{"id":1315579,"date":"2019-10-12T21:08:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-13T03:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/parker-column-china-wont-die-laughing\/"},"modified":"2019-10-12T21:08:00","modified_gmt":"2019-10-13T03:08:00","slug":"parker-column-china-wont-die-laughing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/parker-column-china-wont-die-laughing\/","title":{"rendered":"Parker column: China won\u2019t die laughing"},"content":{"rendered":"
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WASHINGTON \u2014 Dictators. Always so humorous.<\/p>\n

Take China\u2019s communist officialdom. You\u2019ve probably heard about the \u201cSouth Park\u201d episode last week that the Chinese government didn\u2019t find amusing. And the fake apology from the comedy show\u2019s creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone.<\/p>\n

No? Well, then, you must live in China, where free speech isn\u2019t actually allowed and where the episode in question \u2014 \u201cBand In China\u201d \u2014 has been expunged from the cyber airwaves. The plot of the show is, as usual, silly with a sting (and too complicated to summarize in this limited space).<\/p>\n

Basically, characters familiar to \u201cSouth Park\u201d fans make fun of China\u2019s policy of censorship \u2014 well, whaddya know \u2014 and Hollywood\u2019s kowtowing to China by tweaking films to suit Communist Party sensibilities.<\/p>\n

As if on cue, Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey drew backlash from several Chinese entities for a tweet last Friday expressing sympathy for the protesters in Hong Kong. \u201cFight for freedom,\u201d Morey wrote, as any red-blooded American might. \u201cStand with Hong Kong.\u201d<\/p>\n

You\u2019d have thought he had said Chinese basketball players can\u2019t jump. Jeez.<\/p>\n

But, of course, Americans support pro-democracy freedom fighters everywhere. China exports consumer goods. America exports freedom \u2014 in speech, in religion and in military support. Except when she doesn\u2019t, as when President Trump reportedly told Chinese President-for-Life Xi Jinping that he\u2019d remain silent on the Hong Kong protests as long as trade talks were ongoing.<\/p>\n

This was in June, long before Trump also suggested that China investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Funny how authoritarians seem drawn to one another. Rather than discuss the spark that ignited the protests \u2014 a proposal to extradite criminal suspects from Hong Kong to China \u2014 the president of the United States essentially said \u201cno\u201d to free speech and \u201cyes\u201d to censorship.<\/p>\n

In other words, last week\u2019s \u201cSouth Park\u201d episode hit all the right notes for freedom and democracy and all the wrong ones for China, which, apparently, has no sense of humor, especially regarding itself. Any criticism deemed anti-government spells doom to the truth-sayer, an operating principle that applies as well to businesses and corporations conducting business with China.<\/p>\n

One would think that such a large, prosperous nation could withstand a tweet of no real consequence. But a dictatorship can\u2019t countenance the slightest dissent, lest chaos \u2014 the wolf that sniffs at the doors of the self-anointed \u2014 sense a hint of weakness or fear on the other side. As the Hong Kong protests have escalated to violence and vandalism, the wolf\u2019s tail is surely wagging, while Beijing\u2019s patience is tested.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, scheduled broadcasts of the NBA\u2019s preseason games in China have been scrapped by the state-run media, despite apologies, mea culpas and tender entreaties from various basketball officials, owners and, of course, poor Morey, who deleted his tweet. Rockets\u2019 owner Tilman Fertitta (a name that cannot be improved upon) tweeted that that Morey \u201cdoes NOT speak for\u201d the team. The NBA called Morey\u2019s comments \u201cregrettable.\u201d<\/p>\n

And NBA Commissioner Adam Silver cut to the chase while speaking to Japan\u2019s Kyodo News on Monday, saying: \u201cThere is no doubt, the economic impact is already clear.\u201d What happened to the guy who moved the All-Star Game out of North Carolina in response to that state\u2019s law restricting public bathroom use by transgender people? And said, \u201cIn this day and age, you really do have to stand for something\u201d?<\/p>\n

Whatever that \u201csomething\u201d used to be, today it is money over principle, censorship over free speech, and submission over character. Silver clarified his thoughts Tuesday, saying that the NBA supports players\u2019 and executives\u2019 rights to express themselves freely.<\/p>\n

But \u201cSouth Park,\u201d the adolescent, profane, goofball cartoon show, got it right from the start. In their mock apology, Parker and Stone wrote: \u201cLike the NBA, we welcome the Chinese censors into our homes and into our hearts. We too love money more than freedom and democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a normal world, all of this would have been a joke. Instead, we\u2019re reminded of the fragility of freedom. Dissenting from authority is in our DNA, and standing with others similarly inclined is paying forward the debt we owe those who paved our way. But our very best thing is our sense of humor, companion to which is an essential tolerance for irreverence. It is the rigidly reverent, whether ideological or religious, who must mind everyone\u2019s business and quash the dissenters.<\/p>\n

We should remember this always as we pick our friends and enemies. If they can\u2019t handle a cheer for freedom \u2014 or take a joke \u2014 pick up your ball and go play somewhere else. And, don\u2019t let them watch.<\/p>\n

Kathleen Parker\u2019s email address is kathleenparker@washpost.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 Dictators. Always so humorous. Take China\u2019s communist officialdom. You\u2019ve probably heard about the \u201cSouth Park\u201d episode last week that the Chinese government didn\u2019t find amusing. And the fake apology from the comedy show\u2019s creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone. No? Well, then, you must live in China, where free speech isn\u2019t actually allowed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1315579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-06 19:13:53","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1315579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1315579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1315579\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1315579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1315579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1315579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}