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Strategies & Market Trends : Asia Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sam who wrote (8942)	7/27/1999 7:07:00 PM
From: Liatris Spicata	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9980

Sam- I regret that you feel my comments are objectionable. You don't bother to specify where I am wrong or have mis-understood you. Let's cut to the chase. I have understood that you have no objection to Beijing forcing the people of Taiwan to live under Beijing's rule. Perhaps I have misunderstood you, but your response "So you think Lincoln was wrong to force the [Confederacy] to remain in the union" suggests you find a moral equivalence between Lincoln and the dictators in Beijing. I would be pleased if you would straighten me out the the matter. Allow me to ask you directly: Would it be wrong for the PRC to attempt to force the people of Taiwan to live under Chinese rule? That is the central question in our little sub-thread here. I note that in early June you opined, referring the inevitable union of Taiwan and the PRC, "It will not be violent." (post 8643). You casually dismissed DMA's scenario of a violent attack on Taiwan by the PRC- an eventuality which has been adumbrated by senior military officials. You claimed, "That's absurd." (https://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=9890419). When I asked you what was absurd about his scenario, you declined to answer. Could you forgive me for inferring that your confidence on the matter has not been well thought out?? And if Beijing did resort to arms to force the people of Taiwan to submit to their dictatorship, what should be the US response? I am sorry, but when a person has no objection to a brutal dictatorship- even one that may be much improved over its recent predecessors- forcing a democratic people who enjoy such "niceties" as freedom of speech, religion and association to live under its rule, I do question that person's moral compass. They don't seem like nice people to me. And frankly, I care not a whit if people find my view objectionable. It seems to me a false sense of gentlemanliness to refrain from making moral judgements when it is appropriate to do so. <<You know very little about us>> I only know what you say about yourself, sir. And I'm getting the impression that you and I are on very different sides of certain essential intellectual and moral divides. <<From comments like these, and comments that appear to me and, I would guess, others, that appear to glorify the past of the US, ignoring the many misdeeds done both by individal people who settled this country and by the governments of both the country and the individual states.>> I don't see the connection between the words of mine that you quoted and a tendency to "glorify the past of the US". Kindly point to comments that I have made to substantiate your claim. Or is this simply another of the vacuous, unsubstantiated smears to which I have been subject on this thread? You seem to object to the following statement of mine: "I have the sense that the freedom upon which this nation (the USA) was forged means rather little to you". Well, pray tell, where does the concept of self-determination- of the right a people to dissolve the political bonds that have connected them with another- fit into your view of Taiwan's relationship to the PRC? If my sense on the matter is wrong, you should easily be able to establish where I am in error. In conclusion, Sam, I realize that my words are sometimes pointed. I take ideas seriously, and do not mind offending people by attacking their ideas. I try not to be personally insulting- perhaps I do not always succeed in that attempt. (Unless I have taken the time to refute a poster's claims and find that they persist in idiotic posts, I am generally far less personally insulting than the likes of Lawrence Kam, Ramsey Su, and Tomasso have been toward me). But if you find that my expressing doubts about your moral compass (and I have every right to have my doubts) exceeds the bounds of good company, then you are free to avoid me. But until you answer the questions I have put before you in a way that places you in the camp of men of good will, my stated doubts about your moral compass stand. Larry