Two Wrongs Don’t Make A Right
It was wrong for Britain to flood Opium into China. Likewise, it is wrong for China to flood Fentanyl into America. Just because The West tried to poison the East doesn’t justify the East trying to poison the West. As an American, and from my childhood, I heard the saying; two wrongs don’t make a right.
When I run this phrase through a translator, I receive the following:
以牙还牙是不可取的。
This phrase translates back to A tit for tat is not advisable. This translation seems to trivialize the severity of the wrong committed. It was a very terrible thing to poison China with opium! And, not everyone in the West agreed with the decision to trade opium.
William Gladstone said the following before the British Parliament:
“It is a matter of certainty that if we stopped the exportation of opium from Bengal and broke up the depot at Lintin and checked the cultivation of it in Malwa. And put a moral stigma upon it, that we should greatly cripple, if not extinguish, the trade in it….”
“The great principles of justice are involved in this matter. You will be called upon…to show cause for your present intention of making war on the Chinese. They gave us notice to abandon the contraband trade. When they found we would not, they had the right to drive us from their coasts on account of our obstinacy in persisting in this infamous and atrocious traffic.”
The Decline of England
I cannot say with certainty when or how God metes out justice. Yet, it is with confidence that political, economic, moral, religious, and social decline occurred in Britain and the rest of Europe. It was not immediately after the 2nd Opium War (October 24, 1860). Still, the seeds of war were already planted throughout Europe and came to fruition fifty-four years later across the globe. Historian Clarence Carson believes the decline of England began after the conclusion of the Great War, which was from July 28, 1914, to November 11, 1918). He says the decline started with a new mercantilism that differed significantly in its motivations from the mercantilism of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. The trend toward socialism and the welfare state spurred it. Countries found it expedient to erect “trade curtains” to protect themselves from the world market to control and regulate domestic economies.
Carson Continues
Efforts to maintain order, peace, and collective security did not do so. Although World War 1 was over, nations were still pitted against each other economically. Ideology and action severed the natural bonds of one people with another. Countries cannot use the power of their governments against one another in trade and collaborate to maintain peace politically. They cannot establish national socialism, on the one hand, and international collective action, on the other. A new order did not replace the old order in Europe. Instead, disorder spread. Governments made a variety of internal wars upon their populations, which is implicit in socialist ideology. Attempts to forge a new unity by preaching class and race hatred created totalized governmental power, first in the Soviet Union and then other lands. Power was concentrated in the hands of dictators or would-be dictators in land after land.
Waning World Influence
Such was the setting of England’s decline. That decline is most readily measurable in foreign trade and economic production. The United Kingdom’s relative share of world trade—exports and imports—is indicated by these figures: in 1840, it was 32 percent; in 1913, 17 percent; in 1938, 13 percent. More critically, British imports accounted for an increasing proportion of the trade, while exports decreased. The United Kingdom’s portion of world manufacturing production was 31.8 percent in 1870, 14 percent in 1913, and 9.2 percent in the 1936-1938 period. (Clough, op. cit., p. 397.)
The only British party that managed to get a clear majority in the years between WWI and WW2 was the Conservative Party. But its leadership was usually reluctant to govern. In 1931, MacDonald led the movement for a National government, and the Conservatives elected 472 members to the House of Commons. Nonetheless, Ramsay MacDonald served as Prime Minister for a National government from 1931 to 1935, followed by two Conservatives, Stanley Baldwin, and Neville Chamberlain, to 1940. This was a low point in the peacetime party responsibility of modern British history. Without effective party responsibility for what was done, there was little check left upon the government. In short, England turned to its own variety of “one-party” government in this period—a pale imitation of what was occurring in the dictatorships. (Strikingly similar to the feckless Republican Party of America today.)
Unprincipled Behavior
The depth of the bankruptcy of British foreign policy was reached at the Munich Conference in 1938. Before this conference, Chamberlain had made hurried trips to meet and treat with Hitler, pleading with the arrogant dictator to moderate his claims. At Munich, Hitler refused to allow Czech representatives to be present at the meeting of himself, Mussolini, Daladier (for France), and Chamberlain. Yet the men present agreed to the cession of Czechoslovak territory (the Sudetenland) to Germany. But if the Czechs had been present, they could have been outvoted; such are the possibilities of democratic collective agreements. Chamberlain returned to England exultant; the Munich agreement had, he proclaimed, secured “peace in our time.” And the crowds cheered!
