For almost two months now, a “pro-democracy” movement has been besieging the prosperous city-state of Hong Kong. On September 27th 2014, Hong Kong’s high school and college students gathered in a square next to the government buildings calling for open democratic elections and the resignation of Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying. The Hong Kong police in turn cracked down on them with pepper sprays and teargas. The next day, the students went out again – this time occupying and blocking Harcourt Road, a major road in Admiralty, one of the busiest commercial districts in Hong Kong. The protesters came […]

On Sunday, September 21, climate groups around the world rallied attendees for a People’s Climate March. The event was the largest environmental protest event in history, with participants in 150 countries. In New York alone, 400,000 people jammed the streets. In the aftermath, the participants boasted on their Facebook pages and blogs: “Epic is too weak a word to describe the NYC ‪#PeoplesClimate ’march‘. It was big big BIG. City = shutdown”, “Thanks for the best weekend, NYC! I marched with 400,000 people to save the planet!”, “The latest count says 400,000 people to save the planet! Almost half a million people […]

On August 9th, after smoking marijuana, an 18 year-old Black, Michael Brown, and his friend, Dorian Johnson, 22, robbed a convenience store in Ferguson, a predominantly black suburb of St. Louis, MO. A security camera in the store captured Brown stealing a box of cigars and then getting physical with the shop-keeper, pushing him into a display case. Such an afternoon does not seem out of character for these two young gentlemen. Michael Brown was a product of teenage parents, his mother and father being 16 and 18 at the time of his birth, respectively. He was raised by a […]

Western society, by far, is the most tolerant society that exists today.  I define “Western society” as the system of norms and values generated in the Old World and transferred to the Anglophone New World. Tolerance is an immanent feature of a civilized society. It furnishes respect for the individual, which in turn allows pluralism to flourish.  However, this pluralism is subject to the reasonable constraints of inviolable individual rights. At times, the tolerance of Westerners seems to exceed all reasonable limits. Here are a few concrete examples. Instances of truculent behavior on the subway abound. A drunk and disheveled man will […]