What is "white terror?" It is the fabrication of charges through an abuse of national police power against dissidents for leftist ideas or moves (emphasis on the word"leftist") for the purpose of expanding a right-wing dictatorship.
People in Taiwan lived under a reign of white terror for decades. Even now, there are people who are still so terrorized by the past that they have lost the ability to exercise any self-determination. So it cannot be said that the resi-dual poison of the white terror in our society is insignificant.
Recently, presidential candidate James Soong (
This comparison involves much more than simply drawing an inappropriate analogy. It touches upon the legitimacy of a government to conduct such an audit and the legitimacy of taxation.
If a tax audit may be characterized as "white terror," then tax evasion becomes a heroic act.
While common taxpayers must pay every cent of the taxes on their meager wages, the wealthy not only get to manipulate the law, but also to proclaim themselves to be oppressed.
This kind of society is, in every sense, an uninhibited and primitive society. If our society continues with this type of regression, social justice will be complete eroded.
It is true that the Ministry of Finance's tax audits are questionable, due to an aggressive and uncompromising attitude toward certain targets, while it displays a much more reserved and inhibited attitude toward others. This difference often leads to speculation about possible underlying political motives for the audits.
As a result of enormous industrial restructuring and rising national debt, the hollowing of our country's finances has become a pressing issue.
Due to the Soong financial scandal, we have realized the latitude of discretion left up to the Ministry of Finance far exceeds the impression we get from other policy matters, such as the launching of national pensions.
We can understand Soong's motive for erroneously drawing an analogy between the white terror and his tax audit.
The underlying purpose of the analogy is to provoke a paranoia in those who fear a return to the white terror era, but do not know what they are really afraid of.
Even more importantly, Soong is seeking to establish an alliance and rapport with members of the upper and middle white-collar classes and enterprises who have a sincere interest in tax evasion.
Soong's political wisdom and mastery of political talk are truly astounding. Whether it will be the people's will that someone such as Soong -- a gifted politician who holds no respect for the law -- could end up in charge of our country is beyond my comprehension.
However, by twisting the meaning of a phrase to shamelessly crown himself, an erstwhile KMT henchman, a human-rights fighter is the biggest possible insult to all the real victims of the white terror whose human rights were trampled in the past.
Pai Yu-ping is a research fellow at the Institute for National Policy Research.
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