What was that great quote, you know when Caesar said; “The first thing we do is kill all the lawyers,” and often people use that quote out of context, remember at the time of Caesar wanted to take over, and he knew he had to eliminate all the lawyers to do so. Indeed, any studier of Machiavellian Rule would realize that when you take over another country, the first thing you need to do is get rid of the intellectuals, lawyers, educators, leaders, and then lead the masses by fear.
Now then, I am certainly not one is to believe that in the present period, Machiavellian Rule should be the order of the day. However, I also realize I am not alone in this world, neither is the United States of America. Many of our trading partners do not think the way we do, do not have a capitalist slant, nor do their leaders necessarily believe in personal freedoms, liberty, or democracy. A case in point could be China for instance.
Here in the US we don’t know much about what goes on in China, as they are careful to censor the news coming out of that country, and definitely the news coming in. But we know they are often up to what we might consider from our perspective as Americans; no good. Last month there was an interesting piece in Sino Daily Online News titled “China cracking down on rights lawyers: Amnesty,” written by the Staff Writers in Hong Kong (AFP) and published on June 30, 2011. The article stated what many people have feared would happen;
“Beijing has unleashed an “uncompromising” assault on China’s legal profession, targeting human rights lawyers in an effort to head off social unrest, Amnesty International said. The move was a bid to control rights lawyers who take on sensitive cases as fears mount that uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa could take root in the world’s most populous nation, the rights group said in a new report.”
The article speculated that this was being done by communist leaders to silence dissent, and revoking licenses, harassment, random disappearances, and torture had been reported. As much is it displeases me to say anything good about lawyers, the Chinese people need someone on their side right about now. Yes, with 1.4 billion people China has no chance but to enforce their laws. The question is; are they enforcing the right ones.
On one hand there is severe corruption on the side of government, and yet it seems the ruling party is slow to enforce those issues, but they will go after any citizen who calls out any of their dastardly deeds, or any lawyer who goes to defend a citizen who speaks out, or any group that comes to their aid. There will always be challenges with human rights when leaders have absolute power. China needs checks and balances, and the United States should be careful whom it associates with. Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.
Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank. Lance Winslow believes writing 23,850 articles by July 4, 2011 is going to be difficult because all the letters on his keyboard are now worn off now..
