Aging Capriciously

I woke up last night wondering and wondering and wondering.  A series of recent events had caused confusion and chaos in my sleepy mind.  I realize that I am no genius, but I could not stop thinking and pondering a number of questions which were continuing to nag me during the past week or so.  Maybe, in fact very likely, a number of my readers are much wiser than I am and can help me with my questions.  I would appreciate any thoughts that some of you might have on any of the following questions.  Your answers would help me to sleep better in the upcoming nights.

1. How is rioting and destroying lives and property “Legitimate Political Discourse?”

2. Why do peaceful civil rights protestors get beaten and arrested and scorned but Neo-Nazi groups are free to march and stage violent protests?

3. How come we can use the RICO act to arrest and convict gamblers and drug dealers, but we can’t use it to arrest politicians who advocate or support the violent overthrow of the United States?

4. Why can we send hit squads to take out terrorists in Syria and other parts of the Mideast, but we can’t send hit squads to Florida, Texas, and other parts of the USA to take out domestic terrorists?

5. How come ISIS is an “official” terrorist group but the KKK, Proud Boys and Neo-Nazi groups are not terrorist groups?

6. How come all the USA TV news on the Ukrainian Crisis constantly use military weapons, troops firing, howitzers blasting, tanks rumbling and other pictures of war as a backdrop to their news updates on the Ukrainian Crisis?

A video has been viewed tens of thousands of times in multiple social media posts in January 2022 alongside a claim it shows Ukrainian troops “preparing for potential combat” at the border with Russia. However, the video has circulated online since at least 2020 in a post by a Ukrainian military command about its troops conducting a military exercise.

7. How do we have time for a political discussion with Putin when the “analysts” say he is simply using the time to strengthen his military position?

8. Why has not one US politician from either party or end of the political spectrum commented on the beautiful moving opening ceremony and the spectacular technology displayed to date at the Chinese Winter Olympics?

9. Why are all the headlines in today’s news featuring negative comments about China and/or its role in the Olympics?  Some examples below from this mornings headlines:

• Criticism of Zhu Yi, a US born skater, show harsh scrutiny of naturalized athletes in China – The New York Times
• Teenage Olympic sensation Eileen Gu wins gold and crashes the Chinese Internet -CNN
• Olympics put Chinese authorities’ press intimidation on full display – Axios
• China’s holiday box office plunges by 23% as theaters push prices to record highs – CNBC
• Beijing 2022: Winter Olympics hit by deluge of complaints from athletes -BBC
• China stirs controversy with Uyghur torchbearer – The New Arab
• Olympians accuse refs of bias after controversial penalties help China -Insider

10. Why are US politicians more concerned about the rights of Uyghurs than they are about the rights of Blacks and minorities in America?

Does anyone in the USA know who or what a Uyghur is? Here this might help.

Who are the Uyghurs? — From the BBC World News

“There are about 12 million Uyghurs, mostly Muslim, living in Xinjiang, which is officially known as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR).

The Uyghurs speak their own language, which is similar to Turkish, and see themselves as culturally and ethnically close to Central Asian nations. They make up less than half of the Xinjiang population.

Recent decades have seen a mass migration of Han Chinese (China’s ethnic majority) into Xinjiang, allegedly orchestrated by the state to dilute the minority population there.

China has also been accused of targeting Muslim religious figures and banning religious practices in the region, as well as destroying mosques and tombs.

Uyghur activists say they fear that the group’s culture is under threat of erasure.”

The Xinjiang Conflict – Wikipedia

“Since the incorporation of Xinjiang into the People’s Republic of China, factors such as the mass state-sponsored migration of Han Chinese from the 1950s to the 1970s, government policies promoting Chinese cultural unity and punishing certain expressions of Uyghur identity, and harsh responses to separatism have contributed to tension between the Uyghurs, and state police and Han Chinese.  This has taken the form of both terrorist attacks and wider public unrest such as the Baren Township riot, 1997 Ürümqi bus bombings, protests in Ghuljia, June 2009 Shaoguan Incident and the resulting July 2009 Ürümqi riots, 2011 Hotan attack, April 2014 Ürümqi attack, May 2014 Ürümqi attack, 2014 Kunming attack as well as the 2015 Aksu colliery attack.  Other Uyghur organizations such as the World Uyghur Congress denounce totalitarianism, religious intolerance, and terrorism as an instrument of policy.”  — Wikipedia

Concluding Thoughts:

John Donne’s famous line, “Ask not for whom the bell tolls” strikes me as a good reason to pursue justice everywhere in the globe.  We should never be so comfortable that we tolerate injustice in any country whether friend or foe.  Nevertheless, we should be careful about waving a flag of righteous indignation as to the houses of other countries when our own house is far from being in order.  To do so, presents a ludicrous form of hypocrisy that is evident to the rest of the world.

We need to walk a fine line between advocating for the rights of others and stepping into a conflict that we have no legitimate right to be involved in.  There are 12 million Uyghurs who may be being persecuted because of their perceived separateness.  I wonder how many LGBTQ people, how many Indigenous People, how many Black people, how many women in the USA are being persecuted every day because of their differences?  The following charts depict some statistics in respect to my question.  The numbers seem to be going up each year rather than down.