Naked Officials

Yes, I know, that is a titillating title bound to increase traffic to my site by people seeking cheap thrills. Unfortunately, they are going to be terribly disappointed to find that this term is not what they think it is - at least in this case.

A "naked official" is clearly defined by the Organization Department of the Central Committee (ODCC) of the CPC as an official whose spouse and children have migrated abroad and have become foreign citizens or taken permanent residence overseas, or who has no spouse but whose children have taken foreign permanent residence permits, or who has no children but whose spouse has become a foreign citizen or taken a foreign permanent residence permit.

Ok, I admit, I have known about this term and its implications for a while but I suspect it is something new to most Western audiences. So I wanted to address it and see if I could point out some of its implications in comparison to the West. In short, the point of this article is to address a concern that is prevalent in China when it comes to its "public servants" - public officials often are guilty of corruption or other crimes and, in order to help protect themselves and their families, will often ensure that they have a way out of the country. There are more than a few examples of this that can be found using Google so I will not belabor the point here.

Now, this does not mean that public officials and corruption are limited only to China. A review any nation's political leaders will turn this up as a trend that seems only to expand to all levels of society. In the past year, British officials have been forced to resign due to taking money from the public treasury for personal use and US officials are currently being investigated by their peers (ok, yes, I admit I found it hilarious that other foxes stand in judgment of the offending foxes) in the House of Representatives. The difference here relates more to the method in which each nation handles the problem and how the offending leaders react to the possibility of being caught. Outside of China, the officials may be censured, lose their jobs and their pensions, be publicly humiliated or suffer similar such punishments. In China, they truly can lose their lives.

It is not my intent to say that one way is right or another wrong. But why are the flagrantly corrupt in China (and to be caught, they tend to have to be flagrant) executed while similar such actions external to China result in non-life-threatening punishments? Accountability seems to be the most likely reason. For example, in the US, the system still works to a large degree since the offenders are simply removed from office via the ballot box (in many cases) and replaced with another crook. Well, ok, maybe I am being pessimistic, but you get my point. People, more or less, still trust the system to police itself and to regenerate in a fashion that is simply not possible in China (or most other authoritarian nations). In China, the system is imposed on the people and the only way to maintain that is to truly threaten the population - to maintain the sense of fear that is very necessary to keep the country relatively stable. Those who know that best are those with the most to lose - the leaders themselves. So, to keep the system running, they enable an "out" for themselves and their families. Then they have a place to go (e.g. the West in many cases) where they may not have the same perks and abilities - but at least they won't be executed. Why? Because they don't trust the very government which they are responsible for running!

One last thought on the subject. Why are the offenders put to death instead of in jail? One good reason (and this would also tie in with why their trials are not generally open to the public) is that they have the ability to bring the entire system down with them. So, to maintain the system, those who are caught must be eliminated because they can name names of the others. The corruption that goes on is clearly not limited to the few individuals that are so foolish as to be caught but is endemic to the system as a whole because there is no real accountability to the people whom they purport to serve. But, in order to maintain that illusion, it seems like a very real possibility that the only solution is to execute the few in order to preserve the rest.

I guess there is no reason to wonder why Western officials do not try to escape to China when they get caught up in their corrupt practices...

Liberty or Death?

"Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death!"

Famous words by Patrick Henry that, in a way, launched the American Revolution. And the rest, as they say, is history. The US has stood as a beacon for freedom over generations and is often cited as a preferred location for people to be free - whether it be religious, political, social or otherwise. This does not mean that it is always the case and there are certainly instances throughout US history that demonstrate that the reality has not always fit the perception. However, the US is one of the few countries that has not necessarily shunned its past in favor of a more favorable presentation. Fights against perceived injustices permeate US history and a war was fought to correct the grievous injustice of slavery. For those (and there are many) who argue that the US has committed any number of wrongs (social, moral, etc.), they should consider the history of most any other nation in the world and how those nations have responded to the bad things perpetuated in their countries. Outside of Germany's reaction to the Holocaust, it is hard to find many other nations that have tried to make up for negative events in their history.

But I digress from my intended subject of liberty and freedom. I had the opportunity to watch a historical re-enactment of the Second Virginia Convention that was the scene of Henry's iconic speech. But what caught my attention was that the decision to take up arms for the pursuit of liberty was not undertaken with unanimous consent and that the discussions that led up to his speech were eerily reminiscent of arguments that take have surely taken place all over the world before and since - and are still done today. The decision taken by the members of the Virginia delegates to the second convention to raise arms and fight against the injustices they felt were inflicted upon them by the British in support of the colonists in Boston was one that had fervent support on both sides of the debate. Some felt that they could suffer no more under the taxation without representation under which they lived at the time while others felt that they had support that was building in England and that they simply needed to give them more time to assume the power that would enable them to return to the "halcyon days of yore".

The debate, essentially, was reduced to a peaceful and hopeful view that patience would see a return to more tranquil and reasonable days where everyone was allowed to prosper and live according to their own standards versus a belief that there was, and could be, no liberty to live free of the yoke of tyranny imposed by the British crown without an armed insurrection by the colonials. As was pointed out at the end of the re-enactment, the vote was won by only a slim margin of 5-6 votes in favor of raising a militia to serve as a defense against the British.

