The courageous Hu

We rightly celebrate acts of physical courage, even as our mainstream media tends to gloss over them. However, since John F. Kennedy wrote his Profiles in Courage, we have tended to harbor a rather derisory understanding of political courage. We tend to think of political courage as going against the grain of popular opinion or sacrificing one's political capital to defend the right. Those choices are barely courageous.

To see true political courage, it is enough to look toward the host nation of the 2008 Olympics, a nation governed by a dictatorial regime. That government has sentenced Hu Jia, one of its citizens, to three and a half years in prison after convicting him of "incitement to subvert state power." What the Chinese government calls subversion of state power we in this nation call free speech. As the consequences for Hu's speech are immensely more grievous than those suffered by any United States Senator for any exercise of First Amendment rights, so Hu's courage is immensely greater, and should be lauded accordingly.

We can thank the Chinese government for its largesse. As a result of its repressive policies it has produced many truly courageous dissidents, to whose example we can aspire.