Jackie Chan, Thinker

This story is a few weeks old, but I’ve been pondering the ramifications of it for a while now.

BOAO, China – Action star Jackie Chan said Saturday he’s not sure if a free society is a good thing for China and that he’s starting to think "we Chinese need to be controlled."

Chan’s comments drew applause from a predominantly Chinese audience of business leaders in China’s southern island province of Hainan.

The 55-year-old Hong Kong actor was participating in a panel at the annual Boao Forum when he was asked to discuss censorship and restrictions on filmmakers in China. He expanded his comments to include society.

"I’m not sure if it’s good to have freedom or not," Chan said. "I’m really confused now. If you’re too free, you’re like the way Hong Kong is now. It’s very chaotic. Taiwan is also chaotic."

Chan added: "I’m gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled. If we’re not being controlled, we’ll just do what we want."

Yeah, well, I’m gradually beginning to feel that there’s a deep psychosis that runs throughout humanity that causes us to simultaneously yearn for and loathe the idea of freedom.  People who live under tyranny want to be free.  But as they start to taste freedom, as people China are beginning to at least economically, they want to crawl back under the rock.  The Russian people had never been free until about 15 years ago.  Their cultural response was alcoholism, crime, a collapse of the family and birthrate, and a subtle yearning for the authoritarian good ol’ days.

In America, we were blessed with a small group of incredibly selfless, forward-thinking, open-minded, deeply flawed and yet deeply moral men who came together to create the first free country in 2000 years.  And yet, we as a people either actively cheer or apathetically yawn as those blessings disappear every day.

Psychotic.