Liberty is to Faction What Air is to Fire

“Liberty is to faction what air is to fire” is a notion of James Madison (1751 – 1836, the Father of the Constitution in America, his presidency, 1809 – 1817).

In order to persuade the New Yorkers to ratify the Constitution, which is based on the Separation of Powers, the federalists wrote and published eighty-five essays in 1787 – 1788. In his Federalist Papers No. 10, Madison analyzed “the conflicts of rival parties” because he observed “that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.” He wrote:

There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction: the one, by removing its causes; the other, by controlling its effects.

There are again two methods of removing the causes of faction: the one, by destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence; the other, by giving to every citizen the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests.

It could never be more truly said than of the first remedy, that it was worse than the disease. Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.

The second expedient is as impracticable as the first would be unwise. As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed…

Thus, Madison asserted that “The inference to which we are brought is, that the CAUSES of faction cannot be removed, and that relief is only to be sought in the means of controlling its EFFECTS.”

In today’s China, the Chinese Communist does not regard dissidents as a faction, but criminals – “whose only crime is that of being of a different opinion” (Voltaire, 1694 – 1780). It wants to eliminate these factions “to whom they [the Chinese Communists] are not very favorably inclined.” (Desiderius Erasmus, 1466 – 1526). It forbids its exiled conscientious dissidents to return to China. It persecutes, prosecutes, arrests and jails its domestic conscientious dissidents. It silences the victims at the social unrests. Yet, on Tuesday, the Chinese Communist said that “only those who break the law will be punished by the law.” The truth is, in China, the law sides with the law maker – the Chinese Communist; and the judge benches with the robe giver – the Chinese Communist. It is a typical supremacist’s fallacy when this political party supremacist spokeswoman accuses the “external forces … to meddle in China’s internal affairs”, it was the same accusation of the race supremacist judge on being “provoked by these outside influences” in the movie Mississippi Burning, 1988.

The totalitarianism makes the Chinese Communist Party a political leviathan; and makes it easily to practice Thrasymachus (around 459 BC – 400 BC) justice – “justice is the advantage of the stronger.” I don’t know what kind of Scientific Development Concept (Kexue Fazhan Guan in Chinese) in the Chinese Communist. How come only the Marxist’s Scientific Socialism is a science, but the modern Western political science is not? How come only the Chinese is the East, but the Greek was not? Ever heard “the Greek East and the Latin West”? Apparently, it is not because of the difference between the Eastern and the Western, as the Chinese Communist often emphasized. It is imperiousness, and by imposing “what we’ve got here is [a] failure to communicate” (Cool Hand Luke, 1967), the Chinese Communist even does not allow the other factions to “Argue as much as you want and about what you want, but obey!” (Immanuel Kant, 1724 -1804) It is hegemony, and the Chinese Communist indeed is the hegemon who dominates all domestic affaires. It is supremacy, and the Chinese Communist indeed is the supremacist who is above all other factions. It is slavery, and the Chinese Communist indeed is the master who oppresses the political slaves.

Many Chinese know the Confucianism’s “[to] stay out of trouble for self-preservation” (“ming-zhe bao-shen” in Chinese). To them, “perhaps it would be better to pass them [troubles] over in silence, ‘not stirring up the hornets’ nest’ and ‘not laying a finger on the stinkweed.’” (Desiderius Erasmus, 1466 – 1526) But “life is trouble, only death is not.” (Zorba the Greek, 1964) Madison acknowledged the trouble of factions, but protected it with liberty “which is essential to political life”; the Chinese Communist hates the trouble of dissidents and wants the CAUSE [liberty] of faction to be removed by administering with terror, thus, remaining “the same opinions, the same passions, and the same interests” as its “one world, one dream”.

Many Chinese don’t know of Mercedes Sosa (1935 – 2009), “the voice for the voiceless”, an Argentine singer who died in October. Sosa was arrested and exiled by a military regime in Argentina, but she made herself come back, partly because that military regime made a Thrasymachus mistake: when the stronger does not benefit itself from its decision, or, when the weaker unify together to prevent the stronger to benefit itself, then the stronger is not the true stronger – it lost both the trust by the Argentine and the Falklands War (1982) to Britain. How can a righteous person tolerate the Chinese Communist playing Thrasymachus justice forever? “Anyone’s guilty who watches this happen and pretends it isn’t. … Maybe we all are.” (Mississippi Burning, 1988)