Tiananmen Square: Twenty-Four Year Anniversary

Do you remember Tiananmen Square?

It’s difficult to believe that it was over two decades ago, but today, June 4th, indeed marks the twenty-four year anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing, China.

This was when the communist dictatorship of that country quashed a political reform movement, which was begun by Beijing students who sought to bring about more freedom.

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) ended these protests by force — which, really, is the only way governments can ever resolve disputes of this sort, since government by definition is an agency of force.

When it was all over, the People’s Republic of China began arresting its people on a widespread scale.

They also went to great lengths to suppress protesters and other people of China who were supportive of the protesters’ cause.

The People’s Republic of China banned the foreign press and controlled all later coverage of the event.

Members of the Party who had publicly sympathized with the protesters were purged, with several high-ranking members placed under house arrest, such as General Secretary Zhao Ziyang. The violent suppression of the Tiananmen Square protest caused widespread international condemnation of the PRC government (Andrew Nathan, The Tiananmen Papers).

The protesters — among whom were advocates of laissez-faire as well as disillusioned communists and Trotskyites and many other groups besides — were united only in their hatred of that oppressive regime. The Tiananmen Square protest was a protest against authoritarianism.

It actually began some seven weeks before, on April 15th, 1989, after the death of a largely pro-free-market, anti-corruption government official named Hu Yaobang. Many Chinese people wanted to mourn his death because they regarded him as something of a hero. By the eve of Hu’s funeral, a million people had gathered in Tiananmen Square.

In fact, many large-scale protests sprung up all throughout the cities of China, including Shanghai. These others remained peaceful, however.

It is not known exactly how many people died altogether in Tiananmen Square, although at one time the Chinese Red Cross gave a figure of 2,600, which they later denied.

During those seven weeks, many of these protesters were openly discussing a principle that we almost never hear discussed even in this country — though it was this country’s foundational principle — a principle that is so profound and so complex that only a small minority of people today grasp its awesome logic. That principle is the principle of individual rights.

It was, incidentally, this same communistic Chinese government that American pseudo-intellectuals, like Norman Mailer, Howard Zinn, and Noam Chomsky, have described as (quoting Chomsky’s own words) “a relatively livable and just society,” about which “one finds many things that are really quite admirable.” Furthermore says Chomsky:

China is an important example of a new society in which very interesting and positive things happened at the local level, in which a good deal of the collectivization and communization was really based on mass participation and took place after a level of understanding had been reached in the peasantry that led to this next step.

The word Tiananmen literally translates to “Gate of Heavenly Peace.”

Among the people who died in the Tiananmen Square massacre was a young girl, a student, who worked as a pastry chef in a Dim Sum cafe on the Yangtze. She was the daughter of an engineer. In a country that did not (and does not) permit freedom, she came to understand the principle of individual rights and the inseparable link that exists between property and person — which is to say, economics and politics, or body and brain, all of which amount to the same thing. And that, reader, is no small thing.





7 Replies to “Tiananmen Square: Twenty-Four Year Anniversary”

  1. http://www.privateislandsonline.com/

    Hardly an original idea of Libertopia course, but all we need are enough like-minded people to club together, buy an island and start a new country. Businesses would flock to this free-trading tax haven. The concept of government would be replaced by privately run courts and protection agencies, guided by the principles laid out in the libertarian constitution. The constitution would recognise the individual rights of all men, women and French (okay, the latter could be up for negotiation). Socialism and other perversions would be tolerated, as long as practised between consenting adults within the privacy of their own homes.

    Who’s with me?

  2. Nah, screw this rock.
    I’m shooting for my own planet.
    As long as there’s anyone with any influence in this world that thinks world peace is conceivable no one is ever going to be left alone.
    Hell, I don’t think there’s one piece of land on this planet that if sold wouldn’t render you beholden to some other governments pre-requisites.
    Wouldn’t be long before the UN made up some bullshit about your countrys activities being a threat to their little community or an instrument of oppression to some third world hell hole on the other side of the earth.

  3. “As long as there’s anyone with any influence in this world that thinks world peace is conceivable no one is ever going to be left alone.”

