Dear God.

[moonwise]

I've read through this article a few times now and I'm still appalled.

China executes bank staff for fraud

Quote:

Legal experts have proposed what they call a "kill fewer, kill carefully" policy for nonviolent crimes.

Comments

[jaina.livejournal.com]

"WTF" does not even BEGIN to cover it.

[little-licks.livejournal.com]

Strangely enough, I don't really see a problem with this instance of execution - because I know what the average Chinese person makes and what their living conditions are. They actually got off easy with the executions - Chinese prinsons are nightmare-ish on a gulag scale and they would have been fucking torn to shreds on the streets had they been simply let go.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

Be that as it may, it irks me that the US comes under fire from other nations for executing convicted murderers, and the Chinese execute people en masse and somehow this is not as much of a finger-pointing issue because China's such a huge market.

You would know far better than I on this subject, though - those are just my uninformed opinions.

[little-licks.livejournal.com]

I blame it largely on Clinton. He talked all tough about linking human rights to MFN trade status and then totally wussed out. The Chinese (and a large part of the world) have never taken us seriously since then.

As for other nations waving their fingers at us, I look at that it this way: blah blah blah, blah blah blah. "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." Come preach at me with your nation is lily-white-pure with a quality-of-life rating like America's (not that we're perfect, but we're trying), and then maybe I'll listen. Until then, it's just "blah blah blah.:

[irenak.livejournal.com]

Devil's advocate:

Actually, most of the criticism for our death penalty comes from Canada and Europe, which do have comparable developement and quality of life. So, there is some legitimacy to their complaints (and it's not like we aren't going to follow in their footsteps, anyway - we always do, it just takes us a few decades longer).

Still, for all my serious complaints about the States, articles like this remind me that there are worse places to be.

[little-licks.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but they sure ain't lily-white, are they? ;)

Funny enough - a friend of mine spent a year in a small city in the middle of China. When he came back (early this year), he was full of righteous piss at anyone who had anything bad to say about living in the US. Without getting into the expletives, he effectively said that they had no idea what it actually meant to live in poverty, filth, and corruption if they were being suckled by the relative luxury in America. It's not to say he became an ultra-right-winger - but it was kinda funny to see him become so passionate about how good we have it here.