Twenty years ago, the Chinese Communist regime brutally crushed the pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square. The pseudosophisticates of the American Left were shocked. They had grown euphoric over China. People who thought the Communist regime was evil were ignorant "cold warriors," the latter term being a pejorative in their view. For a fleeting moment, they were faced with the undeniable empirical fact that their premise was wrong. It would be 12 years and 3 months before that happened again.

To persons of sense, the only surprise was that anyone was surprised. Of course the regime was brutal. Of course it would crush dissent. Of course they would kill people simply for publicly disagreeing with the regime. They were communists. Every communist regime from the Bolshevik Revolution forward has been brutal and dictatorial. It is the nature of the beast.

There will always be evil in the world, but there need not be as much as there is. One of the reasons there is so much is the unwillingness of too many good people to see evil for what it is.