A Free World is Never a "Clean World"

What do you come to America for?

By Kai Chen 11/11/24

To the Chinese Trump voters:

What do you come to America for? Do you expect clean appearances everywhere on the street, grandiose public buildings, people with uniformed looks, clothes, and behaviors, safety to walk alone in the dark, clean and unified thoughts and expressions....? You come to the wrong place. China, North Korea and Russia should be your destinations. The collective world, not the Free World, is your final destination.

Alas, what the Donald yearns and wants is just the world of Putin, Xi and Kim, just like his Trump towers, gilded with the color gold, superficial as his own painted face, all facade without any substance. Like Trump voters, you can ignore his foul language and vulgarity with cruel intent toward the women and people of different origins. You can ignore his despicable/obscene gestures and demeanor on the public stage. You can ignore his loose diaper containing human feces. You can ignore his pretentious posture mimicking that of Mussolini and Hitler, with his eyes looking down on you and his chin toward the sky. But you, in your rare clear-minded moment with a momentary vision of clarity, you just cannot ignore that something is missing in the Trump world, something fundamental, something essential, something spiritual, something that defines us as human beings, something supremely American. That something is very simple and straight forward - Freedom, Joy and Human Dignity.

I came to America in 1981, at the peak of my professional career as a basketball player in China. I had all the privileges most Chinese didn't have. Yet something essential was missing in my life and without it I was in constant distress/torture in my mind and soul. I was dying inside. I could not function as a full human being even though I devoted all the energy into my profession - basketball. I could only function as a tool and slave for the others and the state to survive an excruciating misery. Somethings were intrinsically in conflict in my inner world that threatened to cripple me when I intended to make any individual decisions. I didn't full realize what that essential element was until I came to America. I didn't fully appreciate what I had given up in China and what I expected in America. But the urge to look for that something compelled me to take action and leave the place of my birth. I worked and studied. I thought hard and debated inside constantly. Nothing could stop that urge. It is innate and divine. It is both from out above and deep inside me. I finally found out: It is Freedom with Human Dignity.

Freedom with Human Dignity is invisible around us but it exists nonetheless. It does not guaranty anyone anything. It does not grant the world a perfect society. Sometimes it may result the ugly exposure of human defects and flaws. Frustration comes often with certain disappointments. But without it, law and order is meaningless. Peace is only an empty promise. Creativity and innovation are stifled. Progress with a moral direction becomes impossible. Nihilistic dynastic cycles becomes norm with endless man-eating-man. Stagnation and darkness will envelope and dominate the entire universe.

Do you want a "clean world" with the gilded facade - unified thoughts and beliefs, un-offending outlooks on the streets, safe public venues with countless surveillance cameras above your head, absolute loyalty to the state and the leaders.... - the Trump's ideal world that has already existed in China, Russia and North Korea? Or do you want a Free World in which nothing is perfect - homeless people on the streets, partisan rancor in politics, angry protests to vent mass frustration, free press to criticize almost everything.....? In the countries of Nihilistic Despotism, everything looks in order with almost perfect appearances. Yet there is no clean air, no safe water, no safe food, no safe buildings.... The state can come to your home and tear it down any time it wants. Your children are brainwashed and groomed to be a zombified existence only to serve the authorities. In a Free World, we as individuals are respected to make our own decisions and shape our own destinies. We are perfecting an imperfect world with our own words and actions. We are making our own futures with hope and optimism, for we are never hopelessly crippled robots in the hands of our rulers. We as individuals with meaning and spiritual existence will always ask ourselves: Is this world better because of my existence?

America is never perfect but America is Free. America is never "clean" but America is Free. America is never without human ugliness but America is Free. In America, human beings can only be unified under that supreme, God-given value - Freedom. If you come to America for something else, not Freedom, you indeed come to the wrong place. You may be better off staying in your ancestral land where you find certainty in the form of a zombie looking for human flesh. Trump, who wants to make America a zombie land like China, Russia and North Korea, may deport you soon anyhow, for you are unclean in his eyes. Pity.