/peirce/peirce12.html
Then there is this interesting essay by William P. Meyers. In America: Republic or Democracy?, Meyers concludes, “There are no longer any voter-qualification impediments to democracy in the United States. But many have noted that the will of the people has tended not to prevail, and that a majority of people eligible to vote are so discouraged that they do not vote. The main reason for this is the buying and selling of elections and politicians by the wealthier class of citizens and their special interest groups…”
Source: http://www.williampmeyers.org/republic.html
There’s no such thing as inflamatory words. There’s also no such thing as cherry picking. Such terms represent teenagese. There are books about how to construct and denconstruct an argument. You won’t find these terms in those books, however.
Lloyd is correct about one thing: Wikipedia is not always a reliable source. The BBC is.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-15236516
Here’s a recent article from the BBC. In it, it says,
“At a ceremony held in Beijing on Sunday, President Hu Jintao hailed Sun’s “thoroughly modern, national and democratic revolution”, saying that it “opened the door of progress for China and searched for ways for the Chinese nation’s development and progress”.’
http://www.china-history.net/sun_yat-sen.htm
Here’s a piece written about Sun by Jonathan Spence, the leading China historian. In it he describes Sun’s three principles as nationalism, democracy, and socialism (the last one is sometimes described as people’s welfare or livelihood; Chinese words are not impossible to translate, as the angry fellow who can’t spell ‘you’ would have you believe).
So, we have the BBC saying ‘democracy,’ and Jonathan Spence saying it. Hard to believe they’d both be wrong.
Again, you will find no endorsements for the Chinese right to “tou piao,” or cast a ballot, from the mythomaniacs on this site. That’s because they crusade, not for the Chinese people, but for the Chinese Communist Party. There is democracy in the Chinese world, in Taiwan, but there’s no “well done,” “good on you,” coming from the Propanganda Department that constitutes this site. Nosireebob.
Sure, democracy in Taiwan is chaotic and corrupt, but with it comes transparency, a free press, a free internet, the right to demonstrate, and all kinds of other goodies.
PEOPLE NEED TO ELECT THEIR POLITICAL LEADERS. THAT’S AN INALIENABLE HUMAN RIGHT.
People who live in China often buy in to the notion that no democracy is just fine. They think they’re really onto something and that others are naive for believing in democratic system. But they are the ones who are naive, and they’ve only latched on to crude, primitive thinking.
Instead of a nod to the vote in Taiwan; rather than lauding a genuinely free and open Chinese society, all we see here are ironic accusations and juvenile distractions.
We also see the championing of oppresion. We read statements saying China is a republic and then endorsements re the imprisonment of civil rights activists for campaigning for a republic.
Goerge Orwell said, “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.”
The arguments on this site represent an endorsement for that boot.
Mr. Parfitt,
“The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.” – Bertrand Russell
Parfitt says the BBC is a reliable source.
Okay, but how reliable? [remember, everyone has a personal opinion — even Mr. Parfitt although he may deny or infer that his opinions are not opinions but facts from an expert—Note: Mr. Parfitt may want to read all the books listed in this comment.)
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
Let’s see what the BBC has to say on the topic of BBC bias and being a reliable source in response to accusations that the BBC is, “According to the Mail on Sunday, and other recent press reports, we have admitted that we are an organisation of trendy, left-leaning liberals who are anti-American, biased against Christianity, in favour of multiculturalism, and staffed by people who wouldn’t know an unbiased fact if it hit them on the head.”
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2006/10/bias_at_the_bbc.html
In their defense, the BBC replied, “The BBC employs more than 20,000 people across the UK. It is not a chattering class club of the kind depicted by the papers. It is a hugely varied organisation with many different cultures and a huge variety of opinions on every single issue among its staff. What does unite BBC staff however, is a deep commitment to BBC values and at the heart of those values is a commitment to impartiality.”
There was a lively discussion of 335 comments that followed the “Bias at the BBC?” piece that revealed a variety of opinions on this topic.
