Free Republic

Latest dispatch from the "dissent is patriotic" is dead front: Howard Dean has accused people who don't share his political views of being "authoritarian people who fundamentally don't believe in democracy." Poor Howard, who declared the times to be very "frightening and disconcerting," made his astounding accusation on today's Up With Steve Kornacki while attempting to explain the Republican sweep on the statehouse level. View the video here.

When the Berlin Wall came down 25 years ago this week, people in the Soviet Bloc gained something even more valuable than a right to vote: a free market. Democracy is definitely better than taking orders from Communist dictators. But real freedom means doing what you choose as an individual, not waiting for the rest of society to vote on whether you can. In politics, winners get to tell the losers what to do. In the marketplace, you buy what you want. I buy what I want. If some people want to buy movie tickets while others prefer to buy...

...In other words,the dysfunction of the Obama era—driven by the asymmetrical polarization of the GOP versus the Democratic Party—is likely to remain locked in place for the rest of the decade, perhaps longer.......This past year,frustration with congressional inaction on immigration—and public pressure from immigration activists—pushed the White House to float the possibility of taking unilateral action to create a path to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants. The result was a primal scream from conservatives,who accused the president of flouting the Constitution.....And while the Obama proposal fell within the president’s authority,it’s also true that Republicans weren’t completely wrong. There is a point...

The increasingly heated standoff in the central business district of this Asian financial hub cannot last indefinitely. Eventually, something will have to give because there is no middle ground between the opposing sides: The people want the vote, and Beijing says they can’t have it. Practically speaking, Beijing cannot make an exception for Hong Kong without stirring up democratic sentiment across the rest of the world’s largest country. Reports from the ground that the People’s Liberation Army has reinforced its Hong Kong garrison indicate the government has no plan to yield. The Hong Kong tinderbox is relevant to America because...

“Beijing is bulking up the military presence in Hong Kong,” a source on the ground told Radix News. “Under the cover of night, PLA troops are being sent over the border from the mainland. Why would they need an army in this peaceful place?” The short answer is that Chinese Communist Party officials view debate and protest as challenges to their authority, and the kneejerk authoritarian response to a challenge is to put it down. The threat of a harsher crackdown has been in the air since last month when security forces used tear gas and nightsticks to try to...

A bipartisan group of senators from across the political spectrum—from Elizabeth Warren and Patrick J. Leahy to Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio—wants President Barack Obama to speak out and act to support Hong Kong’s democracy movement.They don’t specify exactly what they want Obama to do—they say “demonstrable, meaningful steps”—but note that a 1992 law “authorizes you to suspend trade and economic provisions should Beijing not provide sufficient autonomy for Hong Kong.”Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who is president pro tempore and Judiciary chairman, leads the letter with Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Rubio.“The people of Hong Kong have sent a strong...

HONG KONG (CNN) — Thousands of pro-democracy protesters jammed the streets of Hong Kong’s central business district Saturday night and early Sunday, clapping and cheering just hours after an ultimatum by government leaders: Let city workers back in their offices soon, or else.

The worldly and elite journalistic caste indulged in a little cultural chauvinism last night when many determined that the Ferguson protesters were the first group of human beings in history to put their hands up with their palms forward as a gesture of supplication. As massive demonstrations engulf Hong Kong, protests which have been ongoing for weeks since the Chinese government revealed its intention to vet candidates for elected office in the former British colony for the first time since unification in 1997, demonstrators began marching with their hands up in a display of submission to police. The similarities...

SMH.  Stupidity magnified. Max Fisher, one of vox.com’s favorite fictionists, attributed the gesture of raising your hands (as in surrender or non-aggression) to Ferguson, no matter where in the world, no matter what reason. Hong Kong's protesters are using the same "hands up, don't shoot" gesture used in Ferguson.I’d be willing to guess that the majority of protesters in Hong Kong, who have a real reason to be upset with their Chinese masters, are like the 22-year-old Fisher quoted: One 22-year-old protester told Quartz's Lily Kuo that she had never heard of the events in Ferguson. He goes on to...