Chamberlain had not simply varied from principle; in the best of times, men do this. He was confused, and his confusion was the reflex of a large portion of the English people. The decline of England was preceded and accompanied by moral and religious decline. It is one thing to violate the known and agreed-upon principles of morality; and quite another not to know what these principles are, to be torn between conflicting views, or to be uncertain about the existence of verities. It was the latter that afflicted the English and people elsewhere.
Decline of Religion
The erosion of belief in verities had proceeded at pace or accelerated for several decades. Intellectuals had swung over to relativism. Morals, people were taught, are relative to time and place and are matters of customs and mores. Moral absolutes were for Englishmen reflexes of Puritanism and Victorianism, hence, old-hat, outmoded, and increasingly despised. New currents of irrationality had undercut rationality. The evil seeds of the drug-dealing nation had made its evil fruit.
Ripe for Socialism
There was a close relationship between these developments and the movement toward socialism. Socialists could not advance their dogmas in a framework of individual responsibility. The virtues of industry, thrift, clean living, and careful husbandry must be undermined. Traditional morality renounced violence, urged respect for property, and taught that men should not steal but be content with the fruits of their labor. The Holy Writ taught against Covetousness. These had to be, and were, denigrated for socialism to make its gains. The point is this: When Chamberlain confronted Hitler, he brought no high moral position from England with which to oppose the Führer. The gradualist movement toward socialism in England had acclimated the English to methods analogous to those of Hitler, if not in so brutal a guise.
The British had come to accept labor union violence as a legitimate means to achieve their ends. They were familiar with increasing government force against the population to regulate trade, confiscate wealth, and provide funds for idle men. What was right was what the majority voted for, according to an underlying ethos. If the majority voted for programs that took the profits of corporations, that was not theft; it was only social justice. If the House of Lords stood in the way of this thrust for power, it should be shorn of its effective veto. There was no high ground in all of this from which to counter Hitler’s moves. Moreover, the British people did not want adventures; they wanted peace.
No One Is Safe From Socialists
Don’t think that socialists believed consistently in the protection of minorities. Which minorities? Not the Lords nor the farmers. Of course, not factory owners nor the unemployed (and their right to work in struck plants). Not of women, for the labor unions had worked diligently to drive women from their employment after World War I. The Czechs were, after all, only another minority. Why should their selfish wishes stand in the way of the great goal of world peace?
More Recent History – Two Wrongs Don’t Make A Right
As I wrote earlier, two wrongs don’t make a right. Opium and Fentanyl are both poisons. England was a drug dealing nation long ago and China is supplying Mexican Drug Cartels the means to cripple America now. England was wrong then and China is wrong now. I repeat, two wrongs don’t make a right. Arguably, England declined from prominence because of her collective sins. Insanely, China wants to rise to prominence by committing the same sins.
Does China want to repeat the sins of Britain?
The lead image in this blog shows a deadly dose of Fentanyl compared to a penny. Sadly, England poisoned China for money, but China is poisoning America for power. Do the Chinese Communist Party members know the Bible verse from Mark 8:36? It reads, “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” Does China want to repeat the sins of Britain? I contend that Britain poisoned her soul when she dealt opium to China. Britain continued to lose her way, and although she defeated Hitler, she still fell into socialism. China’s soul is already poisoned by communism. How much further can China fall by poisoning the world with Fentanyl?
Is China Confused?
Historians from China may be confused. China lost at least 20 million people during the Taiping Rebellion from 1850 to 1860. It was bad enough that England turned some Chinese citizens into opium addicts. Additionally, China suffered the bloodiest civil war of the nineteenth century. I know of no evidence that Hong Xiuquan used opium. There is evidence that Hong Xiuquan fell into a trance and woke up believing that he was a son of God. Hong’s brand of Christianity would upset the nation since he believed he must overthrow the Qing Dynasty.
More Wrongs
Did the Qing Dynasty treat their peasants fairly? The answer is probably “no.” Were the peasants highly susceptible to Hong’s misguided message? The answer is probably “yes.” No doubt, a stew of trouble was brewing. However, the greatest wrong of all would be to confuse Hong Xiuquan’s brand of Christianity with the teachings of Jesus Christ. Also, please remember the words of the Apostle Peter. 2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead, he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” God may not want to overthrow the Chinese Communist Party. Rather, God may want to convert them from their wicked ways. I certainly believe it is wrong for China to copy England’s sins of the past.
Why should China change?
Other than the idiom that two wrongs don’t make a right, there are plenty of other reasons for China to change. The Lord told Jeremiah, “ If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it. I believe God has already reviewed the good he intended for America.
Likewise, China lost 20 million in the Taiping Rebellion and approximately that many when Chairman Mao infected China with communism. So, why should China change? Because China must change if it wants to get on the true road to rejuvenation.