That road that's paved with good Intentions leads where?

I didn't go to the protest this weekend in front of the Legco building over the government's proposal to build the world's most expensive railroad that will link Hong Kong with the greater Chinese high speed rail system. I am to old to be pepper sprayed and find local activist like Christina Chan to be such a repulsively shallow loud mouthed whiner that it would be a waste if the police sprayed me and her when they could spray her twice if I wasn't there.

The price tag for this rail link is 68.8 BILLION and that is just what the government will admit too. The finished product will likely be much more expensive than advertised. There are lots of reasons to dislike this rail link besides cost but the riotous nature of the protesters just legitimized the government because they agreed or at least did not disagree with the under lying assumption that everything, or most things in Hong Kong belong to the state. That is the real issue and that is what should be being protested. Until that presumption changes nothing else matters because we cannot be a truly free society until the government acknowledges our right to property.

The protesters should be out jousting with the police over the fact that the government of Hong Kong lays claim to almost every square inch of land and water in the SAR. The railroad is a symptom of the fact that we live in a feudal fiefdom that is ruled by a laird who is subject to his liege in Beijing. We are the manor serfs who till the land and produce income for the Laird and his liege. The government doesn't sell land they give long term leases for buildings to be constructed on the manor's estate. Even those disgusting money grubbing, triad controlled villagers in the New Territories that have a "right" to build their own house can only do so because the government allows them too. I am not sure this isn't a relic of the treaty signed with the Empire of China which was, in the 19th century still a feudal state. The population of the PRC is freer than we in this because they can OWN the land their house sits on. The right to property is, along with the freedom of association and conscience one of the three pillars of human freedom. Without all three a society is not truly free and generally where one is curtailed the others are too or shortly will be.

In Hong Kong, we live literally as serfs of the feudal manor. The civil service, or Royal Retainers, believes it is our place to live as they see to provide for us. The government does not view the rights we exercise as citizen to be inalienable but rather to be bestowed upon us by the benevolence of the Laird and we have those rights only so long as his munificence’s avails. Until THBT and his cronies and successors realizes that we have rights because we are human not because the government gives them to us we will never be free and that is true whether we vote for the laird from a alrger or small class of nobles.

Instead of being merely dissatisfied serfs demanding that the government give money to them rather than build a railroad the protesters should be clearly and plainly talking about how rights are bestowed not by a government but by God, or Nature, or History or Culture. But since they are HKU graduates I doubt they belive in God, history or culture and Al Gore says nature does not apply in Hong Kong. You can make the argument in any number of ways but it must be made that rights do not come from the government and exist externally to the government. Without doing that, the protesters will only be replacing one tyrant with another, probably worse one. I've never cared for either Stalin or Mao. What the protesters are actually wanting is that someone else, probably themselves should be the Royal Retainers. I guarantee that is what Beijing thinks whether it is what the "Post 80's" generation thinks or not. As such the protesters are worse than useless because they are simply legitimizing a more repressive response from the lord of the manor and his supporters. Remember, Machiavelli was absolutely right when he said that the primary objective of the state is to perpetuate itself. The Liard is not about to see himself replaced by a committee of serfs without a fight or to allow his leige to replace him because he cannot control his serfs. Especially since the serfs would do no better a job than he and probably worse.

What went on here Saturday probably brought us a little bit closer to the time when the PRC tanks, God forbid, come rolling down our streets. That is just an opinion but I think it is a sound one. Here is another. If you are going to start a revolution, make sure it is for a cause worth dying for. I wouldn’t die for the MTR. I don’t think many others would either.

I don't care how much they "Care" The road to Hell Hell is paved with the good intentions of people that cared. I don't want Christina Chan to make Hong Kong a Hell on Earth.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who thinks the issue is bigger than a railroad