From Mr. Parfitt’s opinion [stated above anointing the BBC as a reliable source, we may assume he agrees with the BBC’s defenders against accusations of BBC bias.
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It would also seem that at last a 1,000 Chinese would not agree with MR. Parfitt.
source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1896032/Chinese-protest-outside-BBC-over-media-bias.html
Chinese protest outside BBC over ‘media bias’
They carried banners denouncing the BBC and other media organizations for their portrayal of China’s handling of riots in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, and the Olympic torch relay.
Then to Mr. Parfitt, they are Chinese so their opinions do not count.
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Honest reporting.com says, “No other international media outlet elicits as many complaints of bias from our readers as the BBC. If the organization is capable of showing such little respect for the British monarch and the British public (which pays a compulsory license fee for the privilege of funding the BBC), is it any surprise that it consistently treats Israel with utter disdain?”
Source: http://honestreporting.com/6-month-analysis-of-the-bbc-the-subtle-bias-2/
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Then there is “Criticism of the BBC,” from a disputed article on Wiki leaks that challenges the neutrality of the post.
Here’s the challenge, “Articles that have been linked to this page are the subject of an NPOV dispute (NPOV stands for neutral point of view; see below). This means that in the opinion of the person who added this link, the article in question does not conform to Wikipedia: Neutral point of view.”
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC
Mr. Parfitt claims, “There’s no such thing as inflamatory [SP] words. There’s also no such thing as cherry picking. Such terms represent teenagese [I Googled this word and it doesn’t exist]. There are books about how to construct and deconstruct [SP] an argument. You won’t find these terms in those books…”
Note the errors in this pull quote copied and pasted from Mr. Parfitt’s comment. When Mr. Parfitt criticizes others for word usage, sentence structure, grammar, and spelling, he is the pot calling the kettle black, and this may be one of the tricks he uses in his attempt to win arguments, as we will soon discover.
In fact, when Mr. Parfitt claims there is no such thing as “inflammatory language” or “cherry picking“, and that books on constructing an argument do not use these terms, this may also be one of the tricks to win an argument, as you will soon learn.
If you go to Amazon and search for “construct arguments“, Amazon will respond with 6,236 titles. The first hit was “How to Win Every Argument: The Use and Abuse of Logic” [something Mr. Parfitt does all the time].
If you have an Amazon Kindle, you may buy this book for $9.99 and soon learn all of Mr. Parfitt’s tricks as he abuses logic.
Excerpts from a few of the book reviews follow —
Zeno says, “He [the author of the book] identifies with devastating examples all the most common fallacies popularly used in arguments. And, more mischievously, Pirie also shows how to be deliberately illogical—and get away with it! … But don’t worry, every trick in the book is revealed here in easy, to-the-point explanations. Straw men, red herrings, wishful thinking, etc — if you don’t know what they are, you should-—they are the oily wool that lawyers, politicians, interest groups, media, organized religion, and out-and-out-con artists pull over your eyes everyday.”
In another review, Garry Hellmann from Tucson, Arizona says, “There are 79 fallacies listed alphabetically from Abusive Analogy through Wishful Thinking, although there are lists that show how they can be subdivided for reasons of classification by type at the end of the book. Each fallacy is treated in a similar manner starting with the name of the fallacy, an explanation of what it means, and a couple of examples of how it works. There is then a discussion of the fallacy that goes into history of the fallacy, who might want to use it, for whom it might be most effective, and sometimes a pithy summary of the fallacy. After another example the author discusses how one might use the fallacious reasoning to one’s own benefit and gives an example of how that might be done.”
Then a reviewer from Plano Texas says, “When people argue to win, they often cheat by using the trickery of false arguments. With this book you will be better prepared to spot bad logic in argumentation.”
One term mentioned in the book’s description was “trivial questions“, which is another trick Mr. Parfitt often uses, so maybe he already read this book or another one of the 6,236 titles on this subject. After all, he reads a lot and because he reads many books, he is an expert on all of those topics such as China and its culture.
Is Mr. Troy Parfitt a talented con man?
