Whenever I run into someone that feels the need to tell me about how they're going to some other country to combat human rights abuses, I think of a comment I left on a previous TLB post entitled, This American Attention Whore. My comment was meant to defend my assertion that the US is more of a police state than China despite China's reputation for executing more people every year than any other country in the world. What follows is a reproduction of my comment:
I'm reluctant to play number games because numbers are always so manipulatable... According to the US Department of Justice, in 2005 there were 3,254 people waiting to be executed in the U.S. of A. I'm not sure how anyone can say that more people have been executed under the compulsion of state in China than anywhere else in the world when those numbers have never been released by the Chinese government. People at best have estimates and those estimates range from 1,000 people in 3 months to 15,000 in a year. It all depends on which organization you're getting your numbers from or what renegade Chinese person has decided to badmouth his homeland because he or she has been wronged. The fact remains that the US has over 3,000 human beings locked away in a cell awaiting their deaths. If you're not one for the death penalty, then this number should appall you. If you are a proponent of the death penalty, and maybe you think it has a good deterrent effect, then maybe China is your kind of place and you think the US should pick up the pace. Apparently, China is more efficient than the US is about killing people sentenced to death, and it's obviously having the desired effect, which is less crime and less fear.
Of course, none of this changes the fact that the US still has more people in prison or jail than any other country in the world. The US also has more cops, more lawyers, and a very overworked and active judiciary. You say that's the price for security, and I query, "What security?" I can walk the streets of any Chinese city without fear and without worry that I'm going to be accosted or robbed. Yet, back in the U.S. of A. where we have more cops and supposedly more security, two people were shot dead two blocks from our law school just before spring semester ended. Don't remember? Check your Hastings email because the Dean sent out a letter explaining the situation and using it as a justification to maintain increased security on campus. My fellow law students are afraid to walk around the neighborhood at night. Is this the security that you're referring to in your comment? Because if it is, then I'll take the couple thousand executions in China as opposed to the hundreds of thousands that are imprisoned in the US.
And let us not forget to query who is China executing? People make statements like China executes more people than any other country and we're all supposed to put a tissue to our eye and think, "Thank god almighty I don't live in that heathen commie country!" The people being executed in China are not all saints, they are some bad dudes. For instance, one of the people executed in 2004 was a murderer and rapist. He murdered 67 people, and he would use hammers and meat cleavers to kill entire families. Now I know that in the US we might have put him in a cell right next to Charlie Manson and we would have all pondered the horrors of his bad deeds and every couple of years we'd send in a journalist to find out how he is doing and make sure he is getting enough bologna sandwiches. However, that shit does not fly in China, the Chinese killed his murdering ass. If you want to cry about it, well, it's a free country, go ahead-- hell, they would even let you cry about it in China.
I also noticed you threw out a bunch of fancy lawyer speak about the US Constitution. Last time I checked, which was pretty recently, China also has a Constitution and they also have a judiciary. Hell, they even let people appeal their death sentence now. As Americans, what we need to keep in mind is that we grew up in a country that has seriously hated anything having to do with communism for a long time. Not to mention, we blame the Chinese for a few blemishes on our national pride. Take for instance a little incident we call the Korean War and the Chinese call the Repulsion of the American Aggressors. We also shouldn't forget that the Soviets and the Chinese made our job in a place called Vietnam practically impossible.
We're prejudice. Frankly, Americans think they have it all right and the rest of the world is wrong, and Americans believe their way of life is so right that they even go out of their way to help these less fortunate people that have to live in these horrible places like China. Back in America, they try to drum up support for their causes by printing wild stories about thousands upon thousands of people being executed when in actuality they have no hard data. Why do they do this? I don't know. They got tired of watching American Idol and suddenly they decided they were going to help other people. The problem is that Americans fail to realize that not everyone in the world wants to live like they do. Not all the women in the world want to wear pants and have a career. Not all of the governments in the world believe that freedom comes from imprisoning a large portion of society. As shocking as it may seem, many people in the world prefer to squat rather than sit on a porcelain bowl.
