This Music Shop Is To Be Closed Until Further Notice

Major Strasser: You see what I mean? If Lazlo's presence in a cafe can inspire this unfortunate demonstration, what more can his presence in Casablanca bring on? I advise that this place be shut up at once.

Captain Renault: But everybody is having such a good time!

Maj. Strasser: Yes, much too good a time. The place is to be closed.

Capt. Renault: But I've no excuse to close it!

Maj. Strasser: Find one.

The Taiwanese police were shocked — shocked! — earlier this week to find a music store playing music. Not just ANY kind of music, mind you, but patriotic French TAIWANESE music. The kind which offends visiting Nazi CHINESE overlords:

On Tuesday night, when China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) was at a banquet hosted by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) honorary chairman Lien Chan (連戰) at the Ambassador Hotel in Taipei, a crowd of pro-Taiwan demonstrators staged a protest outside the venue.

[…]

A customer bought a CD titled Songs of Taiwan (台灣之歌) and asked [the store owner] to play it in the store. . .

But everybody is having such a good time . . .

“As the music was on, people started dancing right on the spot, and more people gathered. It was difficult even for me to go into my store,” Chang said.

All of a sudden, she said, police officers led by Taipei City’s Beitou Precinct chief Lee Han-ching (李漢卿) entered the store and asked them to turn off the music.

The crowd started protesting and confronted the police.

And so Major Strasser ordered the place to be closed. From an earlier report in the Taipei Times:

Footage from TV news stations showed the police forcing the store to switch off the music and pulling down the store’s metal shutters.

And what excuse did the Taiwanese police find? Unlike Captain Renault, they didn't need one. Because according to the country's new president, Ma Ying-jeou, the police ARE the law. To be obeyed without question. No matter how arbitrary or quixotic their whims might be.

(Maybe, if you're lucky, they'll condescend to giving you whatever excuse they find. Some time AFTER the fact.)

Exaggeration? The Taipei Times quotes Puppet President Ma:

. . . “commanding officers at the scene should be given full authority to decide how to maintain order, as only they understand what is happening.”

Nothing there about police being obligated to obey the law themselves. THAT might interfere with enforcement of Ma's illegal orders to confiscate Republic of China flags from ROC citizens on ROC soil.

Ma's doctoral thesis at Harvard Law School must have made for fascinating reading. I understand the title was, "When I Become President, The Cops Will Have Carte Blanche To Do Whatever I Damn Well Tell 'em To Do."

More complex Harvard legal theory from this erudite scholar:

. . . “If the police can’t make [the legal violation] clear at the scene, they should be able to explain to the media afterwards” . . .

Arrest first, find excuses later. Or in this case, close the shop down first, and accuse it of violating the Noise Control Act after the media calls them on it.

Noise Control Act? Are you kidding me? Two years ago, Ma Ying-jeou (then Taipei's mayor) not only tolerated, but ENCOURAGED the gathering of hordes of people protesting the former president. More than a few of which blew AIR HORNS in the middle of the city, at all hours of the night.

Police issued not a word ordering THEM to stop. But I guess some folks find shrieking air horns to be sweeter to the ear than Taiwanese anthems.

(Video of Shih Ming-teh protests against former Taiwanese president Chen Shui-bian from YouTube. Ma YIng-jeou himself makes appearances at 00:08, 02:39, 02:55 and 04:35.)

Now Ma is president, and he doesn't want an envoy from China to see ROC flags. Or hear Taiwanese patriotic songs.

Sure picked a funny time to start cracking down on NOISE POLLUTION.

UPDATE: An indirect quote from Taiwanese law enforcement regarding a related incident surrounding the Chinese negotiator's visit:

Another policeman said he was simply following orders.

He was only obeying orders? Never heard THAT one before . . .

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