Regarding Mr. Parfitt’s debate/argument methods — Here are a few of the Websites that explain the terms that Mr. Parfitt claims, “represent teenagese…”, and that “There are books about how to construct and deconstruct [SP] an argument. You won’t find these terms in those books…”
Really! Mr. Parfitt, Cherry picking is also known as Observational Selection…
The few copied here represent fallacies of logic often used by Mr. Parfitt in his comments. When Googling this topic, there were millions of hits.
“Master these propaganda techniques [without getting caught], and you too will be able to proselytize and promote cult religion and radical politics just like a battle-hardened old-timer.”
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Fallacies of Logic
Observational Selection (also known as Cherry picking)
Also called the enumeration of favorable circumstances, or as the philosopher Francis Bacon described it, ‘counting the hits and forgetting the misses”
Example 1: A state boasts of the Presidents it has produced, but is silent on its serial killers.
Example 2: Many professional “psychics” depend on people making this error. They will bombard clients with a series of questions and statements (a technique known as “shotgunning.”) The client will usually latch onto the most accurate statements and forget the inaccurate statements because they want to believe the psychic is real.
Poisoning The Well
The act of delegitimizing one’s opponent before the opponent has even had the chance to make their case. A subtype of Ad Hominem attack.
Example 1: “Obviously this website is run by the government1 as a cover-up.”
Example 2: “You can’t believe anything our opponents say. Their hearts are corrupted by darkness.”
Example 3: “Anyone who calls us crackpots is really working for Them.”
Red Herring
A fallacy when irrelevant material is introduced to the issue being discussed, such that everyone’s attention is diverted away from the points being made, and toward a different conclusion. It is not logically valid to divert a chain of reasoning with extraneous points.
Shifting the Burden of Proof
The burden of proof is always on the person making the assertion or proposition. Shifting the burden of proof, a special case of “argumentum ad ignorantium,” is a fallacy of putting the burden of proof on the person who denies or questions the assertion being made. The source of the fallacy is the assumption that something is true unless proven otherwise.
An example of this would be people who insist that you prove that Elenin isn’t a brown dwarf, when in fact the burden of proof is on them – they need to demonstrate that it is a brown dwarf.
Straw Man
It is a fallacy to misrepresent someone else’s position for the purposes of more easily attacking it, then to knock down that misrepresented position, and then to conclude that the original position has been demolished. It is a fallacy because it fails to deal with the actual arguments that one has made.
Example 1: “Evolutionists say life appeared when lightning hit a puddle!”
Example 2: “How could you criticize us when we just want to help the world? What’s your problem with people trying to do good?” Many abusive groups and organizations use this line or a variation of it.
Weasel Words
Weasel words are essentially empty words and meaningless phrases that are used to mislead the listener or reader into thinking more is being said than actually is. In the following examples, the weasel words are bolded:
Example 1: Experts agree that Nibiru is coming in 2012. Who are these experts?
Example 2: Many ancient prophecies predict Guru Lulu. Which ancient prophecies?
Example 3: Many feel the secularization of American culture is contributing to the decay of society. Who are these “many?” Also, feelings ain’t necessarily fact.
Interrogation
The question asked has a presupposition which the answerer may wish to deny, but which he/she would be accepting if he/she gave anything that would count as an answer. Any answer to the question “Why does such-and-such happen?” presupposes that such-and-such does indeed happen.
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Constructing a Logical Argument
There is a great deal of argument on Usenet. Unfortunately, most of it is of very poor quality. This document attempts to provide a gentle introduction to logic, in the hope of improving the general level of debate.
Fallacies
To delve further into the structure of logical arguments would require lengthy discussion of linguistics and philosophy. It is simpler and probably more useful to summarize the major pitfalls to be avoided when constructing an argument. These pitfalls are known as fallacies.
In everyday English the term “fallacy” is used to refer to mistaken beliefs as well as to the faulty reasoning that leads to those beliefs. This is fair enough, but in logic the term is generally used to refer to a form of technically incorrect argument, especially if the argument appears valid or convincing.