Read once more what Sheehan said in her resignation. Sheehan is a woman that did all she could to stop the American war machine, to free us from the police state, and she was pushed down from every side until she was broken. The powers that be in the US-- republican, democrat, liberal, conservative-- let me make it easy, the people who are making the most money (we're all making money off it) from the war machine, the police state, the military industrial complex-- did not want her to succeed. None of us wanted her to succeed because none of us truly want the system to change. We like our jobs and we like our toys and we like our status and it comes from war. Change the system? We are the system. Change it from within? How? We were raised in the system. All we know is the system. Without the system we're lost. Destroying the system for us is tantamount to suicide. To fix the system we would have to collectively reformat our minds, wipe the slate clean, but then who would reprogram us? You can drop-out as an individual but you'll never be able to think outside the parameters of your American upbringing. It will always taint your every thought and motive.
Freaked out yet?
In his "Military Industrial Complex" speech, President Eisenhower said, "This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."
Ponder whether unwarranted influence has taken acquisition of the government. Consider whether we take things for granted; whether misplaced power exists and persists; and whether the American citizenry is alert and knowledgeable. Then tell me whether our methods are peaceful and if peaceful methods are being used to fulfill our goals. Tell me whether we have failed President Eisenhower or if he somehow failed us. Tell me whether the military industrial enterprise could have had any other outcome. Then, and only then, will I even begin to ponder whether the Chinese should or should not execute murderers and rapists in their own country.
Travis,
I think police state is a strong phrase. Forgive me for commenting on two blogs in one day and invoking Hayek in both, but a police state seems to be something that can really only exist under an authoritarian regime where the Rule of Law has dissipated, not to meaninglessness because some people breaking the Rule of Law are still being punished, but dissipated nonetheless. Police states are those places where you can be arrested at any moment for any infraction because just about any action can be construed as illegal. We are not to that point in the US, yet. There is still a high level of legal certainty and knowledge of when you are breaking the law in the US.
Ambiguous authorizations of Executive power such as military tribunals and wiretapping push us toward this police state, but we are not there yet. Your reader said that we have greater security, but that is completely false. I too felt much safer walking the streets of a Chinese city than an American one. The price that must be paid for freedom is security. Americans must realize that security is not worth the sacrifice of freedom. Sorry for the cliche, but this cliche holds great truth.
Fancy lawyer speak about the individual rights amendments of the US Constitution is silly because just about every country in the world, exempting England and her former colonies, Australia and New Zealand, have real nice sounding individual rights portions of their constitutions. What does separate the US Constitution from places like China is the separation of powers. Madison and Hamilton were actually confused as to why the US needed individual rights amendments because they thought separation of powers would guarantee individual rights. China cannot claim to have a true separation of powers because all branches fall squarely under Party control.
The freedom from a police state by separation of powers will hold true in the US, but only as long as the Legislature and Judiciary serve their function and push back against the Executive. Fortunately, we have seen push back against the Executive by Scalia in the Hamdi and Hamdan decisions. We shall see if Congress will have the balls to weaken the Executive, and if the next Executive will have the fortitude to reduce his/her power. Hopefully this trend towards the dissipation of the Rule of Law in the US will reverse.
Posted by: William Lewis | September 24, 2007 at 01:47 PM
William Lewis,
After re-reading your comment, which I truly appreciate, I can't help but think of Thomas Hobbes and his book Leviathan. Perhaps our streets would be safer and we would have all of the security if we lived under a monarchy similar to China's system of government. However, I don't really mind the chaos of the American streets. I think it's a symbol of our freedom. Plus, my blog is blocked in China, and the free exchange of information is something that I obviously support.
Does our freedom depend on the separation of powers and the checks and balances that each branch is supposed to impose upon the other? I agree with you in theory that it does. On the other hand, this idea makes me think of Kurt Vonnegut's book Slapstick, which views each profession (and everything in between) as forming little cliques that can be analogized to families. He argues what is more natural than working for the benefit of your family before anyone else. In this idea, those that are in representative government will do what is best for their family before they act in the interest of those people they're supposed to be representing. It's food for thought. I acknowledge that every form of government is going to be inherently flawed, and I'm quite taken with the US's form of government, but that doesn't mean there isn't a new evolution waiting in the wings. Some people have been arguing for the introduction of a fourth branch of government, viz. a popular branch of government that is made up of random people from the citizenry. That would certainly expand the family of the current government.
Thanks for participating in our forum, Mr. Lewis. I certainly enjoy your comments. Even if it does take me a month to respond to your comment.
Posted by: Travis | October 19, 2007 at 10:40 AM