Hong Kong police used tear gas on pro-democracy protesters on Sunday, turning up the heat on an already boiling confrontation between Hong Kong citizenry seeking a greater say in their region's affairs and the Beijing-backed leadership of the island. But what is their face-off really about? What is the history of Hong Kong's place in China? Hong Kong is a "special administrative region" within China, having been returned to mainland sovereignty in 1997 by Britain. But having been a British colony since 1842, Hong Kong developed a decidedly more Western form of government and bureaucracy than the rest of China....

Instagram has reportedly been blocked in China following a weekend of pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. Photos shared on Weibo, a microblogging platform similar to Twitter, also seem to be hidden if they contain certain keywords. Searches for phrases like "Occupy Central" and "Hong Kong students" are blocked, says the BBC's Beijing bureau. Instagram told the BBC it was aware of the reports and was looking into the situation. "It's commonplace for China's internet censors to go into overdrive during politically sensitive events," said Celia Hatton, the BBC's correspondent in Beijing.

Hong Kong's mass protest is networked. Activists are relying on a free app that can send messages without any cellphone connection. On Sunday alone, the app was downloaded more than 100,000 times in Hong Kong, its developers said. FireChat relies on "mesh networking", a technique that allows data to zip directly from one phone to another via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.

Democracy demonstrators take to streets in Hong Kong

The typhoons that lash Hong Kong make quick work of umbrellas, the squalls twisting them into Calder sculptures of disarranged fabric and metal. On the evening of Sept. 28, prime typhoon season in this South China Sea outpost, flocks of umbrellas unfurled on the streets of Hong Kong. This time, they guarded not against rain and wind but tear gas and pepper spray. One of the world’s safest and most orderly cities—a metropolis of 7.2 million people that experienced just 14 homicides in the first half of this year—erupted into a battleground, as gas-mask-clad riot police unleashed noxious chemicals on...

Occupy Central movement is aimed at challenging China's supreme power organ. People have been staging protests in Hong Kong seeking the "real universal suffrage." They attempt to force the central authorities to change the decision of China's top legislature. A decision made on Aug. 31 granted universal suffrage in the selection of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR)'s chief executive on the basis of nomination by a "select committee". The decision possesses unchallengeable legal status and authority. It is "a certain choice and the only choice" to safeguard the decision, in line with the "one country, two systems" policy...

“Hong Kong has picked up the baton and is leading the pro-democracy movement of China now,” said Rose Tang, who was among the student leaders in 1989. “Hong Kong is becoming the catalyst to kick-start the end of an era – the Chinese communist’s one-party dictatorship.” [....] What has been called the Umbrella Revolution could as well be dubbed the Protest of Politeness, amid a burgeoning of ideological optimism in a city normally defined by its conservative dedication to the making of fortunes.

After a day of tense protests in Hong Kong in which at least 34 people were injured, organizers called on tens of thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators in the Chinese territory to head home late Sunday. But as Sunday became early Monday, it appeared many of the protesters were set to continue to jam streets of the business district. The sometimes violent demonstrations follow a week of student-led boycotts and protests against what many see as the encroachment of China's political will on Hong Kong's governance. They were responding to China's decision to allow only Beijing-vetted candidates to stand in the...

The BBC's Juiliana Liu says the situation on the ground is "extremely chaotic" and that protestors show no sign of dispersing. Hong Kong police have used tear gas to disperse thousands of pro-democracy protestors near the government complex, after a week of escalating tensions. Dozens of demonstrators were arrested, with hundreds remaining in the city centre late on Sunday. Protestors want the Chinese government to scrap rules allowing it to vet Hong Kong's top leader in the 2017 poll......

Hong Kong police used tear gas on Sunday and warned of further measures as they tried to clear thousands of pro-democracy protesters gathered outside government headquarters in a challenge to Beijing over its decision to restrict democratic reforms for the city. After spending hours holding the protesters at bay, police lobbed canisters of tear gas into the crowd on Sunday evening. The searing fumes sent protesters fleeing down the road, but many came right back to continue their demonstration. Students and activists have been camped out on the streets outside the government complex all weekend. Students started the rally, but...

Hours after the police sought to break up the protest, large crowds of demonstrators remained nearby, sometimes confronting lines of officers and chanting for them to lay down their truncheons and shields. Police officers were also injured in skirmishes with protesters. Streets of a city known as a safe enclave for commerce became a nighttime battleground.