I will come right out and say it. The United States is the best country in the history of mankind. Period.
Since 1776, our country has been the beacon of liberty and freedom in the world. We have brought freedom to more people than any other country; indeed, by defeating Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and the totalitarian Soviet Union, we brought freedom to hundreds of millions of people around the world. Indeed, our dedication to freedom is why millions of people every year of every race, ethnicity, and religion immigrate legally and illegally to the United States.
This is not to say that the United States is without flaws. We have the blots of slavery and segregation among things. Yet our dedication to the Declaration of Independence’s proposition that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights,” has led Americans to fight against and overcome these evils. That is why 360,000 soldiers and a U.S. president gave their lives to end slavery and why people of all races and backgrounds joined hands in the civil rights movement to end segregation and discrimination.
Communist China, on the other hand, is another story. It is the most brutal regime in the history of the world. Like all countries where communism has been introduced, it brutally represses literally any dissent to its flawed beliefs. Indeed, dissidents are routinely killed and sent to gulags. Women who get pregnant in violation of the country’s one-child (now, two-child) policy are forced to have abortions and undergo sterilizations. Christians are arrested and their churches are destroyed. The regime is not even trying to hide the fact that it is committing genocide against its Muslim Uyghur population. Indeed, it is estimated that the communist regime in China has outright killed and starved at least 65 million of its own citizens since taking over the country in 1949.
There is no comparison between the United States and China: one is a country of liberty, freedom, and continued improvement, the other of tyranny and oppression. However, the differences between the two countries seems to have been lost on Speaker Nancy Pelosi. When former NFL player Colin Kaepernick launched a campaign of encouraging kneeling during the playing of our national anthem at sporting events at all levels to protest injustice in America—a campaign based on blatant distortions of history and the facts—Pelosi had no problem with it. As she stated about these protests that disrespected our flag and our country: “I love the First Amendment.” She and other Democratic leaders even mimicked the disgraceful campaign by kneeling in the U.S. Capitol in June 2020. The message from Speaker Pelosi, the second most powerful person in the United States, could not have been clearer. Protest against America all you want. Distort the facts and history all you want. Go ahead and denigrate our flag and our country. Not only will we not condemn you, but we will also support you by taking your protest literally to the Capitol of the United States.
Yet Pelosi has taken the exact opposite stance in regard to protests by athletes against the brutal Chinese communist regime during the Olympics now being held in China. As reported by the Washington Examiner, Pelosi stated before the Congressional Executive Commission on China on February 3:
“I would say to our athletes: You’re there to compete. Do not risk incurring the anger of the Chinese government because they are ruthless. I know there is a temptation on the part of some to speak out while they are there. I respect that, but I also worry about what the Chinese government might do to their reputations and to their families.”
Does Pelosi really believe that the Chinese communists are so ruthless that they would harm our athletes who spoke out against them during the Olympics when the whole world has its eyes on China? When China is engaging in a world-wide public relations campaign to show that it is not repressive? Of course not. If she really believed this, she would surely have called for our government to boycott the Olympics in China. Not only did Pelosi not do this, but she also publicly supported the exact opposite position. As she stated at the same hearing: “Make no mistake—our athletes should participate. They’ve trained, they’re disciplined, they’ve dreamed, they’ve aspired, they’ve worked hard.”
Since Pelosi does not really believe the Chinese communists would crack down on our athletes should they choose to protest at the Olympics, what she is really saying is that she simply opposes our athletes protesting against the most repressive regime in world history. Athletes who would want to use their Olympic platform, where hundreds of millions from around the world will be watching, to protest injustice in China should just shut their mouths and turn a blind eye to the tyranny all around them. They are not to be witnesses to such brutality or give hope to the millions of people in Chinese communist prisons and gulags, to all the Chinese women who do not want to be sterilized and have their children aborted, to all the Christians and Muslims who are being persecuted for their faith.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi holds a double standard in regard to athlete protests. If athletes want to distort U.S. history and the facts and denigrate the flag of the country that has done more good in the world than any other nation, they are perfectly free to do so. However, if athletes want to truthfully take a stand against repression and tyranny in China, they should just keep silent and ignore the brutal reality around them. Let us hope that the elections in November will bring to the fore a House Speaker who truly knows the difference between genuine and false protests.