Soldier4Christ
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« Reply #1 on: August 23, 2007, 03:13:10 PM » |
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Congressman says boycott of Beijing Olympics would preserve U.S. 'legacy of liberty'
A Michigan congressman says by participating in the 2008 Summer Olympics in China, the U.S. will be "turning a blind eye for the sake of profit" to widespread human rights abuses in the communist country -- in effect, turning its back on America's "legacy of liberty."
Citing China's atrocious human rights record, eight House Republicans have introduced a resolution calling for a U.S. boycott of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. The resolution compares the Beijing Olympics to the 1936 Games in Nazi-era Germany. One of the resolution's cosponsors, Representative Thaddeus McCotter (R-Michigan), says human rights should be a precondition for the United States to have a trading relationship, or any other relationship, with a dictatorial regime.
"Our concern -- given their pitiful track record on human rights, including their support for [the regime] in Darfur, the Iranian tyrannical regime, and others -- is that if we go in there as if they're a normal country, as if they're abiding [by] honor, traditions, democracy, and human rights, it's going to be a reprise of the 1936 Games in Berlin," cautions the third-term congressman.
McCotter says he and his seven GOP colleagues are much like Winston Churchill in the lead-up to World War II. He points out that at that time, major economic interests in England, the United States, and elsewhere in the democratic world felt Nazi Germany would be a bulwark against Soviet Bolshevism as well as a source for lucrative trade.
"And there were people who went to church [and] who were out in the wilderness who were decried by their colleagues for being warmongers and everything else [and for saying] 'there is a danger here and you will rue the day that you tried to ride the back of the alligator and hope he ate you last,'" the Michigan lawmaker shares. "We do not want to repeat the same mistake with Communist China," McCotter warns.
When asked why few of his colleagues in the House and Senate are backing the boycott of China, McCotter responded, "There are people who believe America is an economy. We believe America is a country."
Representative Maxine Waters (D-California) is sponsoring a separate Olympic boycott resolution that focuses on China's ties to the genocidal regime of Sudan.
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