Full event: http://www.cato.org/events/tragedy-liberation-history-chinese-revolution-1945-1957 Featuring the author Frank Dikötter, Chair Professor of Humanities, University of Hong Kong; with comments by Harry Wu, Founder, Laogai Research Foundation; moderated by Marian L. Tupy, Policy Analyst, Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, Cato Institute. Purchase Book Following a bloody civil war and the defeat of Chiang Kai-shek in 1949, Mao Zedong hoisted the red flag over Beijing's Forbidden City. Due to the secrecy surrounding the country's records, little has been known about the early years of the communist rule. Drawing on previously classified documents, secret police reports, and eyewitness accounts, Dikötter bears witness to a shocking, largely untold history. People of all walks of life were brutalized, imprisoned, and executed. Others were forced to write confessions and denounce their friends. "The Chinese Communist party refers to its victory in 1949 as 'liberation,'" Dikötter writes. "In China the story of liberation and the revolution that followed is not one of peace, liberty, and justice. It is first and foremost a story of calculated terror and systematic violence." Harry Wu, a human rights advocate who saw the communist takeover and later spent 19 years in various Chinese forced-labor camps, will comment on the book and life under Mao's tyrannical regime. Video produced by Blair Gwaltney. ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72ZhbWddbEs

A common argument for intervening abroad is to alleviate potential or existing human suffering. Repeatedly, however, state-led humanitarian efforts have failed miserably. Why do well-funded, expertly staffed, and well-intentioned humanitarian actions often fall short of achieving their desired outcomes, leaving some of the people they intended to help worse off? Why are well-meaning countries unable to replicate individual instances of success consistently across cases of human suffering? Using the tools of economics, Dr. Christopher Coyne's new book, Doing Bad by Doing Good: Why Humanitarian Action Fails, shifts the discussion from the moral imperative of how governments should behave to a positive analysis of how they actually do. Coyne examines the limits of short-term humanitarian aid and long-term development assistance, the disconnect between intentions and reality, and why economic freedom—protection of property rights, private means of production, and free trade of labor and goods—provides the best means for minimizing human suffering. Video produced by Caleb O. Brown and Austin Bragg. ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONXv83N1Yl8

http://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=8798 The Winter 2012 issue of Cato Journal was devoted to the critical question of "Is Immigration Good for America?" In conjunction with its publication, we are pleased to present this special Conference, featuring presentations by many of the national experts who contributed to the publication, along with addresses by other key figures in the immigration debate. We are a nation peopled almost exclusively by immigrants or those who are descended from immigrants. More than any other major nation, we are defined by our immigrant past, present, and future. Yet there are significant incongruities between the immigration system we currently have and the one that would best serve our economic interests and our ideals as a free society. Zoe Lofgren is a Democratic congresswoman from California. ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E384lDPsduk

Jeb Bush and Clint Bolick argue in their new book that the three broad components of immigration reform — better immigration enforcement, a lawful pathway for future migrants, and the legalization of current unauthorized immigrants — must work together to produce a viable immigration policy. Video produced by Caleb O. Brown and Blair Gwaltney. ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5_LqJ1rkY4