Millions of protesters fought for democracy while battling a brutal crackdown by a communist regime.
One kid figuredout a way to permissibly miss school on a permanent basis.
For Time magazine, the choice was clear — the kid wins.
In naming Greta Thunberg its Person of the Year, Time chose a “teenager who skipped school to travel around the world telling people that they are horrible and the planet is doomed. It’s a living. Perhaps her Malthusian visions will be fulfilled by future experience. But it’s not very likely,” The Federalist publisher Ben Domenech wrote in a Dec. 11 op-ed.
Domenech cited Henry Luce’s 1920s prospectus for Time, which included this “list of prejudices”:
- A belief that the world is round and an admiration of the statesman’s view of all the world.
- A general distrust of the present tendency toward increasing interference by government.
- A prejudice against the rising cost of government.
- Faith in the things which money cannot buy.
- A respect for the old, particularly in manners.
- An interest in the new, particularly in ideas.
Based on Luce’s mission, the Person of the Year should be the protester in Hong Kong, Domenech wrote.
Domenech made the case for the Hong Kong protester:
In defiance of the most powerful authoritarian regime in the modern world, the protester in Hong Kong has stood against the authority of Red China with courage and dedication. They have not bowed to the brutality of the police, who have murdered, raped, and abused them. They have not run from the tear gas or the hoses. They have refused to back down.Free Press International
And because of that, their message has been heard. It is a protest that cuts across the lines of age and class. While the protesters are younger, they are supported by their parents’ generation, which feels guilt over not asserting themselves earlier. So their mantra is: Be water. Hong Kong has enjoyed freedoms never present in mainland China.
They see those freedoms slipping away. And rather than bow to that inexorable betrayal, the thuggish assertion of the murderous state, they stood, and they fight. There is no bigger fight. And so, the Hong Kong protester is the Person of the Year.
