What was Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing chief executive, thinking when she issued a face mask ban? Did she think that it would quell the anger of Hong Kongers and put the fear of Xi into them? Actually it did just the opposite: protestors took to the streets anyway, bravely defying the ban.

Even though a Hong Kong court has twice rejected a block on the ban, the defiance continues.

As one determined university student told Reuters:

“The anti-mask law just fuels our anger and more will people come on to the street. We are not afraid of the new law, we will continue fighting. We will fight for righteousness. I put on the mask to tell the government that I’m not afraid of tyranny.”

Plus, another protestor — a 35-year-old technician — said he was wearing a mask to spite the government, even though he typically marched without one:

“It is not a crime to wear a mask, it is my freedom. You can’t turn it into a crime just by a click of your fingers.”

Take that, Carrie Lam.

Meanwhile, graffiti and signs popped up in the streets with the following messages:

• “Free HK! Stop Chinazi!
• “Our Gov is Killing Us”
• “Ideas Behind these Masks are Bulletproof”

There were also black flags, adorned with the Hong Kong flower, flying this poignant message:

“In Memory of One Country, Two Systems”

Hong Kongers have vandalized stores owned by Chinese mainlanders, including a Starbucks store. The daughter of the “Maxim’s” group founder — Maxim’s owns Starbucks in Hong Kong — spoke out in favor of the police. The coffee giant then became anathema among protestors.

Meanwhile, super markets, shopping centers, and public transportation were shut down for a second day, and shoppers have cleared shelves in grocery stores.

Hong Kong shoppers clear shelves as panic grips a city struggling to cope with chaos of anti-government protests https://t.co/gBusyimIXm

— SCMP News (@SCMPNews) October 6, 2019

And the Hong Kong police have been arresting protestors with no holds barred, like this little girl.

A very young girl (allegedly ten years old) was just arrested. #standwithhk #hk#HKPoliceState #HKPoliceTerrorism pic.twitter.com/SDG8T6W5kv

— Denise Ho (HOCC) (@hoccgoomusic) October 6, 2019

But local pro-Beijing Hong Kongers have stepped up their game, too. For example, a taxi driver rammed his vehicle into a crowd of protestors. He also crashed a storefront and injured a woman, but the protestors didn’t let him off: they beat him until firefighters showed up to take the man to the hospital.

Then there’s the hated Junius Ho, a local legislator who loves Beijing and despises the protesting Hong Kongers. Not only was Ho among the first to advocate banning face masks, he’s also called for protestors to be “killed without mercy,” and even cheered on thugs who rampaged a train station in his district. They indiscriminately beat not only protestors, but journalists and passengers as well. Ho called them “heroes.”

For Ho, democracy and freedom should be subservient to “Chinese identity.”

“Why have so many young people forgotten their roots and ancestry and disavowed their Chinese identity? I hope people from both sides stop now and behave the way Chinese people should behave.”

And what of the Chinese dragon lurking in the corner, waiting to pounce?

There have been ominous signs of coming disaster for Hong Kongers. According to a recent Reuters report, China has more than doubled its number of security forces deployed in Hong Kong. What’s more, on Sunday night in Hong Kong, a yellow warning flag was flown on the roof of the Peoples’ Liberation Army barracks in Kowloon. A soldier shouted out in Cantonese, “All consequences are at your own risk.” But this wasn’t the first time Hong Kongers have provoked reactions from the local army barracks, either.

Whom do these protestors remind you of? Especially with their penchant for face masks, and sometimes, vandalism? Antifa, maybe?

Not for me they don’t. Antifa members are not being oppressed by the Trump administration, even though they tar Trump and the GOP as “fascists.” What freedoms are they fighting for that they don’t already have? Hell, Antifa has run roughshod over Portland, OR, with barely a peep from Portland’s progressive mayor. Instead, they beat up people simply for disagreeing with them politically. Some oppression.

Rather, the Hong Kongers remind me of these guys:

Credit: PD-ART/wikimediacommons/public domain.

That’s the Boston Tea Party, brought to the British overlords in the American colonies by the Sons of Liberty. They, too, were fighting oppression by the British crown. Likewise, the Hong Kong protestors want to throw off the shackles that are gradually trying to strangle their freedoms, and doing it slowly so that Hong Kongers won’t know they’ve lost their freedoms until it’s too late. That’s the way socialism and Communism work — through incrementalism, so its victims acquiesce to their demands as long as they live in comfort and think the government will give them what they want.

I hope it’s not too late for Hong Kong.

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Featured image: L.Rico/flickr/cropped/CC BY 2.0.