Mixed Emotions

As I read about Hong Kong journalists getting roughed up in Beijing, I must confess to struggling with my feelings.

On the one hand, I'm not a fan of 'overly ambitious' police work. I really try not to allow myself the knee-jerk reactions I've been trained to have at seeing Chinese authority assert itself.

I also feel bad because Western press will be all over this and add it to the bias they already will bring with them. China doesn't need this problem so close to the Olympics.

On the otherhand...

Hong Kong journalists have often been overly ambitious in their work, too.

No one deserves to be wrongly assaulted. But then again, if anyone does, it's Hong Kong's abusive, intrusive, arrogant, 'journalists.'

What goes around comes around, and these guys didn't duck.

It's the bad part of living in a city where you don't have to fear cops; you never develop a very common, necessary survival skill the rest of the world has: don't f@#$ with people who have guns, sticks, mace, and helicopters.

Seems like common sense that if you do something stupid to police, they'll kick your ass.

Especially if (I said ifbecause we don't know if its true) you kick a police officer in the jimmy.

This is a video of The Dumbest Americans Ever Caught On Tape. Dipsht 1 films Dipsht 2 giving a cop 'the finger.' Watch what happens:

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5lKfw5lMOU&feature=related He brought that on himself.

If, and only if, some local (HK) journalist used his regular attitude on a Beijing  cop, be brought it on himself too:

1. The rest of the world's cops are not as abuse-tolerant as HK's (I know nunsthat aren't that tolerant). I don't think that I'm wrong in saying that China's cops are even less tolerant than the rest of the world.

2. The looser regulation of the press for the Olympics doesn't apply to reporters from Hong Kong, even if it's an SAR. It's an SAR of China.

It reminds me of a rhetorical question my mother has asked me my whole life:

"What are you, f@#$in' stupid?"