OPINION

Snuff Out the Torch

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In 1936, Adolf Hitler presided over the Summer Olympics. It was a coming-out party for the Nazis. They put their best foot forward to show their recovery after World War I. They intended to wow the crowd with Nazi grandeur. The international press and much of the world ate it up. Two years later, Germany annexed Austria. World War II began less than a year later.

Now, in 2022, the International Olympic Committee (IOC), a hive of scum and villainy more at home on Tatooine than Earth, is gathering with athletes from around the world in Beijing, China, for the Winter Olympics. The IOC has given Beijing the honor of being the only city to host both a summer and winter games. Xi Jinping, China's dictator, intends to use this Olympic Games as a coming-out party for Chinese grandeur just like Hitler did before World War II. Within three years, Xi will most likely invade Taiwan. History echoes and, like with Hitler, much of the international press prefers glamorization to truth-telling.

Many American networks will not send reporters to Beijing, allegedly because of COVID-19. One might hope they would be more public in their criticisms of China, particularly NBC, which will profit from the games. NBC News regularly lectures Americans on social justice but hopes to make a nice profit off Beijing's games. CNN is one of the few documenting China's human rights abuses.

The IOC is notoriously corrupt. Its members have accepted bribes and advanced their families' personal and financial interests as cities around the world have pursued Olympic Games. The IOC leaders have frequently turned a blind eye to corruption and totalitarian behavior of nations. The Olympic Games themselves have been used as a platform for those corrupt, despotic regimes to seek international praise.

China's corruption is equally legendary, and its human rights abuses are becoming more open and notorious. China has allowed its companies to engage in intellectual property theft, digital piracy, espionage against other companies and more. There are no "alleged" or "accused" weasel words here. It is well documented.

Likewise, the Chinese are engaged in human rights abuses. In Hong Kong, they have broken their word to the international community on Hong Kong governance. They have now begun systematically rounding up protesters and dissidents. Some get executed and others get carted off to be reeducated.

China tears down churches and persecutes Christians. It bullies small home churches and even the Catholic Church. It jails priests and executes missionaries. China has forcibly aborted children to maintain its previous one-child policy, going so far as to operate mobile abortion facilities that could be driven to rural towns.

Slave labor is another well-documented human rights abuse in China. American corporations have benefited from Chinese slave and forced labor camps. In the Xinjiang province, China uses internment camps. The nation separates children from their parents and seeks to exterminate the ethnically Muslim Uyghur population. China's internment camps are modern versions of the Nazis' concentration camps.

Around the world, China is bullying nations into giving China land. Often, China makes predatory loans to poor countries with onerous property ownership terms should the nations default. In other cases, China spreads money around to other despotic regimes to expand China's military and diplomatic muscle. In the South China Sea, China has tried to claim the territorial waters of the Philippines and Vietnam. Both countries are increasingly begging the United States for help against China. That does not even begin to touch on China's treatment of Taiwan and relentless bullying of nations that recognize Taiwan's independence.

China is a threat to freedom. The communist regime is a threat to the three values the IOC claims the Olympics uphold: excellence, friendship and respect. The Chinese government is no one's friend and shows no one respect. Xi is a bully and tyrant who is making the world more illiberal and far less safe.

President Joe Biden should have ordered a boycott of the entire Beijing Games and not just a diplomatic boycott. Regardless, I will not watch the Olympics. I prefer not to participate in coming-out parties for murderous regimes.