Should the California Legislature Develops Its Own China Policy?
Of course not. Unfortunately, some folks with too much time on their hands would like California lawmakers to waste some time on issues that don’t concern them.
Longtime readers of this blog already know that I am supremely apathetic when it comes to certain China-related “causes,” particularly those that are championed by Hollywood types that have no background in foreign policy. The below, which I read in The Huffington Post politics blog, is a good case study as to why I despise this crap (FYI: that link probably won’t work if you are in China):
With little resistance, China’s communist leadership invaded California this past Monday landing in Sacramento with the clear intention of inflicting maximum harm to our democracy via the defeat of a resolution in the California State Assembly.
Mission nearly accomplished.
Assembly Concurrent Resolution 6 (ACR 6) sponsored by Assembly Member Sam Blakeslee, (R-San Luis Obispo), was designed to recognize March 10 as “Dalai Lama and Tibet Awareness Day.” The intent of the non-binding resolution is to “educate Californians about the teachings of the Dalai Lama and his efforts to preserve the Tibetan culture,” and to re-affirm that “freedom of expression, assembly, and religious beliefs are fundamental human rights that belong to all people,” including of course, Tibetans.
By the way, this so-called “invasion” of California referred to above was a bizarre way of saying that the China Consul General became involved in this issue and lobbied against the resolution. That’s the job of the representative of the Chinese government. The use of words like “invasion” tells me that these people are not serious, which I suppose I knew already. Gimme a frickin’ break.
Note that all of this is going on at a time when California’s fiscal situation has gone from dire to cataclysmic. The state government just recently narrowly avoided having to shut down because of a lack of funds. It would piss me off to no end for them to spend even 10 seconds on a ridiculous irrelevant resolution like this.
As a California native, I believe I have the right to say that the folks behind this resolution are nuts. In fact, I would say that they have gone from nuts to completely bugfuck. Reminds me of all those naive, bleeding-heart, guilt-ridden rich kid liberals I went to college with who were so far to the left politically that for a period of two or three years, I actually thought that I was a political conservative.
I completely agree. Even ignoring the substance, I have always thought that cities and states should stay out of foreign policy. Wait a second, isn’t there something in our constitution on this?
Yeah, I think this, like, violates the dormant foreign relations power held by the federal government under the Constitution, or some shit. In US v. Pink, the US Supreme Court wrote:
“No State can rewrite our foreign policy to conform to its own domestic policies. Power over external affairs is not shared by the States; it is vested in the national government exclusively. It need not be so exercised as to conform to State laws or State policies, whether they be expressed in constitutions, statutes, or judicial decrees. And the policies of the States become wholly irrelevant to judicial inquiry when the United States, acting within its constitutional sphere, seeks enforcement of its foreign policy in the courts.”