Unlike China- Why You Want a Democracy and Individual Rights

[Huntn]

...and just think, this is who our corporations gladly trade with!! What is wrong with this picture?

Newsweek: China's Growing Pains

On jan. 7, Meng Jianzhu, the recently appointed head of the Communist Party’s Central Politics and Law Commission, made a historic announcement. He informed a legal conference that Mao Zedong’s loathed “reeducation through labor” system, known as laojiao, would be scrapped as soon as the National People’s Congress stamps the reform this March.

Mao thought up laojiao back in 1957—as a way to get rid of his enemies. Police can pick up people and send them without formal charge, legal representation, or trial for up to four years of detention with hard labor. The system serves as a method for “disappearing” into grim labor camps any inconvenient Chinese citizens, prostitutes, petitioners against injustice, members of sects such as Falun Gong, and—in a notorious recent case—a mother demanding heavier sentences for the gang who raped her 11-year-old daughter and sold her into prostitution (the woman was later released). More than 150,000 Chinese suffer in this extralegal hell. No single reform would be more effective for a better China than its abolition.

Yet within hours, Meng’s statement, unmistakable in the official transcript of the meeting, had been “rephrased” in the official media: on the agenda was reform, not termination. Reform could merely lay a veneer of legality over the previously extralegal system. Already, a controversial new law, Article 73, specifically authorizes secret detention of people suspected of crimes related to state security, terrorism, or serious corruption. In what is believed to be the first Article 73 arrest, only hours after Meng spoke, police hauled off a man for daring to question the suspicious death of an activist.

[niuniu]

Secret services, detention without trial, withholding evidence from defense teams.

We got all that in the UK. Plus torture.

But it's a 'democracy', so everybody feel warm n fuzzy again.

[Huntn]

Originally Posted by niuniu

Secret services, detention without trial, withholding evidence from defense teams.

We got all that in the UK. Plus torture.

But it's a 'democracy', so everybody feel warm n fuzzy again.

Notice I included "individual rights" in my title.

[niuniu]

Originally Posted by Huntn

Notice I included "individual rights" in my title.

Fine..

But it's a 'democracy', and we got 'individual rights', so everybody feel warm n fuzzy again.

Edit: Decent blog about some of the realities behind our UK justice system, written by barristers and a QC
http://ukhumanrightsblog.com/2011/10...n-the-horizon/

[VulchR]

The UK does not punish prisoners with hard labor. Have a sense of perspective.... I'd far rather live in the UK than PRC, and frankly many of the Chinese students I teach express no interest whatsoever in returning to the PRC.

[niuniu]

Originally Posted by VulchR

The UK does not punish prisoners with hard labor. Have a sense of perspective.... I'd fair rather live in the UK than PRC, and frankly many of the Chinese students I teach express no interest whatsoever in returning to the PRC.

"Article 73, specifically authorizes secret detention of people suspected of crimes related to state security, terrorism, or serious corruption"

Have a shot at comprehension before you throw words like 'perspective' around.

[VulchR]

Originally Posted by niuniu

"Article 73, specifically authorizes secret detention of people suspected of crimes related to state security, terrorism, or serious corruption"

Have a shot at comprehension before you throw words like 'perspective' around.

Confinement is not hard labor. If you really think there is no difference, the I recommend you listen to 'Holiday in Cambodia' by the Dead Kennedys.

[niuniu]

Originally Posted by VulchR

Confinement is not hard labor. If you really think there is no difference, the I recommend you listen to 'Holiday in Cambodia' by the Dead Kennedys.

It's a song I'd overplayed in my teenage years, as do most Brits. Is it on the US's torture playlist, or do you still loop Barney the dinosaur in Guantanamo?

In any case I didn't learn global rules on penal labour from it, and neither did you. The US still use penal labour in the military, and your beloved Constitution allows for it.

None of this excuses secret courts, secret evidence and detention without trial.

[VulchR]

Originally Posted by niuniu

It's a song I'd overplayed in my teenage years, as do most Brits....

So I take it that you agree forced labor is worse than detention, which was rather my point. As for the rest, I'll stop posting now for I have no doubt this is becoming tedious to other forum members. Have a nice day.

[niuniu]

Originally Posted by VulchR

So I take it that you agree forced labor is worse than detention, which was rather my point. As for the rest, I'll stop posting now for I have no doubt this is becoming tedious to other forum members. Have a nice day.

If it was a competition about what's worse, then yes, torture would be worse than penal labour.

What has that got to do with anything. You come off with some of the most bizarre guff. You need to get pulled up on it more often.

We're both in Scotland, and it's 11.15. You can cut the HAND rubbish.

[iMikeT]

Originally Posted by niuniu

Secret services, detention without trial, withholding evidence from defense teams.

We got all that in the UK. Plus torture.

But it's a 'democracy', so everybody feel warm n fuzzy again.

Originally Posted by niuniu

Fine..