So for the purposes of this discussion, we define a fallacy as a logical argument which appears to be correct, but which can be seen to be incorrect when examined more closely. By studying fallacies we aim to avoid being misled by them.
Below is a list of some common fallacies, and also some rhetorical devices often used in debate. The list is not intended to be exhaustive.
Complex question / Fallacy of interrogation / Fallacy of presupposition
This is the interrogative form of Begging the Question. One example is the classic loaded question:
“Have you stopped beating your wife?”
The question presupposes a definite answer to another question which has not even been asked. This trick is often used by lawyers in cross-examination, when they ask questions like:
“Where did you hide the money you stole?”
Similarly, politicians often ask loaded questions such as:
“How long will this EC interference in our affairs be allowed to continue?”
or
“Does the Chancellor plan two more years of ruinous privatization?”
Another form of this fallacy is to ask for an explanation of something which is untrue or not yet established.
Plurium interrogationum / Many questions
This fallacy occurs when a questioner demands a simple answer to a complex question.
Red herring
This fallacy is committed when irrelevant material is introduced to the issue being discussed, so that everyone’s attention is diverted away from the points being made, towards a different conclusion.
Shifting the burden of proof
The burden of proof is always on the person making an assertion or proposition. Shifting the burden of proof, a special case of Argumentum ad Ignorantiam, is the fallacy of putting the burden of proof on the person who denies or questions the assertion being made. The source of the fallacy is the assumption that something is true unless proven otherwise. For further discussion of this idea, see the “Introduction to Atheism” document.
Straw man
The straw man fallacy is to misrepresent someone else’s position so that it can be attacked more easily, then to knock down that misrepresented position, then to conclude that the original position has been demolished. It is a fallacy because it fails to deal with the actual arguments that have been made.
Source: http://virtualschool.edu/mon/SocialConstruction/Logic.html
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Cherry picking is an idiom that means, “If people cherry pick, they choose things that support their position, while ignoring things that contradict it.”
“You don’t mention exactly what led you to ask about “cherry-pick,” but the term has been in the news fairly frequently lately. Government critics have accused the Bush administration of “cherry-picking” intelligence data in the run-up to the Iraq war, and various Democratic candidates were said to be “cherry-picking” which primaries they would enter last spring. In both cases, the sense of “to cherry-pick” is essentially “to pick and choose,” to pick the best, most important, most easily accomplished, or most advantageous items from the range available.”
Source: http://www.word-detective.com/090304.html
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Propaganda and Debating Techniques
“As you read the following pages, you will be exposed to quite a variety of deceptive propaganda techniques, logical fallacies, and lies (hopefully, none of them mine). You might as well learn a little about how the art and science of propaganda works, so that you can recognize the techniques as people try to fool your mind with them.
“You probably already know a lot about this, whether you realize it or not, because politicians pull many of these standard stunts on you every election year, and you have grown immune to some of them. And modern advertising uses a lot of them, too, and you just tune them out. Nevertheless, let’s just do a quick over-view of propaganda techniques.
“Bear in mind that “propaganda” is not inherently a dirty word — it just usually is. Any time you are trying to convince anyone of something, you are using some kind of persuasion, debating, or propaganda technique. Just telling the whole truth about something is one simple propaganda technique, and a highly effective one. But lying often works better, at least with some audiences…
“Master these propaganda techniques, and you too will be able to proselytize and promote cult religion and radical politics just like a battle-hardened old-timer.”
Observational Selection
“Observational selection, also known as “cherry-picking”, is a tactic like counting the hits and forgetting the misses. See only what you wish to see. Overlook and ignore evidence you don’t wish to see. And encourage your audience to be equally blind. Observational selection will destroy the validity of any statistical study.”
Source: http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-propaganda.html
For more on “Observational Selection” I suggest reading this post at http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2007/08/propaganda-techniques-observational.html
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Another site that lists common fallacies.
