Vote for the Taiwaner
Taiwan is approaching the most important and crucial elections in its history, and possibly one of the most important elections in a highly developed, democratic country within the last 200 years anywhere in the world.
We need to focus on those who will develop and maintain peace, freedom, respect, honor, business connections, political awareness, true sovereignty and recognition, as well as multiple free-trade agreements, within a defined framework and with an unwavering “Taiwan consensus.” This means Taiwan must establish a mechanism for cross-strait policy and peaceful exchanges with China.
The Chinese Communist Party pays, supports, directs and controls the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on many or all levels, and that in itself is a dire, sad and dangerous reality.
The choice is clear: Taiwan’s only hope for a future, its NEXT and last chance to be understood and recognized, to be Taiwan and to retain and maintain the lifestyle and future of Taiwanese is to vote for Democratic Progressive Party Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文).
This is a reminder to help my Taiwanese friends to vote for a person who truly loves Taiwan, who truly is Taiwanese — a most remarkable and kind person — and luckily for all of us, whether in Taiwan or abroad, she is a woman.
And no, sorry, she is not an ROCer [Republic of China], not a Chinese American who is “possibly-a-bit-Taiwanese.”
Tsai is Taiwanese and she is very proud of it. She is the most intelligent, capable, caring and aware candidate and the best person to lead this gorgeous country for the next eight years.
She is a Taiwaner.
Dan Luthi
Greater Taichung
Another one bites the dust
The brutality and abruptness of former Libyan leader Muammar Qadaffi’s death has broad implications (“Libyans struggle to bury Qaddafi and start afresh,” Oct. 25, page 6).
After ruling Libya with an iron fist for 42 years and fleeing into hiding following the fall of his regime, the former dictator was dragged out of a drainage pipe, brutally beaten and fatally shot in the head by rebel fighters.
Qaddafi’s execution was captured on cellphone video and immediately distributed for the world to see, which demonstrates how technology is irreversibly empowering everyday citizens.
Libya still has a long way to go before it resembles anything close to a stable democracy, but the writing is on the wall: Authoritarian dictatorship is quickly becoming irrelevant and unacceptable as a form of government.
Qaddafi’s humiliating demise is a vivid reminder to repressive regimes everywhere that no arrangement of political or military power can forever suppress the people’s fundamental desire to be treated with basic dignity.
Yet another dictator has been thrown into the trash bin of history.
Alex Jeffers
Taipei
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