When know-it-all ignorance blends with xenophobia

There's a story on CNN today about the recent knife attack on children—students—in China. The story itself is pretty typical of modern reportage: mostly factual, but obviously slanted for maximum sensationalism. (Why only "mostly factual"? Well, at one point they say this attack was "slightly different" because the victims were college students. They kind of also forgot to point out that this attack was a gang attack, not an individual one. This, to me, represents a rather large departure from the previously-reported attacks but it doesn't further the sensationalist "OH MY GOD LOOK AT THE PEOPLE ATTACKING CHILDREN IN CHINA!" slant of the story to note that so they move on and hope you don't notice.)

That's not what I want to talk about today, though. What I want to talk about is one of the comments underneath the story by one ignorant know-it-all working under the name "oldthis". Just to make sure I avoid any claims of taking him out of context, here's what he says in its entirety:

Hope this helps for people not familiar with the region: 1 - Guns are illegal in China. If you are Chinese, unless you served in the military, you've probably never even touched a gun. 2 - there is a reasonable degree of unrest in certain regions of China. Afterall it is a massive area and has very distinct differences from region to region. There are very broad civic problems such as those that all countries must deal with, but there are also regions or pockets where some problems are more prevelant than others. Some of the most significant problems China faces right now, that don't have "easy button" solutions.
A - there are 30 Million more men in China than women between the ages of 18 & 35. This is a direct reflection of China's one baby policy that was in place for many years and rual farmers needing a son to carry the family forward as the parents aged. Female babies were often killed. This means that if you are a Chinese male in that group, your odds of finding a mate aren't spectacular, particularly if you live in the country side.
B - China has some significant growing pains: Inflation, shifting populations, large pockets of unemployment resulting from the global economic slowdown, govermental corruption (predominately at the state level), polution, a largely uneducated population, a largely rual population contrasted with "extreme megacities".

OK - gotta get back to work. The point is, by attacking children these guys are attacking the establishment itself. China doesn't really care about an individual, it cares about the group (its the communist way). The only way for these guys to make a statement is to be bold and utterly horrible in their "statement" to the government. Enter kids at govt paid for schools. That said, this attack seems different. It could be that these are some local guys POed that the college boys are "taking all the women" (refer to "A" above). I am going out on a limb here, but given that it was a dormatory that was attacked and the article says (one student had HIS hand cut off) and knowing that China isn't going to have co-ed dorms...it sounds like an attack on a male dorm. The more I think about it...this is definately not the same thing that has been happening where people are trying to make their frustration known to the govt. This is retribution for something. Has to be. 5-6 men could've created a heck of alot more carniage than this. They did a hit and run on these guys either because one of them had wronged a member of the "5-6 man hit squad" or b/c the "5-6 man hit squad" was growing frustrated with the overall presence of that group of people (college boys) in general. The other school incidents only gave this group of ding-a-lings the idea.

So ... where do I start in dismantling this pile of bullshit? I'll stay above an obsessive critique of spelling and grammar or of composition skills other than to note that it sadly fails to surprise me that native speakers of English are, again, proving less able to use their own language than many EFL speakers of my acquaintance. Perhaps I'll just go after the major points in order.

1 - Guns are illegal in China. If you are Chinese, unless you served in the military, you've probably never even touched a gun.

This information would come as a shock to those in the Chinese countryside who hunt to supplement their food intake, who have firearms to protect themselves from some of the more dangerous wild animals and who in general, you know, use guns. Firearms are not illegal in China. They are heavily controlled. There is a difference.

A - there are 30 Million more men in China than women between the ages of 18 & 35. This is a direct reflection of China's one baby policy that was in place for many years and rual farmers needing a son to carry the family forward as the parents aged. Female babies were often killed. This means that if you are a Chinese male in that group, your odds of finding a mate aren't spectacular, particularly if you live in the country side.

Would these be the rural farmers for whom the one child policy doesn't apply? These same farmers?

The one child policy is a policy for urban Chinese, not rural. Indeed, for urban Han Chinese, not minorities. Rural Chinese are permitted to have a second child if the first is a female for precisely the reason cited above as the grounds for the purported infanticide. The rules for minorities, urban or rural, vary by minority and region, but again are laxer than the one child policy inflicted on the Han.

B - China has some significant growing pains: Inflation, shifting populations, large pockets of unemployment resulting from the global economic slowdown, govermental corruption (predominately at the state level), polution, a largely uneducated population, a largely rual population contrasted with "extreme megacities".

Anybody who says the corruption in China's government is largely at the state level is ignorant, a liar or a fool. One of the things that has always astonished me in China is the utter omnipresence of corruption. Everybody who can be, in China, is on the take. Those who are not wish they could be.

