In ancient Athens, citizens practiced ostracism -- politically exiling a citizen for 10 years simply because they did not like that citizen and treating them as scapegoats. No judicial process was used to determine if the citizen was really guilty of anything. Eventually the practice was abandoned because people realized it could backfire.
In Salem, Massachusetts, certain people claimed that their neighbors were witches, partially because deep in their heart they were jealous of their neighbors. One accused was known to the community to be extremely pious; she was nevertheless executed because people tended to believe the persistent screams of truly irrational people who claimed that this pious woman attacked them with magic. Again, the screams of certain people rather than the truth determined the community's perception of the truth. Only when mainstream courts were finally established to uphold the rule of law did these irrational witchcraft trials end.
In 1930s China, a New Life Movement was enforced by Blue Shirts to try to uphold morality and integrity in society. Because of the extreme strictness of the movement's dogma, it failed just as Prohibition in the US did.
During this era, there was also a would-be president who tried to remove social ills among his staff, but years after his death, everyone discovered that he had illegitimate sons.
In 1960s China, there was the Cultural Revolution, where the people, especially the Red Guards, had unbridled, unrestrained freedom to remove all "evils" in society. The latent hatred, jealousy and resentment one harbored toward one's neighbors now became open and fully saturated, allowing one to make irrational accusations against them. And society bought the accusations as the truth: Ludicrously, society only believed in whoever persistently screamed and yelled their irrational point of view.
Propaganda proclaimed that it was cool to learn from Lei Feng (
The media, as lackeys of Mao Zedong (
Now, in Taiwan, we have Red Shirts who are trying to depose someone they have directed all their hatred at, thinking that this will be a true panacea to all ills. Certain legislators, who are above the law because they can't be arrested and cannot be recalled, scream their distorted version of the truth. So does the politically biased press, which also enthusiastically provides the bank account numbers of the depose Chen campaign and shows pictures of Chen voodoo dolls. The press echoes the Cultural Revolution-era publications China Pictorial and Peking Review. Replace the statement "people of all nationalities of all walks of life and from all over the world cry `Long live Chairman Mao'" with "the world cries depose Chen."
Young people are told it is trendy to depose Chen and to learn from a student who attempted a hunger strike, just like it was once trendy to learn from Lei Feng.
A democracy is only a democracy when there is the rule of law and a balance between the powers of the government, the freedom of the press and the rights of the people. A lack of checks and balances results in a dictatorship under a segment of society. Taiwan is under the dictatorship of an unrecallable legislature (that recently destroyed the politically neutral Control Yuan) and a fact-abusing, privacy violating press. Rule of law is humanity's feeble attempt to restrain the irrational passions contained in each of us, in order to prevent the freedoms of one segment of society from infringing on the rights of other segments of society.
If everyone is still obsessed with the recall, fine. Let's extend this Taiwanese Cultural Revolution to include the recall of legislators as well as mayors, as the people see fit. If any politician does not meet the dogmatic standards of morality, then let's recall him or her. Better yet, let's reduce the terms of all public office positions to two years, because no one has patience with democracy these days.
NAME WITHHELD
Hsinchu
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