Lord Acton’s dictum is well-known: “Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Another way of saying that is “power is intoxicating.” It is difficult for you and me, who have no power and don’t really crave it, to understand just how addictive power can be, probably worse than any drug ever created. It is true even in America. Charles Grassley, 88 years old, ran for another 6-year term in the Senate this year. Pelosi is over 80, Biden is 80 and talking about running again in 2024. Dianne Feinstein is, what, 89, and probably can’t find her way to the bathroom. How many of the people in Congress are over 70 or 80 and ought to be home playing with their great-grandchildren?
But they have power. And they…just…can’t…give it up.
That’s the dangerous, intoxicating nature of power, especially in the hands of evil people, and it isn’t unique to America. It has happened throughout history, all over the world.
The problem with people in power is they often reach a point where they think they can do no wrong, or that they will never lose it. But as I noted in my previous column, there is really no such thing as “absolute power.” No ruler can do ANYTHING; he can’t kill every noble or all the people. He must make some concessions, or he will be overthrown.
I mentioned a few examples in my earlier post. Louis XVI in France, Nicholas II in Russia, George III as king over America, the Qing Dynasty in China—the list in history is endless. These regimes all became so corrupt, so tyrannical, that they eventually pushed the people to revolution. Often, what the country ends up with is worse than what it had. The French Revolution produced Napoleon. The Russian Revolution generated Lenin, Stalin, the USSR, and spawned many other communist dictatorships around the world; and Marxist-hatched, murdering Leftism remains the greatest plague in existence. Gloriously, the USSR collapsed in the early 1990s, but Russia now has Putin. The Chinese Revolution eventually created Mao Zedong, the greatest mass murderer in human history, and now Xi Jinping, who apparently wants to rival Mao in the number of deaths he is responsible for. The American Revolution was the exception. We had remarkable leaders who produced the greatest country the world has ever known.
But, for all their efforts to write a Constitution that would protect the American people from power-obsessed demagogues, our Founders did not totally succeed. And Joe Biden and the current Democratic Party are proof of that. They ignore the Constitution, and get their cohorts in media and academia to attack it vociferously in hopes that they can convince enough people that the document is illegitimate. And then, the Democrats can rule with authoritarian autocracy. It has been working. But how long will it last? Millions and millions of Americans—but not enough yet—are finally realizing what is happening. Check your six, Joe.
Eventually, the worst tyrants either destroy themselves (Hitler) or are overthrown (the USSR). The situation in China today is exemplary. Xi Jinping, just last month, was able to make himself dictator for life. He is, far and away, the most powerful ruler in China since Mao Zedong. And, as often happens to autocrats, he thinks he can do no wrong, that he is politically invulnerable, that he can do anything he wants, and that the people will have to submit.
Well, the people of China may not agree with him.
“’Step Down CCP! Step Down Xi Jinping!’: Protests Erupt Across China Over COVID-19 Curbs.” Such was the headline on a November 27 article in Epoch Times. Ten people burned to death a few days ago in an apartment complex fire in the western city of Urumqi because they were locked down in their building and couldn’t get out. That news escaped CCP censors long enough to set the whole country ablaze.
The Covid-19 lockdowns have nothing to do with COVID, of course, and everything to do with Xi telling the Chinese people that he is the absolute authority and they WILL obey. I still have a lot of contacts in China, so I talk to people. They must be careful what they say on social media, but they are not happy. And protests are now exploding all over. I lived through some of those lockdowns earlier this year in China. They are irritating, to say the least, and worse, unnecessary. Many Chinese people know it and are saying “Enough!”
People need to eat, work, earn money, have some measure of freedom to move around and live normal lives. Xi is telling the Chinese people, in no uncertain terms, that HE will decide when they are allowed to do those things. Xi Jinping is a classic case of the intoxicating nature of power, of the corruption of tyranny. Biden and the Democrats are silent about the Chinese protests because what Xi is doing is exactly what they want to do in America. Since the fall of the USSR, China has become the Left’s modern totalitarian model.
What will happen in China? Can the people overthrow communism—and believe me, a lot of them want to. There are millions in China who are sick of it. I know that from personal conversations, too. But what can the people do? They will need some help—the police, the military, some strong clique in Beijing that opposes Xi. None of that is in evidence right now. But nobody, outside the CCP, truly knows what is going on inside.
Currently, Xi Jinping gives no indication of relaxing, even the least amount, his “zero-COVID policy.” He may have to, but if he does, he will find a face-saving method to do it. Pray for the Chinese people, folks, that they can escape that monstrous, godless, murdering tyranny that has oppressed them for almost 75 years now.
And the Democrats better keep their eyes on China—for their own sakes.
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