The offense of freedom

On March 26, 2009, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey held a news conference to announce the signing of the first commercial lease in the Freedom Tower to be built at One World Trade Center.

CNN reported that the lease "will create the China Center, a 190,810-square-foot business and cultural facility, to be on portions of the 64th floor and the entire 65th through 69th floors of One World Trade Center," with an option to lease two additional contiguous floors under the same terms.

At the same news conference, the Port Authority announced that "Freedom Tower" would be dropped as the name of the skyscraper, and it would instead be called "One World Trade Center."

Was that a coincidence?

"The China Center at One World Trade Center is expected to represent the elite of China's business and cultural communities and serve as a hub for Chinese firms developing United States operations, as well as for U.S. companies that wish to conduct business in China or expand operations," CNN reported.

China is run by a communist government, and nobody joins the "elite of China's business and cultural communities" or conducts business in China without the approval of the government. It's not a free country. Free countries don't issue edicts that people are not permitted to have more than one child.

Did you know that China has pressured Google, Microsoft and other Internet companies to block the word "freedom" when it's entered into a search engine?

"Microsoft's new Chinese internet portal has banned the words "democracy" and "freedom" from parts of its website in an apparent effort to avoid offending Beijing's political censors," the Financial Times reported in 2005.

"After complying with Chinese requirements that it censor its search engine results to those people reaching them in China, Google has won a business license to operate in the Communist state," MarketingVox.com reported in 2005, citing a Reuters news story.

On Monday, Germany is hosting a ceremony to mark the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. President Barack Obama declined an invitation to attend.

Once again, in case it didn't quite register with you, the President of the United States declined an invitation to mark the end of the almost fifty-year-long Cold War and the triumph of freedom over Soviet communism.

Next week, President Obama is scheduled to leave for a trip to Asia. "He planned his Nov. 11-19 trip around the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Singapore, but added stops in Japan, China and South Korea," McClatchy Newspapers reported. "The itinerary reflects the growing importance of East Asia — especially China — to everything from financing U.S. debt and powering the global economic recovery to climate change, disease control, and containing nuclear threats from North Korea and Iran."

Did President Obama decide to skip the ceremony marking the anniversary of freedom's triumph in Berlin because China might be offended by anything he says in celebration of freedom?

Did he decide to skip it because he doesn't personally think the triumph of freedom over communism in Europe is anything to celebrate?

Did he evict the bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office because he thinks the wrong side won the war?

He's on his way to 25 percent approval. No wonder Hillary Clinton hasn't closed her campaign accounts.


Copyright 2009

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