In the United States, we don't often feel the effects of Chinese tyranny. The oppressive dictatorship in the People's Republic of China can seem far away and unrelated to the daily life of the American people.
The COVID-19 pandemic changed that. The tyranny and overreach of the Chinese Communist Party kept individuals and nonprofits from effectively stopping the novel coronavirus, and the world is feeling those effects.
As the Heritage Foundation outlined in a recent report, the failure of the Chinese government to respect freedom of speech, freedom of association, and freedom of religion directly led to the death and disease we're seeing all around us today.
Initially, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) silenced whistleblowers like Dr. Li Wenliang, who tried to limit the spread of the disease domestically and abroad. The government subsequently repressed the freedom of speech of bloggers who tried to share accurate information about the spread of the disease, the mortality rate, and the challenges faced by medical professionals.
The CCP’s ongoing, systematic repression of both freedom of association and freedom of religion has stunted civil society’s capacity to respond to crises like infectious diseases—and the government has cracked down on private citizens’ attempts to help each other, including the donation of medical supplies. The CCP’s onerous requirements for international nongovernmental organizations and its current policies have also prevented international humanitarian aid from reaching the Chinese people in their time of need.... because the Chinese Communist Party sought to maintain a positive public image by centralizing control while managing the outbreak, it sidelined and undermined its own citizens’ attempts to limit the number of victims of COVID-19. The CCP’s systematic repression of citizens’ freedom of speech and association is especially pernicious in the face of the spread of a highly infectious disease.
If the Chinese government genuinely seeks to address the health and financial impacts of COVID-19 on its people, then it should rely on its people to help in appropriate ways. Nongovernmental, international and domestic, faith-based and non-faith-based organizations not only offer their medical skills, knowledge, and supplies, they also can provide much needed social and financial support to individuals who are struggling.
The American people understand that freedom is always better than tyranny, and the COVID-19 outbreak is proof of that truth.
While the U.S. response wasn't perfect, if the disease had appeared on American shores, we wouldn't have allowed it to spread across the globe. Our state and national leaders would have listened to health experts (rather than imprisoning them), and non-profit and religious institutions would have filled whatever gaps the healthcare system failed to address.
We have to protect American liberty at all costs. We're a long way from Communist tyranny, but we're on the road to big-government socialism. We have to set up a firewall against the kinds of top-down policies that would hamper our ability to respond to a crisis, and the best way to do that is with a Convention of States.
A Convention of States is called and controlled by the states and has the power to propose constitutional amendments. These amendments can limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government and restore the decision-making authority of the states and people.
We can't let Washington use the COVID-19 crisis as an excuse to expand their power. If we want to protect liberty for future generations, we have to call a Convention of States now before the next crisis hits.
