The Greek historian Herodotus, in The Histories, wrote of a curious Scythian custom. Whenever a Scythian king fell ill, he would send for three soothsayers, who would use their powers to name an individual as the cause of the illness. The belief was that the king could only become ill if someone had sworn an oath in the king's name, and then broken it.
Thus named, the guilty party was then arrested and brought before the king, whereupon he could choose to admit or deny the crime. If he denied it, the king would send for six more soothsayers, and if they declared that the man was innocent, the king would send for six more soothsayers -- and so on, until finally six soothsayers could be found who agreed with the original three. The "oath-breaker" was then beheaded summarily.
While such a method of establishing guilt seems quaint by modern standards, the pan-blue camp has decided that it is a perfectly reasonable means of legal inquiry, and have employed a similar method to uncover the "truth" behind the shooting of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) on March 19 last year. How else can one explain the ongoing farce that comprises the pan-blues' effort to undermine the legitimacy of last year's presidential election?
The pan-blues watched sullenly as both of their lawsuits challenging the election results were tossed out by the courts. They stood by, unfazed, as the independent investigator they had invited, forensic scientist Henry Lee (
They rammed a 319 shooting statute through the legislature -- which they controlled -- that established an extra-legal partisan task force, giving it the grandiose title "March 19 Shooting Truth Investigation Special Committee."
Next, they ignored the Council of Grand Justices' ruling that parts of the special 319 committee statute were unconstitutional. Then they watched as this same "non-partisan" committee -- composed of pan-blue officials -- issued a report uncovering the "truth" of the shooting: It was staged. Well, of course it was. That's what Taipei taxi drivers have been saying all along.
In its defense, one must point out that the committee, although it ignored the normal channels of investigation and spurned the sparse evidence it had access to, did collect a vast body of data to prove its surprising theory.
The facts the committee was able to muster amounted to this: The shooting was, well, mysterious. Therefore, it must be part of a vast conspiracy stretching to the highest levels of government.
Meanwhile, an actual suspect has been identified by police after a lengthy, meticulous and unglamorous investigation (CSI: Tainan isn't in the offing just yet). And he has turned out to be an "unhinged fruitcake" trying to "make an amateurish attempt to kill a prominent and controversial political figure," as some genius predicted in April of last year.
So what has been the pan-blue response? To try to establish another "319 Shooting Truth Investigation Special Committee."
Find six new soothsayers. They'll get it right eventually.
It is a wonderful world that the pan-blues live in. It is the world of P.T. Barnum, Joseph Goebbels and every spin doctor that has ever held a government post. It is not, however, the real world.
Still, there was a downside to Scythian legal practices, which the pan-blues ought to investigate further. Sometimes, after every prophet in Scythia had been consulted, no one could be found who agreed with the first three soothsayers that the individual identified was guilty of breaking an oath.
So the three mistaken soothsayers were beheaded as criminals.
Summarily.
Mac William Bishop is an editor at the Taipei Times.
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
In an article published on this page on Tuesday, Kaohsiung-based journalist Julien Oeuillet wrote that “legions of people worldwide would care if a disaster occurred in South Korea or Japan, but the same people would not bat an eyelid if Taiwan disappeared.” That is quite a statement. We are constantly reading about the importance of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), hailed in Taiwan as the nation’s “silicon shield” protecting it from hostile foreign forces such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and so crucial to the global supply chain for semiconductors that its loss would cost the global economy US$1
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
Sasha B. Chhabra’s column (“Michelle Yeoh should no longer be welcome,” March 26, page 8) lamented an Instagram post by renowned actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) about her recent visit to “Taipei, China.” It is Chhabra’s opinion that, in response to parroting Beijing’s propaganda about the status of Taiwan, Yeoh should be banned from entering this nation and her films cut off from funding by government-backed agencies, as well as disqualified from competing in the Golden Horse Awards. She and other celebrities, he wrote, must be made to understand “that there are consequences for their actions if they become political pawns of
RSS