Where's the public debate?

Taiwan its people to be serious advocates for good laws and government. Too many of its people are just sports fans who enjoy watching their favorite teams play out crude games inside and outside the legislature. Those people seem to enjoy the pageantry and renao (熱鬧) that the campaigns bring to the streets and plazas during election seasons like the present.

There is nothing wrong with that enjoyment, but Taiwan's people must also see that they are accountable for the quality of the legislature, because they elect the players.

In the last legislative election the people chose representatives that stage fist fights and food fights instead of discussing the merits of proposed laws. The people chose a legislature whose Procedure Committee repeatedly refuses to allow legislative debate on critically important matters, such as an arms purchase proposal that might allow Taiwan to maintain a viable military force.

And the legislature fails even to discuss the merits of having a viable military force, political players -- including some of the same elected legislators -- openly engage in collusion with hostile forces across the Taiwan Strait, seeking ultimately to bring about an abolition of the central government, and to replace it with a government subordinate to China's central government.

They seek to accomplish that without any serious debate among Taiwan's people inside or outside of the legislature -- and the tide seems to be running in their favor.

If the result those people seek is the same result as desired by the people of Taiwan, then so be it. Skipping the serious discussion may just save some time and trouble. But if that result is not what the people of Taiwan desire, and is rather what the people of Taiwan get by default because neither they nor their elected legislators seriously discussed the issue, then that will be a tragic price that Taiwan and its people pay for "fiddling while Rome burns."