Reaction To Chen Guangbiao's (陳光標) Visit

“This is utterly shameful,” Lo said. “Chen’s high-profile donation manner makes it seem as if our government cannot take good care of its people.”

That is precisely the angle of the political fallout from Chen Guangbiao's visit yesterday. Irrespective of what Chen's intentions may or may not have been, the R.O.C. loses face here big time on the face-value acceptance, which both political parties have themselves only encouraged, of the impulse toward destructive self-abnegation implicit in that sick imperative: "government must take care of its people". No. The people, insofar as they are adults, must take care of themselves, and insofar as they are children, they must learn to take care of themselves. That is a necessary precondition of a justly ordered society, and Chen's dishing out of cash merely evokes the distinctive mixture of shame, revulsion and pity a decent person ought to feel when confronted with such abject self-abnegation. Despite the little comforts those cash handouts may bring to the poor, this entire spectacle disgraces any pretence either the KMT or the DPP could put on of striving for a free society in Taiwan.