Beijing Wins Bid for 2008 Olympics
In awarding the People's Republic of China with the 2008 Olympics, the IOC today rewarded one of the worlds only remaining communist totalitarian governments, a government with a terrible and well documented record of human rights abuses, including torture, religious persecution, slave labor, and repression of dissent. Today's action by the IOC represents a fundamental betrayal of the Olympic ideal. The Olympics were founded in ancient Greece, home of Plato and Aristotle, pillars of the Western tradition. Todays international world system is based on that Western tradition, based on the notion that there are fundamental absolute values, and it is upon these values that civilizations rests. The concept of universal human values is enshrined the U.S. Declaration of Independence, the Rights of Man, the Charter of the United Nations, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. China explicitly rejects the notion that there are universal human rights, and asserts it's own brand of nationalist moral relativism. What may be considered wrong by one country is perfectly acceptable in another. This path leads to anarchy and simply can't be tolerated or condoned by the international community. If the term "rogue state" has any meaning, it is only because we have achieved at the dawn of the 21st century, a global moral consensus. World civilization can only exist on the basis of shared moral values. The IOC has rewarded a county that stands in opposition to the fundamental values of the modern international world system. Today then is a sad day for the international community, and a sad day for lovers of freedom and liberty everywhere.