Augustus Howard

Wednesday

Augustus Howard

The Democrats find religion

Now for some bracing honesty from the Democratic National Committee. In a new, unanimously adopted resolution, Democrats have declared that ‘the religiously unaffiliated demographic represents the largest religious group within the Democratic party, growing from 19 percent in 2007 to one in three today’ (emphasis added). Advocates for truth in political advertising should rejoice. The so-called ‘secular’ left has finally abandoned the canard that its views and policies are purely ‘neutral,’ or the products of inarguable empiricism. According to the resolution, the religiously unaffiliated and the nonreligious (labels used interchangeably) are, instead, members of a new faith community.

religion

Saturday

Augustus Howard

The cosmic combination of Hong Kong, Brexit and the trade war

Over the past several months, we have witnessed remarkable courage in the streets of Hong Kong. What began as limited protest against a single act of pro-Beijing legislation now has the markings of existential struggle, if not revolution. As the people of Hong Kong understand, the city government’s proposed extradition bill — enabling removal of its citizens to mainland China for trial — was not an isolated event. It was, instead, a sign of things to come, the gradual encroachment of Beijing upon the rights and freedoms promised Hong Kong for 50 years in the 1997 Basic Law. These constitutional guarantees — negotiated with the United Kingdom before it transferred the city — have come steadily under attack as the clock ticks ineluctably towards midnight.

hong kong