Don't get me wrong, I am all in support of democracy. The problem with HK's democratic movement is that the leaders of the movement are single-mindedly concerned with universal suffrage but nothing else. This is dangerous.
No one, absolutely no one, among the democratic movement's leaders have mentioned anything about how once democracy is installed, how the government's hand should be tied. You say, wait a minute, it is already such a tough job for us to ask for universal suffrage, can't the discussion regarding how the government's power should be restrained wait until after we have universal suffrage. That is indeed a bogus argument.
Look, be realistic, the so called democrats in HK are bascially a bunch of socialists in disguise, or at least in terms of their beliefs in economic matters. They believe in more welfare spending, more government spending on health care, minimum wage, competition law, maximum work hours, fair trade....Do you really expect these folks willingly have their hands tied once they have their hands on the government money? NO, no, NO, no, NO! They Will Not! Period!
And that is the reason why I think that the direction HK's debate on democracy is heading is wrong-headed. Let's first talk about how government's power can be and will be restrained before universal suffrage is introduced.
Think about this. In the status quo, we have economic liberties but no limited political liberties. With the direction democracy movement is heading, on the day universal suffrage is introduced, I expect that our economic liberties will be severly curtailed because those democrats believe not just in big but huge, giant, super government. In other words, we will have wider political liberties but less economic liberties compared with what we have right now.
Which state I prefer, I will definitely choose the former rather than the latter.
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