OK - gotta get back to work. The point is, by attacking children these guys are attacking the establishment itself. China doesn't really care about an individual, it cares about the group (its the communist way).

So the Chinese have been communist for 5000 years? Because, short of that little hissy fit of Mao's (called, for some quaint reason, the Cultural Revolution) there has been basically no change in China's cultural fundamentals. Right down to the purported groupthink. (The reality is far more complex than the stereotype, as is to be expected, but that discussion is far out of scope for today.)

The only way for these guys to make a statement is to be bold and utterly horrible in their "statement" to the government. Enter kids at govt paid for schools.

Government paid-for schools? Which China is he talking about? The China I've lived in for almost a decade has no government-funded schools worth mentioning. Families work themselves to nubs to pay for their children's entry into schools. Schools are government controlled, yes, but certainly not paid for!

That said, this attack seems different. It could be that these are some local guys POed that the college boys are "taking all the women" (refer to "A" above). I am going out on a limb here, but given that it was a dormatory that was attacked and the article says (one student had HIS hand cut off) and knowing that China isn't going to have co-ed dorms...it sounds like an attack on a male dorm. The more I think about it...this is definately not the same thing that has been happening where people are trying to make their frustration known to the govt. This is retribution for something. Has to be. 5-6 men could've created a heck of alot more carniage than this. They did a hit and run on these guys either because one of them had wronged a member of the "5-6 man hit squad" or b/c the "5-6 man hit squad" was growing frustrated with the overall presence of that group of people (college boys) in general. The other school incidents only gave this group of ding-a-lings the idea.

This is the first (and only) piece of insightful commentary this man has made. The first (and only) that is based on a solid observation of fact. The first (and only) that involves speculation that is not, in fact, entirely ungrounded in reality. I'll give him a C- with a little annotation saying "facts are available in published sources; there's no reason to make them up".

OK, this scares me.

It seems that the UK wants to follow the American path to Nazism. This war on an emotion is turning into a great tool for the authoritarian instinct. When will Canada follow suit? When will Canada join the USA in suspending civil rights and join the UK as one of the most surveilled countries in the world? I suspect it will be sooner than anybody thinks, cynic that I am, but this is one of those rare cases where I'd be really super-happy to be wrong.

I think it's instructive, for those in Canada who think "it can't happen here", to compare a couple of things. Specifically I want to compare police presence in Canada (and, quickly, the USA) to police presence in China. Of the two countries, China is the one referred to as a police state (and despite the tone of this message, I actually agree with that designation). Yet here's the funny thing: while living in Canada -- Ottawa, to be specific -- I had more official interaction with police officers (as opposed to social interaction or just happening to see them in passing) in an average month than I've had in China in nearly six years.

Yet China is a police state, but Canada is not. How sure are you of this? Think carefully before answering, because the price of a wrong answer is the freedom that is supposedly the cornerstone of our society.

Let me kick it up a notch. A long time ago I went to Houston for a job interview. (I was even offered a job, but idiot border regulations torpedoed my chances there. "Free Trade" has as much relation to freedom of trade as the "Democratic Korean People's Republic" has to democracy or the people.) The experience was an eye-opener in many ways. In one concentrated dose I got some of my stereotypes of Texas obliterated (Houston is an astonishingly diverse and cosmopolitan city!) and horrifyingly confirmed (the gun culture is at the level of insanity -- one of the people who interviewed me brought out a handgun to show off after I admired a "sculpture" that turned out to be a hard disk after being shot several times). I also had something nasty confirmed about the "Land of the Free". In my grand total of ... say 36 hours ... in Houston, I had more interaction with police officers or other gun-wielding officials of the state than I would get in a typical month in Ottawa or in six years of living in a police state!

And this was years before 9/11.

So if you really don't think a police state is possible in Canada (or Britain or the USA or wherever), keep this in mind: you're already half-way there. The USA has essentially suspended habeas corpus -- it's just going about it the smart "salami tactics" way. It also has a long history of taking laws intended for one purpose and applying them generally (War on Plant Products, anyone?) as time passes. The UK has more official surveillance cameras, both in terms of population and in terms of raw numbers (if memory serves), than any other nation. (The USA has fewer official cameras, of course, but for that can subpoena any camera logs they like should they feel they need it, so the effect is largely similar.)

And Canada? Well, I'm out of touch with Canada right now. I've been away for an absurd length of time and internal Canadian news doesn't often reach the international press. Given Canada's history, however, it's only a matter of time before we import Yet Another Bad Idea from the USA. The time span for that ranges from 5 to 20 years with the pattern being the dumber the idea the quicker we tend to take to it. So I really am afraid that Canada is following the USA's lead into Nazism.

Which leaves me in the awkward position of wondering if living in this police state isn't a better choice right now, especially given that I've got an expanding family to consider.