Freedom

I once had a discussion with a young man from mainland China about freedom.  He said that freedom causes chaos.  We have had riots in American cities the people who riot have too much freedom.  So unlimited freedom does cause chaos.  However what happens if there is too little freedom?  What if people can only say what the government wants them to say?  What if the people who write newspapers and online content can only write what the government says they can.  What if schools only teach what the government wants young people to believe?  Then the majority of people are going to believe what their government wants them to believe and to do what the government wants them to do.  What is their government going to want them to do?  The government will be run by a dictator and so will want them to do what the dictator wants them to do.  When we look at dictators many of them have a lot in common.  They punish anyone who criticizes them in any way.  They arrest people who become powerful enough to become a threat to them.  That includes people who become wealthy by creating successful businesses.  They build up their military power so that other countries can't threaten their power.  If they can they build up their power so that they can take over neighboring countries.  Money that could have made the people in the country well off is used to purchase weapons.  In fact they may borrow money to purchase weapons and get the country into debt.

China is an example of a totalitarian country run by the dictator Xi Jinping.  He wants to invade Taiwan.  He has built up the largest navy in the world.  His army has hypersonic missiles that are too fast for other countries to defend against.  He is building up a large number of nuclear weapons.  His country makes very scary threats against the United States and other countries that want to defend Taiwan.  If there are any Chinese who don't want to go to war they don't dare say anything because they will be severely punished.  Most of them probably have been convinced by the Chinese press that war with Taiwan is a good thing.  The Chinese press says what Xi Jinping wants it to say which is that the Taiwan is a bunch of criminals and that war will liberate Taiwan from their criminal government.  They have been told that Taiwan rightfully should be part of China.  China has also convinced its people to fight with India and there have been several fights with India already.

If you live in a country run by a dictator you are more likely to be forced to fight a war than if you live in a free country and even believe that going to war is a good thing.  Xi has convinced many Chinese that they should go to war with Taiwan, a war that could start World War III.  The ultimate price of loss of freedom then will be a lot of dead Chinese as well as Taiwanese and Americans.