"If You Want A Picture Of The Future, Imagine A Boot Stamping On A Human Face—Forever."

228.

I almost forgot about it today because I rarely read the silly girl's magazines newspapers anymore. It was only when a friend asked me if I had a day off from work today that I remembered; 228 is the number used to denote and remember the KMT's suppression of an anti-government uprising on February 28th 1947. The number of people killed is uncertain, but estimates are commonly in the thousands to tens of thousands.

The event itself is so politicized because it reflects the central fault-line of Taiwan's party politics; although the murders were ordered by KMT officials at the time, certain descendents of those officials have sought to portray the victims as "thugs" or as in some sense deserving of their deaths anyway, whilst many on today's pro-independence wing of Taiwan's party politics use the event to compare the historical KMT to infamous political parties, such as the Nazis in pre-war Germany.

I hate this day.

The reason I hate it is that concentrates outrage through the prism of party-politics; the event is always framed in singular terms, that of a contrast between the newly-arrived KMT colonizers and the local Taiwanese victims and the reason why is obvious: these terms resonate with the simplistic contrast between today's KMT and the main opposition party, the DPP. Whilst it was obviously a monstrous crime which cannot now be avenged, I cannot abide the way it is constantly polarized along party-lines. Example...

"Chen [DPP Legislator Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) - ed] has proposed legislation to subject those who deny or tone down the 228 Incident to up to five years in prison, referencing a German law on pro-Nazi violations."

Sorry, no; freedom of speech is a basic consequence of the premise that nobody else has ownership rights over anyone else. To forcibly restrict other people from speaking their minds - even if you dislike what they will say - is to cross the non-aggression line. When people say things you don't like, you can either say things back to them or you can ignore them, but there can be no justification for using the State to silence people. By proposing legislation like this, Chen is condoning the very same principle on which the KMT officials acted when they ordered the systematic murder of Taiwanese civilians - that State aggression can be justified for "the good of society". For this reason, she - and all others like her - deserve to be widely understood for what she is: a supporter of State violence and intimidation against you - for your own good.

She is just another Orwell's boot, and she is likely too stupid to even understand the point.