‘The Reality Is, Our Government Hates Us’
It’s an image that rolls over and over in her mind. She sees the police, spraying blue chemicals into the crowd. Then she notices her — a young girl, one of the protestors, writhing as it burns her skin. In a few years, she thinks, that could be her child. “And there is nothing I can do to protect her.” Hong Kong, the mother knows, is a ticking time bomb. And the sooner they get out, the better. “What else can you do,” she says mournfully, “but leave?”
It’s an image that rolls over and over in her mind. She sees the police, spraying blue chemicals into the crowd. Then she notices her — a young girl, one of the protestors, writhing as it burns her skin. In a few years, she thinks, that could be her child. “And there is nothing I can do to protect her.” Hong Kong, the mother knows, is a ticking time bomb. And the sooner they get out, the better. “What else can you do,” she says mournfully, “but leave?”
All across Hong Kong, families just like hers are meeting quietly with agents who can get them out of the country — to somewhere, anywhere, they can start over. The sad irony, many have said, is that Hong Kong was — for many of their parents — that same refuge. Daughters like Leung Yao grew up hearing her father’s horror stories of the Chinese cultural revolution, how he fled to this place where the same clouds are starting to gather. Standing in Hong Kong in 1997, watching ominously as the Brits handing the country back to China, the Yaos felt a sudden chill. Just a teenager at the time, Leung had a frightening thought. “Maybe one day we will have to run from the Chinese Communist Party again.” Now, that day is here.
Reporter Shibani Mahtani feels the urgency of the locals she interviews almost like a physical presence. From her post in Asia, she watches the lawyers, nurses, doctors, and other professionals getting everything in order to flee. They comb the relocation options in nearby Taiwan, Australia, and Europe, looking at every legal option to migrate and escape. For the protestors, hundreds of thousands of them, the worry about retribution under China’s new national security law is real. “…[E]ach and every one of us could be a target,” Leung knows. “Even if we love our city, the reality is that our government hates us.”
China’s “reign of terror” is coming. They are certain of it. Of their friends, one finance expert estimates that 90 percent have “left or are in the process of leaving.” “In many ways,” he says, “it feels like we are refugees, fleeing a war.” For pastors, the signs of trouble loom on the horizon. They know it’s only a matter of time until China uses this law to reach its long arm into Hong Kong’s churches and crush outspoken believers. It’s not a question of “if,” Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) agrees, but when. Under this new “independent judiciary,” anyone from Hong Kong could be “extradited to the mainland and possibly sent to political prisons and never heard from again.”
“When the United Kingdom ceded sovereignty back to Hong Kong or to Beijing in 1997,” Senator Cotton explained, “that one country, two systems approach was supposed to last 50 years. Here we are, not even halfway to that point.” But if it was going to happen eventually, does it matter if China takes control now? It should, Cotton insisted — especially considering the message it sends to the world.
“It’s another example of how you cannot trust a communist power. We couldn’t trust the Soviet Union. We cannot trust Red China either. They made a basic commitment to preserve something like the status quo in 1997. They’re grossly violating that status quo, and they’re doing so in a thriving, vibrant, democratic society.” If Hong Kong loses its rights — the freedoms of speech, assembly, worship, and so many others, everyone will pay. “All of those brave Hong Kongers, the teenagers and the 20-somethings who have been out the street protesting over the last year… [they] all face grave consequences. We see how Beijing treats Christians on the mainland, smashing churches or breaking into and busting up the so-called house churches where Christians try to worship our God. That’s not the way it works in Hong Kong.” But that’s the way it will work, he warns, if China has its way.
Hong Kong has always been unique — a sign to the downtrodden Chinese of what could be. And in the end, that’s what Beijing fears — that this vibrant democracy, this blossoming economy, will show their people another way. A better way. The Chinese people long to live in freedom, Senator Cotton laments, “to provide for their families and give their children [opportunities they never had].” But “they are not allowed to do so by the Communist Party. Every once in a while, he says, "they can see… occasional glimpses of what it’s like in Hong Kong.” And that, more than anything, is what terrifies the Chinese authorities. They can’t afford to let their people see the shining example of Hong Kong and imagine a life out from under the thumb of the communist regime.
So they’re willing to violate the agreement, even risk the economic consequences, to broaden the crackdown. But those consequences, Cotton insists, are coming. The U.S. has already announced that it will stop Hong Kong’s special trading status. “We’re not going to allow Chinese oligarchs and princelings to continue to get rich off of Hong Kong if they are not respecting the rights of Hong Kongers.” It’s also time, he agrees, for the United States to extend a hand to the people desperately trying to flee these waves of persecution. America’s refugee system has been abused in the past, but there’s no better time than the present to rethink how we can give these Hong Kong families a chance at a new life.
Originally published here.
The Life Story YouTube Is Terrified People Will Watch
The Left knows the power of a good story. They’ve always understood that finding sympathy for an issue is sometimes as easy as putting a compelling face on it. For conservatives, telling stories hasn’t always come so naturally. But now, after years of having the facts on our side, the personal testimonies from former LGBT activists are starting to change the way people think about the transgender lifestyle. Which may be why the Left is desperate to shut them down. The truth, on this issue, like so many others, is their biggest enemy.
Walt Heyer, who tells his heart-wrenching story so others won’t live it, knows what it’s like to live a transgender lie. For years, he’s tried to rebut the Left’s lie that change isn’t possible. It is, Walt knows, because he’s experienced it. He’s known pain from his tortured past — and he’s known freedom. And both have helped him connect with thousands of others who need the truth. He travels the world, speaking at conferences, testifying at committees, emailing with survivors about the suffering and trauma this ideology inflicts. The video from one event, hosted by the Heritage Foundation, was one of the most watched talks he’d ever given. Until YouTube pulled it down.
