JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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- Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) in Kanto region
- RCS (RCSコーポレーション), Kanto
- Salary: ¥180,000 ~ ¥250,000 / Month includes performance bonus
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- Assistant Language Teacher - TOKYO - late-March start
- Interac, Tokyo
- Salary: ¥230,000 ~ ¥255,000 / Month
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- Assistant Language Teacher - Kanagawa Prefecture - late-March start
- Interac, Kanagawa
- Salary: ¥230,000 ~ ¥255,000 / Month
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Triumvere
This is not justice. Justice does not look like this.
Posted in: China executes man for raping 14 schoolgirls
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Triumvere
You still haven't answered the fundamental quesion. Is one appeal sufficiant to acceptably guarantee guilt? Obviously you think it is, but you still haven't said why. Is it because of your inherent trust in the system, or do you feel that it's a tradeoff that needs to be made for the sake of the victims?
Posted in: China executes man for raping 14 schoolgirls
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Triumvere
It's not for those who "commit heinous crimes," it's for those who DON'T.
You are willing to shred civil protections to get at the bad guys and to give the victims solace, which I can sympathize with, but you give absolutely no thought to the possiblity of the innocent sufferin becuase of it. "No system is ever perfect" - indeed, but you are just using that as an excuse not to confront the problem.
I am reminded of that scene in A Man for All Seasons:
William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law! Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that! Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?
Posted in: China executes man for raping 14 schoolgirls
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Triumvere
TigermothII, sorry for the slow reply!
This is a very difficult question. Obviously, if one continues to refuse to comply with police, police will eventually have to force compliance, whether it be through unarmed force, baton, pepper spray, taser, less-lethal munitions, or lethal force. I'm reminded of one of those youtube taser videos where a cop tasers a fat lady for refusing to get out of her car (and stop talking on her cell phone) during a traffic stop. On one hand, it seems a brutal thing to do. The woman is not violent or threatening, just disrespectful and noncomplient. On the other hand, what else can the officer (who is alone) do if she refuses to respond to commands.
Context is key here, and officers need to be able to take this into account (or they shouldn't be officers - its a job with serious responsibilities).
Pepper spray, we can agree, is better than batons (such as were used on other UC campuses). But pepper spray point blank to the face, in the manner which it was used at Davis was not. Likewise, tasering the non-compliant may (depending on the situation) be appropriate, but tasering an individual 4 or 5 times in a row, with little to no chance given for recovery starts to look like sadism. Likewise, shooting an Iraq War vet in the face with a teargas canister at close range isn't good riot control.
So, when is pepper spray or taser appropriate? In my opinion, when ever there is active physical resistance. If someone becomes threatening, then tase away, as far as I'm concerned. Also, when unarmed force (physically grabbing and handcuffing people, for example) isn't feasible or poses to much risk to the officer. The fat lady from the previous example - while she isn't at all threatening, she out ways the office, is securely in her car (who knows what is in the glove compartment), and he has no back up.
Now, physical contact has it's risks, to both the officer and the target, and can often be more dangerous than spray or tasers. But it isn't always so. Tasers and other less-lethal weapons are more and more becoming the perfered method of dealing with the public, to be used at the slightest hint of noncompliance and with a dangerously cavalier attitude engendered by the perception that they are "non-lethal." Lt. Pike's point-blank assault on the UC Davis protesters tipifies this. As does the kneejerk reaction of the department, justify spray uses on the grounds of "the officers felt threatened" and "the suspects were forcibly resisting arrest." Never mind that the video of the incident show no such thing. It is standard police procedure now: anyone who was tased is automatically labeled as "threatening" and "resising arrest", in the same way any divers who are arrested are automatically "smelling of alchohol' (even if they haven't been anywhere near it), any car searched is "smelling of marijuana", and SWAT teams automatically shoot the family dogs as a matter of course, because they are always "threatening."
Take a look at the video of the pepper spray incident if you haven't already done so. The students are clearly resisiting arrest - a fundamental part of the civil disobedience strategy - but they are doing so entirely passively. Little attempt is made top hysically arrest them before the pepper spray comes out, and then the spray is used in a horrifyingly irresponsible manner. Now, factor in the context. These are students, individuals who have payed (or their families) to be at UC Davis, which is public property. They have every right to be there. And they are not merely being disruptive or disorderly, but are excersing their 1st Ammendment rights, which are guaranteed to them by the constitution and are fundamental to the essance of democracy. In this context, where was the imminent necessity to remove them? Obviously, at some point, protest such as these hinder the running of the university and the right for other students to get their educations, but where is that immediacy here? They aren't blocking transit on a public road or even occupying an admisnistative building. They are blocking a sidewalk, and can easily be walked around. Yet posters here would have you believe that they need to be immediately removed - from public property, where they have payed to be - because "the chancellor said so."
