Why are the Padres and Dodgers playing baseball in the dictatorship of China?

It's amazing to me how we are struggling to remove lead-tainted toys from our country that are made in China, fighting to force China to lift it's oppressive ban on news media there, and end its brutal campaign against political and social dissidents in China, and yet two major league baseball teams are playing an exhibition game in Beijing?

Are we that stupid or just ignorant as Americans?

China is a dictatorship. It is an oppressive terrorist nation. But we play this hypocritical game of double-standards carefully criticizing China's policies while still trying to make money off that nation?

Are we not making money off the lives of murdered Chinese dissidents? Are we not exploiting the slave labor of China? Are we not winking and nodding that it is okay for China to oppress it's people as long as we can by poinsoned toys cheap.

My son came up to me this morning while I was watching a CNN news broadcast of the Padres-Dodges game in Beijing, China and showed me a box of toy cars that he has from a huge collection that were made inC hina and we suspect are poisoned with lead.

Why do we tolerate some dictatorships when it benefits us economically and crackdown on dictatorships when we have no benefot to gain from them? Is that not hypocritical?

We are not the leaders of the Free World when we pick and chose morality, principle and do or do not enforce an international standard of the rule of law. You can't be half-pregnant. We're eaither the leader of the Free World and we champion freedom for everyone, including in nations that we gain that are dictatorships, or we are hypocrites and we don't care and we close our eyes to oppressive when it benefits us.

Doesn't that make America complicit in the oppression of freedom, and therefore void our claim to be the "leader of the Free World?"

Pathetic. Hypocritical. Disgraceful. Embarrasing. Shameful.

Ray Hanania
www.RadioChicagoland.com

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Some related links (these are news links and may not be available indefinitely):

Padres versus Dodgers in Beijing, China:
http://www.latimes.com/sports/baseball/mlb/dodgers/la-spw-dodgers16mar16,1,2657424.story

China lead poisoning issue:
http://www.usrecallnews.com/2007/10/list-of-recalled-toys-for-lead-poisoning-hazards-childrens-toy-recalls-from-china.html

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