by Karl Denninger, Market Ticker:

I hope the people of Hong Kong learn before they’re all a pancake.

The only way for stability to return is for Beijing to grant us free and fair elections in the city—one of the five demands made by the anti-extradition movement. They must present political reforms that include allowing us to choose our chief executive and to elect all members of our parliament, the Legislative Council. Universal suffrage was promised to Hong Kong under the “one country, two systems” principle that was established at the time of the 1997 handover.

No government ever grants anything to the citizens once it has taken it.

Ever.

We allegedly have “free and fair” elections in the United States.

Except if you don’t release your tax returns, according to California and other places; then you don’t get to vote for whoever you please as they’re excluded from the ballot.

Except if you expect your vote to count as much as someone else’s.  In certain districts of Chicago, and elsewhere, turnout has been in excess of 100% of registered voters.  This of course is impossible unless the ballot box has been stuffed.

We allegedly have a 2nd Amendment which states The right to keep and bear arms SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED.  There are literally thousands of gun laws on the books that prevent keeping and bearing of certain arms in certain places by certain persons, criminalizing mere possession of certain common firearms.  Every one of those laws is flatly unconstitutional and yet the government not only won’t remove them it keeps adding to them.  The latest are “Red Flag” laws — one of which the government just used to steal guns from a man who said if Antifa attacked him he would resist using deadly force.  Resisting someone trying to kill you is a basic, pre-political right.  The FBI just took all of his guns — not for a threat of initiating violence but for stating in public that he would defend himself if attacked.  He was not charged with a crime (because he didn’t commit one, I note.)

We allegedly require under the 4th Amendment a warrant, supported by probable cause, to search or seize property or person.  Go talk to all those who have had their property seized not only without a warrant but who are never charged with or convicted of any criminal wrongdoing whatsoever.  The cops literally steal their property at gunpoint — that is, they commit armed robbery.  Under any rational system of government and laws you have every right to shoot an armed robber where he stands while he is committing that offense.  Try that in this nation and you’ll get the electric chair because this specific armed robber has on a magical blue costume — just as do those members of the PLA threatening to run you over with a tank.

We long to have a home where civil freedoms are respected, where our children will not be subject to mass surveillance, abuse of human rights, political censorship and mass incarceration. We stand with all the free peoples of the world and hope you stand with us in our quest for justice and freedom.

The only way you’re going to get any of that is to make clear to Beijing that their options are (1) respect fundamental, pre-political rights in totality or (2) that you will do whatever is necessary to force them to do so, even if that results in their — or your — death.

The problem is that you can’t just say it.

You must mean it and the bad news is that it’s odds-on you’re going to have to prove it.

Not since our Revolutionary War have the people of this nation risen up, made such a set of demands in a clear and cohesive voice and meant it.  As a result our alleged “freedoms” today are a bad joke.  We need a license to board an aircraft.  We need a license to travel on a public, tax-funded road using the common means of the day (a car.) We must buy a second license (insurance), sold by a legal cartel that has gotten written into laws banning cartels an exemption for themselves, to get said license to drive.  We need a license to possess a pistol for our own personal defense in our pocket, purse, or glove box so if someone attempts to rape, rob or murder us we have an effective means of saying “no” to said criminal assault.  Our property can be and is seized and stolen without any charges being laid against us — effectively forfeit at the whim of a Sheriff or other “officer” of the government.  We have our communications sucked up unlawfully by our own NSA; they’ve been caught doing it and not one of them has been prosecuted.  We just had a Presidential Campaign which was placed under surveillance as a consequence of an intentionally fraudulent presentation of salacious and maliciously false material to a Federal Judge, a severe and felonious violation of the law, and not one person has gone to prison for doing so.  We have gangs of “social media” companies who mass-censor based on political belief and expression.  And that’s just for openers; I could literally spend 100 pages of digital ink on these rank violations without exhausting the list.

Exactly zero of these insults to liberty were in place in 1789 and the founders would have laughed you out of the room at the mere suggestion of any of them.  If you tried to actually implement them you would have been shot; they had just finished doing exactly that to the British, after all.

Our government now has pending before it the exact same sort of law you are complaining about that was pending there, which will make simple assault — not battery, not an actual threat to kill, kidnap or blow something up — just getting in any government official’s face and using strong language — a serious, decade-long felony offense and worse, anyone who provided any sort of material aid to said person, such as by giving them a place to live or food to eat would likewise be criminally liable.

This is the same jackbooted crap that the PLA runs today in China and is threatening you with.

The sad reality is that governments all over the world have never given back a single freedom they take from the people by being asked or even when there is an election, if there is an election.

Even The Bible teaches us this about history over 2,000 years ago in Exodus.

Moses: “Let my people go.”

Pharaoh: “No.”

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