Really? Is that what it comes to? Defy authority and get maced? Break the rules and civil protections, rights Americans have fought and died for, no longer apply to you? Have we lost all sense of proportion, of justice?
I can readily understand the desire to maximize the safety of police officers. Normally, I am highly skeptical of "proportional force" as applied to self-defence. I don't believe you have a right to force people to take riskes that could end their life. However, the police are a special case. They take on a huge amount of responsibility when they choose to accept their positions, and are given an correspondingly huge amounts of power over their fellow citizens. They must be held to the highest standard. And while we should do what is in our power to protect police officers in the performance of their (hazardous and potentially lethal) duties, this protection cannot come at the cost of citzens lives. A police officer's life is not worth more than anyone else's, regardless of your personal opinions of the parties involved. Lt. Pike's actions at UC Davis could have easily resulted in one or more student deaths, and absolutely not be justified in any way by the circumstances.
I respect authority, and I value our police force, but it is imperitive that we do not give them a blank check.
Posted in: Calif college suspends police chief in pepper spray row
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Triumvere
Only, they didn't act like animals, did they? They acted like civil rights protestors. The performed civil disobedience - that is, they broke the law, but they did so entirely peacefully. The police were in the right in removing and arresting them. They were in the wrong with grossly negligent manner in which they did so.
Why do so many here seem to live in 10th century England, as if breaking a law suddenly places you outside the protection of the law? Resisting police, in their minds, instandtly negates all civil protections and allows, neigh, requires police to respond with brutality, apparently. That is what dirty hippies diserve, of course.
Indeed. And their are rules and laws concerning police behavior as well. Rules and laws which need to be constantly re-evaluated to make sure that they are just. What took place on UC Davis campus was not just (and I highly doubt it would even pass the low bar set by police operating procedure - but even if it did that is irrelevant.) Most critically, there are rules and laws protecting the citizenry of the United States - rules which are not negated by civil disobedience. The infractions of the police are orders of magnitude worse those of the protestors, but yet you ignore or even celebrate them.
UC Davis is public property, and the protesters are excersing their first ammendment rights guaranteed to them by the constitution. The gross authoritarianism, the total disregard for liberty here is disgusting.
Where are your priorities?
Posted in: Calif college suspends police chief in pepper spray row
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Triumvere
Provided, of course, that he committed the crime he was convicted of.
And what do defendants deserve, exactly? The book I am currently reading had a section on a man in the US who was convicted of child rape based, essentially, on the fact that he had red hair. (There was also some shoddy DNA work involved.) Spent half-a-dozen years in prison, where he was severely abused for being a child molestor (the fact we tolerate prison rape and other violence as some sort of justice mechanism is appalling) before it was proved conclusively that they guy had nothing to do with the crime.
How much do you trust your justice system? Think hard, because that could be you up in that chair someday.
Posted in: China executes man for raping 14 schoolgirls
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Triumvere
State-Immigration-Law-Supporters: You say you want to deal with illegal immigration, but I have trouble believing you. There reason is simple: there is a very easy way to stop illegal immigrants: target the businesses that employ them. But you don't do that. Instead you cook up half-baked laws that practically guarentee racial profiling and discrimination. And then you wonder why people think you are racist.
This isn't some side issue. This is the root of the problem. This is where you go if you want to solve it.
Look, we as a nation need to decide what sort of immigration we want. We haven't managed to do that. Significant segments of the economy depend migrant workers, who, being "illegal" are effectively denied the protection of the law. These people are being exploited just as much as they are exploiting the US taxpayer, and it is bad for everyone (save the businesses that profit off them).
To solve the illegal immigration problem you A) crack down on businesses employing illegal immigrants and B) secure the border (to the extent that this is possible). However, you are then left with the issue of what to do with the ones already here. You have three options:
1) Round them up an deport them 2) Set up paths to citizenship which will allow them to legal work, live and pay taxes, integrating them into the workforce 3)Wait for the crackdown on employers to dry up opportunities so they go home on ther own
... problem is that only two of these are viable options. You can't really round them up and deport them - there are too many, it's simply not practical. Yet this is the solution most "immigration warriors" are pushing. And not only is it ineffective (with collateral damage in terms of local economies and civil rights) on our end, but because you have not done the two prerequisites (sealing the border and cutting off employment opportunites) the same people you deport just come immediately right back.
So what we need to decide, as a nation, is whether we want these people here (legally - option #2) or whether we don't (option #3). I know "amenesty" is not popular with the right, (for a variety of reasons, ranging from principles of fairness and law-abiding, to fear about job competition to, yes (in some quarters) racism and xenophobia), but option two is probably the most practical. As I said previously, these people are an important part of the economy. This is the real reason that Washington, D & R, has done nothing to fix illegal immigration. (If you want to see what these state immigration laws can do to local economies, take a look at what is happenning in Alabama right now.) So we want these people to work, and to spend their money at local businesses, but we also want them to pay taxes, get health insurance, and report crimes to police when they are victims/witnesses. All this can be achieved through a path to citizenhip (or atleast residence) program. And I understand that this is unfair to people who are waiting in line for legal entrance papers, but it's a real world solution to a huge problem that avoids a lot of moral ugliness (families broken apart, children ripped from schools, communites busted up, etc...)
