Moulton Defends Hong Kong Protestors and All Who Stand on 'Ramparts of Freedom'

I like how Seth Moulton, the U.S. representative for the Sixth Massachusetts District, used his official statement on Independence Day this year to call out the Chinese communist government for its relentless suppression of democracy in Hong Kong, and how he reminded his fellow citizens that we could lose our own democracy if we do not guard it.

I like how Moulton, the pride of Salem, Harvard University and the United States Marine Corps, drew a direct line, in his Fourth of July statement, from the rebels in Boston in 1776 to the protestors in Hong Kong today.

Since March of 2019, Moulton said, the "brave people in Hong Kong have stood up to mainland China's powerful communist party with nothing but umbrellas and spray paint."

"As we celebrate Independence Day," he said, "we must never forget that throughout history, through good times and bad, people always choose freedom and self-government  over tyranny.  We also know that the success of bold experiments in democracy, including our own, are far from guaranteed."

It disturbs Moulton that the Chinese communist party is "persecuting these protestors with abandon," and that the party has now "passed a 'national security' law that falsely equated peacefully protesting to secession, terrorism, subversion of state power, and collusion with foreign entities."

He stated, "We have already witnessed protestors arrested under the new law for actions as simple as holding a flag that carry possible sentences of life imprisonment."

Moulton pointed out that, on the night of July 1, the body in which he serves passed a bill imposing sanctions on Chinese companies that violate the "political and economic autonomy of Hong Kong."

To the leadership of the  Chinese communist party, he declared, "The world is watching."

On this "most unusual Fourth of July," Moulton concluded:

"Let's recommit ourselves to the cause of freedom, self-government, and the fundamental rights of free speech and free assembly -- the ideals upon which we were founded that we share with the people of Hong Kong.

"Let's celebrate this because of what American patriots started in Boston in 1776: We are ruled not by kings, dictators, or tyrants, but by the people we choose.

"And let's work to support the people who today stand on the ramparts of freedom around the world, struggling to achieve the same ideals: freedom, liberty, and government of, by and for the people."

So it is that, on the 244th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, a 41-year-old Congressman with no seniority and little actual power, is a stronger voice for freedom and human rights than the man who holds the office established by George Washington.