Month: May 2022

On Taiwan

This is not an objective commentary: I love Taiwan, the place and the people. I am connected to it by family (through marriage), and I’ve visited it many times over the past 35-odd years. I could sing the glories of its natural beauty, its street markets, its food, its jungle-covered mountains and spectacular shorelines, as well as its problems. But I want to deal with one important question here: is Taiwan worth America fighting for?

To answer that question, we have to ask others: Is Taiwan a democracy? If it is, does that justify sacrificing American lives and expending American resources on protecting a small far-away country, at the risk of starting an all-out war with a very big far-away country?

Is Taiwan a democracy? Yes. Regular presidential elections have been held since 1996, and they are authentic elections—power has changed hands more than once between what had been the ruling party since 1949 (KMT) and the main opposition party (DPP). The current president belongs to the DPP.

And free speech is alive and well on the island. People in Taiwan (and Taiwanese abroad) have strong opinions all over the political spectrum, and enjoy espousing them openly, without any fear of reprisals from the state. I know that because I have personally been the object of much espousal.

Bookstores and convenience stores offer a wide variety of Chinese and English-language magazines and newspapers, published locally as well as imported, that are openly supportive or critical of Taiwan’s government (whichever political flavor it may be at the time) as well as of China. (Though no one apart from a Chinese troll or two expresses any desire to hand over Taiwan’s sovereignty to Beijing.)

And no one should doubt what would happen to that democracy and free speech if Taiwan is taken over by mainland China. Hong Kong is the example: sham elections of Beijing-approved candidates, journalists silenced or disappeared, demonstrations brutally repressed, independent media shut down. And that’s not to mention what has happened in Tibet, Xinjiang, and on Tiananmen Square, and to dissenting artists, journalists, and thinkers.

But does all that add up to a reason for putting American necks and resources on the line, if (God forbid) China makes a serious military move across the Straits of Taiwan?

I think it does, and not for any reasons of economic or security-related self-interest. I never believed in going to war for oil, or for that matter, microchips. And I don’t think China poses a serious military threat to the United States.

I take it to be self-evident that when a totalitarian state tries to take over a free one, that is an evil thing, and that if the United States has the ability to prevent evil with reasonable risk to itself, it should do so.

But what is a reasonable risk? That of course is open to interpretation and opinion. We should supply Taiwan with as much weaponry as Taiwan can use to stop or, more optimistically, pre-empt a Chinese invasion.

American forces? That’s a much harder question. I don’t think we should deploy ground forces in Taiwan. In cases like this I mentally apply my “grieving mother” test. I believe in defending Taiwan in the name of freedom. But could I look into a grieving American mother’s face and tell her without blushing why her son or daughter had to die to keep China out of Taiwan? I don’t think so.

But I believe we can and should use American naval and air forces to keep the People’s Liberation Army from crossing the Straits of Taiwan, even though that would put our sailors and pilots at risk.

I don’t serve in the military, and never have. So I am very conscious of how easy it is to send other people to die for a grand cause. But that’s no excuse for avoiding hard questions such as this one.

China claims (and millions of Chinese sincerely believe) that Taiwan “belongs” to China. But no historical argument changes the fact that China is a police state and Taiwan is free. A Chinese takeover of Taiwan would be a latter-day parallel to Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland, or Japan’s invasion of China. We can make China think twice about destroying Taiwan, and if necessary, we can help Taiwan to stay free. And because we can, we should.

On Abortion

Here goes the post that will lose me half of my followers. Plus the other half.

The issue of abortion rights is not like the other big issues of our day. If you tell me you believe that climate change is a hoax, or that Donald Trump won the 2020 election, or that subsidized, single-payer healthcare is tantamount to Bolshevism, or that discrimination against Black people ended sometime in the 1960’s, I can look at you with a straight face and tell you that you must be ill-informed, stupid, or lying. But if you tell me that a microscopic fertilized egg is a human being, deserving of rights equal to those of its mother under the U.S. constitution, all I can tell you is that I disagree.

I don’t know when life begins, or, to put it another way, what exactly constitutes a human life. I don’t think it’s just a complete set of chromosomes. I don’t think a beating heart is enough, any more than a functioning liver would be. A functioning brain, perhaps. But then we have to decide what defines a meaningfully functioning brain.

I don’t know when life begins. No one knows. It’s a matter of opinion. Science can’t tell us. It can only give us partial information about what functions develop at what stage in the womb.

Looking at the issue from another direction, some of the most intelligent and well-intentioned people I know sincerely believe that abortion at any time after conception is murder.

Of course, here in the great and sovereign state of Texas, there is no end of disingenuous, hypocritical “pro-life” advocates who simply use the issue to gain votes, who cynically claim that our ever more restrictive laws are in the interest of the health of the mother(!), who want to abolish abortion yet are dead set against actually teaching our schoolchildren how sex actually works and how to avoid pregnancy (except perhaps through celibacy).

These types make my blood boil, but I cannot get around the fact that there are also smart, compassionate people of both genders who sincerely believe that abortion is immoral.

I don’t know when life begins, so for myself (a male, to be clear), I hold that the decision rightfully belongs to the indisputably human bearer of the fetus, the one who, let’s be honest, will likely bear almost all of the burden of raising a child. For what little it’s worth, I will say it and write it and blog it and vote it. But I won’t demonize people who disagree in good faith. If, on the other hand, you’re one of those [expletive]s who claim that Donald Trump won the election….