Your only other option is to choak off the supply of jobs through strict employer crackdowns and wait for the problem to slowly solve itself. But that's doing to take time, and it's going to be quite painful to local economies, businesses and communities. It also does nothing to deal with crime, tax, and health issues in the meantime.
Look, these people are here now, and we have to find a way to deal with them. They are real, genuine, functioning people (not "illegals" or "aliens", which makes them sound like some sort of easily dissmssable non-human entity) that live, work, and raise families here. Having to deal with real people is why states do seemingly absurd things, like issuing drivers licences to them or giving them public schooling and instate tuition rates. No, illegal immigrants should not have drivers licenses. But, ramping up inflammatory and discriminitory laws which are totaly ineffective and then pretending the ones that are already here essentially don't exist isn't an option.
Posted in: Justice Department sues Utah over immigration law
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Triumvere
True. Too bad the federal gov't as for so long shirked its responisbilitiies in this regard.
Posted in: Justice Department sues Utah over immigration law
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Triumvere
I'm a libertarian. You know what I think.
Posted in: Calif college suspends police chief in pepper spray row
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Triumvere
The gleeful applauding of the errosion of civil liberties here is horrendous. Apparently, if you don't like whatever group is protesting its perfectly ok to for the police to bash in some skulls. Would you feel the same way if this was a Tea Party protest? Police grade pepper spray, applied point blank to the eyes and mouth can be lethal. One student was coughing up blood for 45 min after the incident and had to be hospitalized. Another's hands were tied so tight he had potentially permanent nerve damage. This is not acceptable.
Look, I generally don't think much of protesters. Especially the hippies, weirdos, and lefty "professional protesters" that these sort of causes attract. But my personal distaste for someone does not negate their civil rights. (Never mind the fact that these were a bunch of fairly clean-cut college students and don't fit the above description at all...)
This is NOT ACCEPTABLE. Police using severe pain - in the form of pepper spray and tazer - to force compliance is NOT ACCEPTABLE. The standard police procedure is NOT ACCEPTABLE. The procedure needs to be changed. There is no such thing as a "non-leathal weapon", and police need to stop using these instruments on uncooperative but nonviolent individuals. As far as I'm concerend, this was PUNISHMENT: pain meted out for disrespect and noncompliance, and as such was UNCONSTITUTIONAL. You cannot be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment and you cannot be punished without due process.
Posted in: Calif college suspends police chief in pepper spray row
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Triumvere
Hey, guys. No offense meant or taken.
Posted in: Egypt cabinet resigns as deadly clashes rock Tahrir
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Triumvere
That is an absurd amount of money.
Posted in: Ex-Daio Paper chairman arrested for using billions of yen on gambling spree
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Triumvere
My general experience is that most people expect big changes (whether it be war, reconstruction, revolution, democratization, etc...) to happen much quicker then they actually do. If you don't share this delusion then go ahead and give yourself a pat on the back.
Posted in: Egypt cabinet resigns as deadly clashes rock Tahrir
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Triumvere
The revolution ain't over yet...
Posted in: Egypt cabinet resigns as deadly clashes rock Tahrir
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Triumvere
It will be interesting to see whether they will "untrigger" the trigger, thereby abdicating any and all fiscal responsability.
Posted in: Failure looms for U.S. debt talks
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Triumvere
Incredible!
Posted in: Crimson frame
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Triumvere
Assad is a monster. I couldn't care less about his religious leanings.
Posted in: Seif al-Islam Gadhafi captured in southern Libya
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Triumvere
It strikes me that this capture allows the new Lybian gov't to "have their cake and eat it too," as it were: Gadhafi was executed, avoiding any complications of having the dictator still alive, but they can put the former regime on trial (in the ICC if they like) through Seif.
Posted in: Seif al-Islam Gadhafi captured in southern Libya
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Triumvere
Debt is a funny thing. You can carry a lot of it, so long as you can convince others that you can eventually pay it back.
Posted in: Monti forms new Italian govt with no politicians
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Triumvere
That's a bit hyperbolic. It's a handful of dudes in a park who are being asked to leave so the park can be cleaned. Let's not make this into some sort of apocalyptic showdown. And, honestly, OWS has probably now squeeze out all the benefit that one could expect to get out of such a protest.. They are probably better off packing up now rather than risking further deterioration of the movement.
Posted in: Police clear New York protest square