Today's fearful Communists

If you want to be ignored as a columnist but still maintain a halo of self-righteousness, then write passionately about the story that gets 10 seconds or nothing on the news but should have been right up there with ISIS and Ebola. I'm surprised they haven't already locked up demented columnists for grabbing and shaking strangers on the street and yelling, "You should have been interested in what I just wrote!"

Freedom-lovers have had a bad season worldwide that showed no sign of ending – until right now. The United Nations has to be the biggest political disappointment in anybody's lifetime, but close behind is the Arab Spring. The feckless necklace of Arab failures extends from Tunisia eastward across Libya, Egypt, Syria and "where it stops, nobody knows." One by one those populations rose up in what we freedom-loving onlookers hoped and thought would be political incarnations of Thomas Jefferson rising up out of the desert like mirages turned solid and real.

In every case, freedom's cause started out weak –and gradually tapered off. In every case those countries are worse off now than they were before the "reform." And in every case we idealists, poppingly pregnant with political hope, get beaten up by our political betters for naiveté at dangerous and absurd levels. "Were you seriously hoping for free elections, free press, multi-party environments, an independent judiciary, recognition and normal relations with Israel?" they ask, like grad students interrogating those suffering from political autism. "Won't you ever learn how to approach these problem sectors of the world as pragmatists?"

A pragmatist is one who believes the "Do Not Disturb" signs should be in the language of the hotel maids. And pragmatists can sneeze and snort, but they can't sneer our current Great Hope away.

The rap on me as a radio talk host is simply, "Farber never got over the Hungarian Revolution"! Well, guess what? Neither did Communism. Take a good look. The world may be hurtling toward Freedom's most dramatic advance since the Magna Carta.

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This is all too good to limit to you and me. I long to gather with others who were any part of the Hungarian Revolution in October 1956 and just wallow around in that hot tub of jubilation as unafraid crowds jam the streets, terrified Communist bureaucrats cringe behind their desks and screaming mobs turn the Iron Curtain into a venetian blind by destroying the border barriers, loudly singing patriotic songs forbidden by an unsmiling and implacably cruel Communism.

The courageous youth are in the streets of Hong Kong, swearing they won't leave until the Communist bosses in Beijing reverse their insulting edict that, "You may have your elections, but we will pick the candidates."

You can't subtract any admiration from the Hungarian students in 1956, because they knew from Moscow's repression of the uprising in East Berlin in 1953 that there was physical danger in political dissent. You must add admiration to the youth of China demonstrating for democracy today because they know too well that Beijing's answer, when their elders clustered in Tiananmen Square in 1989, was – after the democracy-marchers defied half a dozen "last chances" – Communist troops and tanks slaughtering all who refused to clear out.

You pragmatists pooh-poohed our hopes for Tunisia in 2011. And you were right, as you were about Libya, Egypt and Syria. Now the stakes have changed. Tunisia has 11 million people. Libya has 6 million, Egypt 82 million and Syria 22 million. Communist China has 1.355 billion people! And they appear to be unafraid, which itself strikes fear clear through the Communist hierarchy.

The Hungarian Revolution began as a result of one student rally before Parliament in Budapest when the Communist Secret Police stupidly fired into the crowd and killed an infant. One rally! One demonstration!

Communist China experiences an average of 200 anti-government demonstrations every day!

China has the largest population in the world. China is the major holder of American debt. China is, of course, a nuclear power many times over. And it's vying for the title of co-superpower with America.

The stick with which we most often get beaten when we show hope for good free government in Tunisia and Libya and Egypt is, "Stupid little boy! There's never been a tradition of democracy in those countries. You're a fool!"

Communist China started its national life in 1949, when they pushed the remnants of Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist forces off the Chinese mainland. That's when those Chinese Nationalists fled to Taiwan and established a Free China that became a prosperous democracy. The success of Free China on the island of Taiwan was evident strong and early. The land reform program of Free China takes, not four books, but four words. The words of Sun Yat-sen, founder and first president of the Chinese Republic, were simply, "Land to the Tiller."

The Hungarian Revolution started in 1956 and succeeded in 1990. With luck, China won't take as long!

The world has had to do with only one democratic superpower. What if we had two! You say there's no tradition of democracy on the Chinese mainland?

Bully!

Start one!

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