His life story, they decided, was “hate speech.” He talked about his mutilated body, his struggles, all of the promises that living as a woman would make everything right. But YouTube doesn’t want parents and children to know the truth: it didn’t make everything right. On “Washington Watch,” Walt seemed to understand that the real reason the platform censored him is because millions of people were starting to watch. “If it wasn’t a popular video, they probably wouldn’t have done much of anything. But it started getting a lot of views. And so once it crossed the million mark, I think they started to get alarmed.”
“I was a kid that went through this. I was speaking from my heart. I wasn’t being critical as much as I was giving advice on the fact that what we know is if children are left alone and do not give them hormone blockers and give them a new identity and change their clothing, that between 80 to 95 percent of them will actually grow out of it…” But that truth, Walt knows, is offensive to some people. “So they pulled it down… [But] probably even more egregious than just taking down my video — that was an entire day of doctors and endocrinologists and specialists in it were included in this conference. They took all of them down because of my video, not just mine. They took them all off YouTube.”
This was someone’s personal testimony. Why does everyone get to share theirs except for people like Walt, whose story doesn’t fit the narrative LGBT activists want to tell? Simple. At the end of the day, they don’t want people to be free. “[There’s] a lot of political power behind the transgender movement,” Walt warns. “There’s a lot of money behind the movement. And I interfere with that. I go against the grain on this.” He’s talked to literally thousands of people who’ve “gone through this and they regret it.” And obviously, YouTube and friends don’t want people to know that popular culture is selling a pack of lies. But thanks to the boldness of Walt and others like him, the truth will always win. Even when the opposition does everything it can to silence it.
For more on Walt and his ministry, check out SexChangeRegret.com. Hear for yourself what a difference one person’s testimony can make.
Originally published here.
A Surge in Virus Double Standards
The riots weren’t how most Americans would have preferred to get their break from coronavirus news coverage. But for once, after months of force-fed fearmongering, the outbreak found itself in an unusual place: the backburner. Suddenly, concerns about social distancing were non-existent. Liberal leaders, who were doing everything they could to keep Americans locked down, were standing behind podiums, urging people to get out and protest. Now, after a couple of weeks of mob demonstrations, the Left wants to blame someone else for the surge of infections: Donald Trump.
At a House hearing yesterday with experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci, Democrats insisted that these new cases have nothing to do with the hypocrisy we’ve witnessed in several cities. Instead, members like Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) think the latest hospitalizations all stem from the irresponsibility of one man — the president. “It was an outrage that there was a gathering in Tulsa," Eshoo argued. "Six of the president’s advance people were infected. And it’s my understanding that two Secret Service agents were. How can the CDC allow this pandemic, this virus, to be something political?”
Of course, the irony of Eshoo’s question is that she was one of the House Democrats who made the issue political when she wrote to the administration defending the right of protestors to gather free from government interference.
She, like so many others, is one of those liberals who NRO’s Jim Geraghty believes “set their credibility on fire for coming down like a ton of bricks on anti-lockdown protesters,” then turned around and “bless[ed] and in some cases participat[ed] in George Floyd protests. No doubt, we’ve got a supply of hypocrisy that could fill up the underground tanks of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.”
Maybe people believe that the virus wasn’t that bad at the riots, or that it’s gone, or that people have built up immunity.
Infectious diseases expert Dr. Catherine O'Neal disagrees. On Monday’s “Washington Watch,” she was very careful to say, “The virus has not gone at all.” “What we’re seeing now is that people who are more social, getting out first, not as cautious, are really getting the virus at rapid rates. And we can link those that rapid spread to social events, birthday parties, baby showers, bachelor parties, and bars.” The increase, she points out, is mostly in community cases. “And [that’s] naturally concerning, because that means that not only has it gotten back into the community, but it’s starting to hit those vulnerable people who were protecting themselves — but [who] can’t protect themselves from their family members coming back to the house from their social events.”
In particular, she points out, is a spike in the 18- to 29-year-old range. Now, whether that’s because we weren’t testing that demographic as much in March or not, no one knows. “But they may be what begins the surge.” Even the young community is seeing a bump in admissions. “We cannot forget that the at-risk populations are in our homes right now. They’re not people who are over 70 people that we’ve admitted in the last week. They’re people in their 40s, 50s, early 60s with diabetes, with obesity, which is very common in the United States… We’re admitting our neighbors, whose kids are being very social right now.”
If we want to slow this down — and quickly — Dr. O'Neal urges: “You really have to start to think about what you do in your personal life… And if we want that economy to grow, we have got to put masks on. We’ve got to stay away from people. Just be very deliberate in your social activities… [Earlier this year,] we did that very successfully. But I think we’ve gotten a little bit ahead of ourselves, and we have to back up just a little…”
So the question on everyone’s minds is: When can life return to normal? As far as Dr. O'Neal is concerned, a lot of that depends on us. “I consider 2020 the year of social distancing and masking and a new way of life… I think that we all have to stretch a little bit for the rest of this year. I don’t see an out soon.” We can have social interactions, she agrees, but in smaller groups with people you trust are acting responsibly. Live your life, she says, but be more careful. “I’m not going to miss Sunday dinner with my mom or dad, but we might sit outside for most of that time. You know, we keep our traditions. We just if we’re just a little bit more deliberate about those things, we’re 50 percent there.”
Originally published here.
This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.