But it's a 'democracy', and we got 'individual rights', so everybody feel warm n fuzzy again.

We pretty much have all of these now in the USA. On top of that, it's indefinite detention without a trial, drones hovering over our own airspace and spying on its own citizens, no privacy because all of our online activities are tapped and given to big brother upon request, we can no longer protest our government peacefully (protesters actually being branded as "terrorists"), complete disregard of our basic rights guaranteed to us by our constitution due to the so-called "Patriot Act", and drone strikes on US citizens abroad on foreign nations' soil.

[Happybunny]

I think that this Quote from Winston Churchill says it best.
"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."

[Peterkro]

"In the case of a word like DEMOCRACY, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of régime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different".
-George Orwell, Politics and the English Language
The DPRK and the DDR being two obvious examples although in my opinion neither the U.K. or the U.S. are democracies.

The full quote of Churchill's is:

We accept in the fullest sense of the word the settled and persistent will of the people. All this idea of a group of supermen and super-planners, such as we see before us, “playing the angel,” as the French call it, and making the masses of the people do what they think is good for them, without any check or correction, is a violation of democracy. Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time; but there is the broad feeling in our country that the people should rule, continuously rule, and that public opinion, expressed by all constitutional means, should shape, guide, and control the actions of Ministers who are their servants and not their masters.

He said it as leader of the opposition in 1947 during an attempt to foil an attempt by the then Labour government to rein in the power of the very undemocratic House of Lords,it would be a mistake to think Churchill was a supporter of actual "democracy".

He is also alleged to have said "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter"

[92jlee]

Not quite the same but I was recently arrested for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. They stole my camera, bruised my wrists, lied to me, didn't call my partner ( said I gave them the wrong number when in fact I don't know my house number so read it aloud from my phone)
I'm going through the process of complaining to the independent police commissioner but they all protect each other.

[sim667]

Originally Posted by niuniu

Fine..

But it's a 'democracy', and we got 'individual rights', so everybody feel warm n fuzzy again.

Edit: Decent blog about some of the realities behind our UK justice system, written by barristers and a QC
http://ukhumanrightsblog.com/2011/10...n-the-horizon/

Lets not forget about the security and justice bill

http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/n...e-justice-bill

[citizenzen]

Originally Posted by Huntn

What is wrong with this picture?

That you look at the speck of sawdust in China's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye ...

U.S. prison population dwarfs that of other nations
By Adam Liptak
Wednesday, April 23, 2008

The United States has less than 5 percent of the world's population. But it has almost a quarter of the world's prisoners.

Indeed, the United States leads the world in producing prisoners, a reflection of a relatively recent and now entirely distinctive American approach to crime and punishment. Americans are locked up for crimes — from writing bad checks to using drugs — that would rarely produce prison sentences in other countries. And in particular they are kept incarcerated far longer than prisoners in other nations.

Criminologists and legal scholars in other industrialized nations say they are mystified and appalled by the number and length of American prison sentences.

The United States has, for instance, 2.3 million criminals behind bars, more than any other nation, according to data maintained by the International Center for Prison Studies at King's College London.

China, which is four times more populous than the United States, is a distant second, with 1.6 million people in prison. (That number excludes hundreds of thousands of people held in administrative detention, most of them in China's extrajudicial system of re-education through labor, which often singles out political activists who have not committed crimes.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/wo...pagewanted=all

List of countries by incarceration rate
Prisoners per 100,000 population

#1. United States — 730
.
.
.
#123. China — 120-170

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...rceration_rate

[Huntn]

Originally Posted by citizenzen

That you look at the speck of sawdust in China's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye ...

I don't ignore it. Legal systems are all imperfect. The U.S has an atrocious record when it comes to imprisonment based on drug usage. But there is a stated standard and having a trial by jury is better than disappearing in the night is it not?

[citizenzen]

Originally Posted by Huntn

I don't ignore it. Legal systems are all imperfect. The U.S has an atrocious record when it comes to imprisonment based on drug usage. But there is a stated standard and having a trial by jury is better than disappearing in the night is it not?

Your quote said they were working to reform the system.

Is that not a positive step?

I just have a difficult time hammering the Chinese.

I'm not empowered to change their system.

I am empowered to help change mine.

[jnpy!$4g3cwk]

Originally Posted by citizenzen

That you look at the speck of sawdust in China's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye ...

I hate to break it to you, but, it is more like a lump of coal in China's eye.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newswee...bor-pains.html

I heard an interesting theory on the radio today about the persistence of the labor camps. Quite a few higher-up politicians would like to shut down the camps now, but, the police themselves are resisting it because the threat of being sent to camp tends to make people very reluctant to openly criticize the police in any way.

----------

Originally Posted by citizenzen

I just have a difficult time hammering the Chinese.

I'm not empowered to change their system.

I am empowered to help change mine.

"The salvation of mankind lies only in making everything the concern of all." -- Solzhenitsyn