For example: confirmation bias (similar to observational selection): This refers to a form of selective thinking that focuses on evidence that supports what believers already believe while ignoring evidence that refutes their beliefs. Confirmation bias plays a stronger role when people base their beliefs upon faith, tradition and prejudice. For example, if someone believes in the power of prayer, the believer will notice the few “answered” prayers while ignoring the majority of unanswered prayers (which would indicate that prayer has no more value than random chance at worst or a placebo effect, when applied to health effects, at best).
red herring: when the arguer diverts the attention by changing the subject.
Source: http://nobeliefs.com/fallacies.htm
It’s time u learn Troy that “democracy” is not a trademark that means one and only one thing everywhere, everytime, for everyone. There are different form of it.
And, again, i remind u that directly translating chinese political-philosophical terminology and concepts with western terminology and concepts is superficial at best, stupid and plain useless at worst. It’s funny that somebody who tries to pass as knowledgeable about China, always uses western language and concepts to describe it…it’s the biggest disservice u can do to urself.
I already taught u that (民权）, go back and read it again.
According to Wikipedia:
Sun’s philosophy, the Three Principles of the People (nationalism, democracy, the people’s livelihood), is said to be heavily influenced by Sun’s experiences in the United States and contains elements of the American progressive movement and the thought championed by Abraham Lincoln. Sun credited a line from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, “government of the people, by the people, for the people,” as an inspiration for the Three Principles.
It doesn’t matter that Sun lived in Hawaii. He was inspired by the political system of the United States, then a beacon and still a beacon for universal suffrage. Democracy. The right to vote. The right of all people to elect their leaders. Separation of powers. Fundamental freedoms. A republic, where power is genuinely derived by the people and not a Leninist organization with a bogus constitution interpreted by a judiciary loyal to the government first.
What’s interesting about Llloyd’s argument that Sun didn’t really want democracy, and all the silliness about Hawaii, is that Sun is referred to in the Chinese world as the Father of Chinese Democracy. Sun Yat-sen is considered in China, Taiwan, other Chinese territories, and among hua qiao, or overseas Chinese, a saint. He was the only figure, apart from Mao, who couldn’t be criticised during the Cultural Revolution. He has been censored, though, by both the Nationalists (in the past) and the Communists (in the present), but otherise is thought to be untouchable. Lloyd and sycophantic co. hold themselves out as defenders of the Chinese people and all they represent, but they are really just defenders of Communist Party dogma. Party members will tell you a.) China already has democracy (Hu Jintao has claimed he was elected to office) and that b.) China will not be ready for democracy for 100 years (The CCP made such a statement in 2007). The Party wiorks tirelessly to expunge references to democracy from the internet, tells its citizens that democracy in the West is just a trend and won’t last, and hasn’t made any references to democracy at Sun Yat-sen’s mausoleum atop Purple Mountain outside the city of Nanjing. Even the video of Sun’s grandson that Lloyd supplied has the grandson saying, in effect, democracy in China is a process, a diplomatic way of saying it doesn’t exist yet. Of course, it exists in Taiwan, Republic of China, but you’ll see no praise on this site for that. Praising Taiwan doesn’t fit with the Communist Party stance.
And China’s government, with an eye on the Arab Spring and the millions of miniature mutinees that play out in the Middle Kingdom’s blogosphere, are concerned about Western political ideology “contaminating” its citizens. The CCP is anxious about Dr. Sun’s dream coming true. Hu Jintao lashed out last week against Western ideology and culture trying to divide China. The government doesn’t make such statements unless it’s worried. Here’s a commentary piece about China’s new concern about democracy from the Toronto Star.
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1111981–china-has-seen-the-enemy-and-it-s-us
Parfitt says, “According to Wikipedia…”
Wikipedia is an unreliable source to quote as an expert in anything. WHen I occasionally quote Wiki, I take that into account and usually look for other sources that support what I read in Wiki.
In fact, most universities tell students not to use Wikipedia as a source since just about everything under and over the sun is there and much is challenged as to its accuracy so one must be careful when using Wiki as a source.
