| | News on China (vs. the U.S.):
First, China:
From the L.A. Times, March 5, 2007, a front page article continues on page 4 regarding China's "reeducation" system. As the half page article details, over 200,000 Chinese are currently serving time for such crimes as having the wrong name, annoying someone in power, trying to sue the wrong party, going after the wrong girl, or running afoul of a cop just after he's had a fight with his wife.
The China-wide system allows the police to incarcerate and use for slave labor anyone they choose, at any time, without a judge or jury or appeal process, theoretically for a maximum of four years. However, as one unfortunate victim found out when he tried to sue the authorities after one three year sentence, they can throw you right back in for another term.
Even though this "laojiao" system, which has been in place for decades, is completely illegal under the Chinese constitution, the police are so powerful, and so much graft money is tied up in blackmailing families of prisoners, who get a piece of bread per day to eat and are mercilessly beaten on a daily basis unless someone outside pays the police to stop, that the political will has never been there to outlaw the system.
On the same page 4, the top half of the page was devoted to "China announces military budget hike." It is estimated that the real Chinese military budget is currently running at as much as 200 billion dollars, almost half of that of the U.S., excluding the direct expenses of the Iraq war.
On NPR's "This I believe" earlier this week, a former Chinese national stated that his belief is that people are inherently brutal, based on his experience living in China.
Now, the U.S.:
Yes, people,, similar things happen in the U.S. I personally rescued several people from certain police brutality as a cab driver part time in the mid-80's in the OC, simply by refusing to leave the scene, on the grounds that I had a legitimate business relationship with the victim - being their cabbie.
It was typical for the Santa Ana cops, especially, to beat up anyone who annoyed them, and you could assume that half of any valuables or money would disappear from lockup by the time you were released. And, heaven forfend being caught on the Santa Ana streets late at night "walking while black."
In theory, a person is deemed innocent under U.S. law until convicted of a crime. In practice, "innocent" arrestees are treated like vermin and virtually any kind of abuse, including murder or rape, are tolerated in American jails.
In theory, in the U.S., the cops must have probable cause to believe that the arrestee actually commited a crime to make an arrest. In fact, it is common to plant evidence, especially drugs, or to arrest a travelling salesman, for example, who can't afford to wait for a trial, and then plea bargain to a minor charge in order to get a confession to a string of local burglaries. Even tho the guy may not even have been in the state when the crimes were committed, he confesses to get out of jail and survive economically, while the police then write up "crime solved" on the burglaries.
In theory, any person in the U.S. - and not just citizens, BTW - must be given a speedy trial or released, as guaranteed by the Constitution. In practice, low income and minority arrestees are intimidated into waiving that right, or assigned a public defender who has 500 other cases on his desk, who waives it for the defendant, and then forgets about them, or simply pleads guilty for them without their agreement.
Thousands of such people have spent years in jail, having never been tried, much less convicted of any actual crime. Their "attorney" simply doesn't return calls, and they are typically illiterate or mentally deficient enough to be unable to make any headway on their own. So they sit and rot for five years - or more - for a charge that would have produced a $50 fine, if it ever went to court.
The U.S. also has a higher percentage - and a higher actual count - of its population in prison than any other country in the world, including even China! (Although, China executes a lot more... However, a LOT of people die in U.S. prisons or later from having contracted AIDS or hepatitus from being raped in prison.)
Chinese authorities routinely sieze land from farmers without compensation to be used by whatever developer has offered them the best bribe.
In the U.S., the Supreme Court upheld the right of cities to use eminent domain to sieze private property for commercial use.
The differences are of degree, not kind, and the only real advantage the U.S. has is its Western heritege of objectivity. One of the victims of the laojiao is quoted as follows:
"They can five you several years at the stroke of a pen, or decide to beat you if they had a bad fight with their wife, and that's it. In a word, we need human rights. Without human rights, we have nothing."
And the form of his statement itself illustrates the exact problem facing China. He doesn't NEED human rights. He already has them. Human rights are inherent in being a human being. As the U.S. under Bush moves steadily toward a position - as exemplified by its attitude and behavior toware foreign nationals - that rights are granted to people by states, let us hope and work toward a philosophical revolution in China that brings the realization that states should only exist to promote the preexisting human rights (if then - speaking as an anarchist), not the other way around.
Of course, without objectivity, rights are impossible to define and the whole concept dissolves. Lacking objectivity, one has to turn to power.
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