Seattle, Hong Kong of America

Hong Kong used to enjoy a great deal of local autonomy from mainland China. It was a bastion of democracy (the rule of the people by the people). But Chinese imperialism would not tolerate that kind of freedom.

In America we take for granted that we live in a democracy. To some extent this is true. The people elect their representatives. But this is only one dimension of democracy. The other dimension is the right to introduce new ideas and change the system. Unfortunately ordinary people have no way of doing that on state and federal levels. The only place where we can…