Freedom, as with most things, is a nuanced perception. Henry and his supporters were in favor of freedom to live and make choices on their own - or at least the right to have a say in the governance of their affairs. To those who stood in opposition, it seemed that freedom represented the ability to live their lives peacefully with the hope and belief that things would improve without forcing their active intervention. While it would seem that history has proven (for now) that the US was right to fight for its freedom, it was certainly not a decision taken lightly nor with the perceived consensus with which it seems it is often portrayed to the students who study that history. Only the future and its participants will determine how that freedom is partaken by the benefactors of that speech.

History

Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it. Or something like that, anyway. And yet it seems that the past is an event that is forgotten within the customary 24 hour news cycle. Don't believe me? Then try the Internet Archive by looking at your favorite site (preferably news site) and seeing what the news was and how much you remember of that news. Heck, try to see how much you know of what happened after the actual event itself? Was it a huge murder case? What happened to the murderer(s)? If it was a scandal, what actually happened to those involved in the days and weeks following the scandal?

The great majority of people do not, and will never, know. They do not care. They care about the big explosion but not in how it was fixed. They care about the grisly murders but not in the convictions that (hopefully) followed. Because those are far more mundane and not nearly so exciting (to the general public, anyway). And, because the temporary excitement created by the latest tragedy is what tends to catch the public's opinion and everyone seems to want their 15 minutes of fame (or infamy, as the case may be), it seems inevitable that people will start to plan something even worse than the most recent event.

Soon, they all become part of the cacophony of our normal lives to the point that tragedy is all a part of the history that no one wants to remember and thus learn from. Yes, I'm pretty certain I should not be ending a sentence with the word "from" but I will remember this in the future and hopefully not repeat this mistake again.

Are you serious?!

It never ceases to amaze me how seriously people will take themselves - and each other. I suppose this problem, er, issue, is most prevalent among those who we assume should be taking themselves, and the world at large, seriously; namely the politicians. Yet to hear them talk endlessly about how wonderful they are and how much they care about themselves, er, their communities and constituents, I am often reminded of young children in kindergarten who talk endlessly over each other paying no attention to what anyone else is saying - creating a cacophony that is unintelligible to anyone who may be trying to listen.

I feel rather certain that most of them could not cogently explain in plain simple language the variety of issues that their attempted legislation attempts to solve at any given point in time - let alone their proposed solutions. But they become oh-so-very serious as soon as someone begins to question their premises on a given subject. They will happily (if not so coherently) pontificate for hours on the potential impact of a given event without saying anything of actual substance that will make any sense to their intended viewers. Instead, the viewers will see the men and women in nice suits and well-coiffed hair using big words (that they probably could not spell if challenged) to make themselves sound far more intelligent than they may actually be.

Yet the most intelligent people that I have come across in my life are those who are the least self-conscious about it - and certainly the least willing to show it. A good doctor is one who can explain to their patients the illness that they may have and what needs to be done to heal it without the patient not remembering anything said ten minutes after they have left the office. A good developer is one who can not only write the programs that accomplish what is needed to get it done but then explain to the casual user exactly what the program does in a language that does not require a binary decoder so that said user can actually use it as its intended. A good teacher is one who can speak to their students in a fashion that the students can actually understand while still enabling them to function at a level higher than that in which the lesson was explained.

As for me, I harbor very little illusions about how seriously to take myself. I understand technology enough to perform my job but not enough to necessarily grasp the higher-level concepts to abstract out some of the more serious applications, let alone explain them to a lower-level developer to a level that would be commensurate with their own knowledge level. My most significant ability is that to learn new things but, come on, how seriously do we take life-long students?

Re-learning to write

As a result of a friend of mine and her post yesterday on getting back to writing (at least she entered a short story contest which is more than I have done in the last few years) along with my own very noticeable lack of motivation to go back to writing in spite of having (I think) some very good ideas that need to be fleshed out on paper, I am writing this in the hope that I will perhaps be able to hammer out a quick short story this week. Who knows, I may even work to try to publish it. I just need to find some places that do this sort of thing - preferably reputable places that do not necessarily require entry fees. Though, I guess that I'm not above a small entry fee for the opportunity to be published. Maybe...

I noted on my friend's blog my own concerns regarding self-censorship and I will endeavor to write without it. Of course, as most of my friends will note, self-censorship is certainly not one of my endearing qualities else I would probably be more popular than I currently am. Which is not to say I am not popular, merely that I have a tendency to certainly rub people the wrong way due to the lack of a filter between my brain and my mouth. Strangely enough, though, the lack of a filter between those two is apparently more than replaced by the heavy-duty filter between my brain and my fingers since I tend to write far differently than I speak. And that is why writing is my preferred medium rather than speech...

Just an observation as I type, anyway...

And now back to the RedRoom (you can google it) and see what I can learn and do there...