    I should rephrase this to “possible”
    World peace is conceivable, but never possible.
    You can think about it, plan it, imagine it, and wallow in the concept all you want.
    As Halle Berry once told me: “it never gonna happen.”
    Some our biggest problems are, have been, and will continue to bloom because of this idiotic “One World” idea.
    In light of all the recent exposure of intrusion a lot of people are talking about going off the grid, doing the hermit log cabin thing in the woods action.
    Shit, at the rate were going the sticks aren’t going to be that private either.
    I wonder if our countrysides and remote locations can maintain all these doomsday preppers ?
    Squirrels might face extinction ?
    Might end up looking like we just swept the mess from one corner to another.

  4. Wouldn’t be long before the UN made up some bullshit about your countrys activities being a threat to their little community or an instrument of oppression to some third world hell hole on the other side of the earth.

    Okay, granted, and sure, if the UN didn’t get us then Obama would with a few pre-emptive strikes from his drones. Either way we’d be doomed to a short existence and bloody death. I will give you that, Mickey. But on the other hand I never said the plan was perfect.

    I have a solution: we convert to Islam, pretend to have a bomb pointing at Israel, and for good measure make claims that our island is due to sink under rising seas at some indeterminable time before the year 2100 as a result of climate change. Every liberal organisation will be falling over themselves to defend us.

  5. Dont get me wrong Dave, as far back as I can remember my dad and I always talked about our own island, as have many other people.
    I guess I should of been more complete in my intentions.
    I’m of the opinion that we need to do a Zimmerman and stand our ground instead of leaving everything to these morons.
    Left to their own devices it wont be long before they’ve contaminated the entire planet.
    I’m not wearing any foil hat.
    This shits been in the works for decades.
    Its nearly impossible to stay hidden unless you go totally underground hermit style.
    Good luck trying to ever own anything substantial, or visiting the ER, or registering a car.
    This shit is global.
    Obama and all the members of his ilk across the planet,Socialists,Communists,progressives,Marxists and majority of the U.N. have already began this imposition on us a long time ago.
    Its everywhere.
    Best example of these programs under the guise of best intentions was drawn up years ago by Obama and set to campaign by the U.N.
    I think it petered out, but still defines these assholes intentions perfectly
    Its called the Global Poverty Tax,(S2433) meant to give relief to third world underachieved nations.
    Upon first glance it seems to be of the noblest intentions but once you start digging you find out it requires a huge global data base, disarming every nation of private arms, and a tax on America enforced by the U.N. of somewheres around a trillion bucks over a 13 year period.

    “Senator Joe Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has not endorsed either Senator Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton in the presidential race. But on Thursday, February 14, he is trying to rush Obama’s “Global Poverty Act” (S.2433) through his committee. The legislation would commit the U.S. to spending 0.7 percent of gross national product on foreign aid, which amounts to a phenomenal 13-year total of $845 billion over and above what the U.S. already spends. ”

    “In addition to seeking to eradicate poverty, that declaration commits nations to banning “small arms and light weapons” and ratifying a series of treaties, including the International Criminal Court Treaty, the Kyoto Protocol (global warming treaty), the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. ”
    http://www.aim.org/aim-column/obamas-global-tax-proposal-up-for-senate-vote/

    Its a pretty interesting read if you want the best insight as to how this is not just an America” problem.”

    According to the DHS and Napolitano the criteria they set for being a terrorist a couple years ago gives them reason to look at about half the countrys private business because these people are either white, over 40, own a gun, a Christian, or live in a red state.

    We dont need to hide.
    We need to get in their freeking faces or its going to get worse.
    Even if we think its too late and were past the point of no return we still need to band together and get rid of all the extra heads this monster has grown.
    I have nightmares of of my kids and everyone else 40 years from now having a little drone follow them everywhere.
    Wait, arent they called cell phones ?

    Shit.

    Then again, your solution might work.
    The UN is no friend to Israel

  6. Hey Ray, a while back, maybe 3 or 4 years ago, you wrote a piece where the last line asked:
    “why cant you all just leave us the hell alone ?”.
    It went into detail on all the intrusions being put on us by big government, the green movement, regulations, etc.
    I’d like to share it with some others.
    If you can find it in a minute or two that that would be cool.
    If its buried beyond reach please dont bother.

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