As for “The Star” post you provided a link to. At least “The Star” identified the opinion piece “Mr. Parfitt” wrote as an opinion piece on its editorial page in the html code.
I laughed when I saw Mr. Parfitt was using an opinion he wrote for “The Star” as evidence to support his opinions here. However, using what he wrote as a source to support his biased opinions of China has to be a new plateau in cherry picking. Why is he that desperate that he has to quote himself to support himself?
An opinion is still an opinion no matter who publishes or writes it and should not be considered as anything but an opinion. In addition, as a fact, it is only an opinion and opinions are subject to the author’s cultural and personal biases. I read Mr. Parfitt’s opinion in “The Star” earlier this morning before I logged onto my Blog and saw many holes in it due to cherry picking as many crucial facts were left out.
There you go again, Mr. Parfitt, putting inflammatory words in my mouth in an attempt to prejudice readers against me as you accuse me of things I have never said or done.
I do not recall ever writing that China was a democracy but by definition, it could be considered a republic [there is a difference between a republic and a democracy].
To qualify as a democracy, China would have to have more than one political party and they would have to extend the vote to every citizen, which is not necessary to be considered a republic as the US started out in 1776 [the US started out with one poltical party and added more as it went along and dropped a few along the way too]. In fact, if China allowed the KMT to exist in China and run people for elections nothing else would have to change to turn China into a democratic republic, and according to studies, the CCP would win the vast majority of those elections if the public were allowed to vote as they are in the US.
As for the so-called Arab Spring, we will have to wait decades to see what the results are of the neoconservative American attempt to build Western style democratic nations through war, and I do not believe we will see an American style modern democracy. Instead, we may see something similar to a parliamentary system of government with a strong religious component and in most parliamentary systems of democracy, the people do not elect the head of state, there are no term limits for that leader and many of these governments have only one legislative body instead of two.
In addition, the majority party rules the country and decides who the head of state will be. In fact, most parliamentary democratic systems don’t even have a system of checks and balances as the US Republic was designed to have.
As for this quote from Mr. Parfitt, “The Party works tirelessly to expunge references to democracy from the internet, tells its citizens that democracy in the West is just a trend and won’t last…”
I’m sure that America’s Founding Fathers’ would agree with the CCP that “democracy in the West is just a trend and won’t last…“, since they debated the topic while writing the US Constitution that built a republic that limited how many people were qualified to vote. In fact, the US Founding Fathers said democracy where everyone votes leads to mob rule and based the opinion on the chaos and anarchy that overcame the Greek City States leading to the collapse of democracy there more than two thousand years ago.
I’d like to put a calm to this storm.
Nobody truly knows what Sun Yat Sen was thinking, except that he, like his predecessor the first Ming emperor, wanted the foreign control (Qing) out because they were corrupt and weak. He wanted a unified country. This played a role, along with the Revive China Society that sprung up in Hawaii. People also say he was a Christian. His role model apparently was Abe Lincoln and always quoted from the Gettysburg Address, “a governmen for the people, by the people, of the people.” Possibly because he felt oppressed under the corrupt Qing rule, as a slave might have felt oppressed under their corrupt/controlling master. He took pride in western civilization and always was open to western powers. I assume he was a believer of the Self-Strengthening movement that began in the Qing dynasty, since it appears he was after learning from western powers and using it to create a more powerful, united China.
Whatever people say about Sun Yat Sen, I still find it quite interesting that the first Chinese hero of the people that was friendly to foreign powers met his end through cancer. It is a mystery that we still fight even though the disease inside is the one that is deadly. We can blow up half the world through nuclear warfare and save ourselves by hiding in massive underground bunkers, but when the cancer comes along where do you hide then? Is it under the covers at night as you curl up into a ball crying yourself into oblivion as what’s left of life slowly fades behind the annoying sound of a hospital IV machine? Can you hear it? The slow steady rumbling sound of the machine by the bedside humming like a car engine starting up into the darkness of the cold, quiet room.
I better end there because I can sense something else taking over my laptop keyboard. Maybe it’s time to put that “something” to use.