Tyranny Pays, And The World Doesn't Care

That's the lesson of Burma, circa 2007.

Burma Teaches A Lethal Lesson

With reports of massacres seeping out, real questions are raised. Nationalistic tolerance for any kind of regime may have reached its limits with Burma. Its entire history is a cautionary tale in neglect from the civilized nations.

Burmese military rulers achieved power through the massacre of nationals, shooting 3,000 students in the streets in 1988. They overturned an elected government in 1990 and imprisoned its democratic leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who has lived under house arrest for most of the past 20 years. The regime sealed its power through the repression of ethnic minorities, the employment of slave labor, the destruction of the environment and its leadership in the global drug trade.

The silence has descended, after the shooting has stopped.

The depth and extent of the crimes committed are not known yet, but their message is clear:

Tyrants and democracies that oppress to cling to power, no matter how little legitimacy they have, can sink deep indeed with no need to worry about more than words. For regimes such as those in China, Venezuela, Zimbabwe and Bolivia, Burma serves as a useful benchmark as how low a tyranny can go with little action from a toothless world community.

The ultimate lesson of Burma is that it's not the active countries out there that create an environment for mass murdering regimes to flourish, it's the passive ones that prefer the decorum of international institutions. There needs to be a strong response or communities such as the U.N. and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations will forfeit all their moral authority.

Gun control has claimed another victim -- Good intentions get people killed. Just remember the words in the US Declaration of Independence

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

To make the point, 'life' and defense of it, is enshrined in the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights

* Second Amendment – Right to keep and bear arms.

A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

So why is the UN pushing for a new round of global gun control, when the results are always the same. Look to Rwanda for answers, an armed citizenry prevents genocide.

BTW, anyone remember who was President during the years and years of killing during the Rwanda genocide?

Thankfully, this time we expect an accounting for what has happened in Burma, even though the world may not get it, it may cast a chill over the future occurrences.