Chinese Police Officer in Action

October 2, 2012

One summer while we were in Beijing, a friend of my wife told us about an incident her neighbor was involved in.  The neighbor was a single man in his forties. His former girl friend was in her early twenties, who called the police from his apartment.

“He raped me. Arrest and punish him,” she said to the officer. The neighbors crowded the hall outside the open door to witness what was happening. The officer heard both sides. There was no rape. It turned out that the woman had discovered he had two other girlfriends.

“He asked me to strip,” she said. “He is corrupt.”

The officer studied her and then the man—the woman was taller and twenty pounds heavier. “You have legs. You could leave. But you stripped. Is that correct?”


Chinese Police in court with a Murder Suspect

There was the sound of laugher from the hallway audience. My wife’s friend was one of them.

The soon-to-be former girl friend nodded.

“No laws have been broken,” the police officer said. “He is a single man and can date anyone he likes. You could have said no. If you feel that you have been abused, there’s a woman’s organization that will help you. Do you want the phone number?”

“I already went to them. They won’t punish him either.”

The officer shook his head. “You will never come to this apartment again,” the officer said, as he wrote his verdict in a notebook.

China’s police do not have to read a suspected criminal his or her Miranda rights. In China, the police have more power. We often hear about China’s human rights violations. Read China’s response in China chides U.S. on rights record.

Maybe that difference helps explain why the United States has a prison population of 743 for each 100,000 of national population (total of 2,293,133) and China has 122 per 100,000 (1,650,000). The only country close to the United States is the Russian Federation with 568 in prison of each 100,000.

Discover more about China’s Legal system or learn about Tom Carter’s first-hand experience with Crime in China.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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1 Comment | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese men, Chinese police, Chinese women, legal system | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Older than the New Testament

September 10, 2012

A conservative, born-again Christian friend once said that Communism was evil and that China needed a proper legal system. Since China already has a legal system, what did he mean? I’ve known this individual for decades, and I’m sure he meant that China should have a legal system like the one in America or the U.K. After all, he claims scripture guides his life and the Christian Bible has been around for centuries proving it comes from God. There is no other choice.

The problem with that logic is Confucius walked the earth long before Christ, and the New Testament didn’t exist for centuries after Christ was gone. What Confucius taught has been around longer.

What about China’s legal system?

The highest agency in China is the Supreme People’s Procuratorate. This agency is responsible for both prosecution and investigation in the People’s Republic of China. Similar institutions influence the office of the Procurator in the Socialist legal system. Its direct predecessor in China is the Supreme Court of the Republic of China, which in turn is descended from the Procuratorial Office of the late Qing Dynasty.

The Chinese legal system may have been broken during Mao’s Cultural Revolution but not any longer. It also appears that China’s legal system is an organic institution capable of change as seen in this piece from the Dui Hua Human Rights Journal.

Discover a Chinese Police Officer in Action

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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Leave a Comment » | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, Confucianism, crime, cultural differences, legal system | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Greed is Universal – a human trait

August 21, 2012

It appears from what I have read in the media and a few comments I’ve received on this Blog that many believe the Chinese are the emperors of greed, but they aren’t.

In fact, greed is everywhere—even in the United States.

For example, ABC’s Good Morning America reported, “Phantom Debt Collectors From India Harass Americans, Demand Money.”

GMA reported, “Hundreds of thousands of cash-strapped Americans have been targeted by abusive debt collectors operating out of overseas call centers suspected of links to organized crime in India, law enforcement officials told ABC News.”

Working through call centers in India, the commission estimates that the criminals have dialed at least 2.5 million calls, persuading already cash-strapped victims to send them more than $5 million

In another example, we learn about A New Crime Wave of Identity Theft: Is Your Child in Danger.

“It’s undetected and undetectable. They’ll use your child’s Social Security number with a different name and a different birth date,” In the last three years, there have been 57,000 cases of child identity theft reported to the Federal Trade Commission. A new report from All Clear ID estimates that one in 10 U.S. children are victims.

“Olivia McNamara was starting her freshman year at Vanderbilt University when she applied for her first credit card. After being rejected twice, she did some digging and found that someone had stolen her identity and had run up massive debt – to the tune of $1.5 million. when she was 9. Someone had stolen her Social Security number and set up false identities and more than 42 accounts. All of them had defaulted.”

Then in June 2012, the AARP Bulletin reported (on page 20), Locked out of Luck by Sid Kirchheimer. The piece said, “The overwhelming majority of locksmiths with an 800 phone number are not legitimate … In reality, the pro arrives in a van with no fixed address and a scam in mind. … The work is faulty plus expensive—often $1,000 or more, and demanded in cash.”

AARP even has a book out by fraud expert Doug Shadel, Outsmarting the Scam Artist. Shadel and a team of scientists interviewed thousands of victims and dozens of scam artists who revealed their trade secrets.

The Federal Trade Commission warns, “Consumer frauds pose a threat to consumers and the economy. Even the most wary and sophisticated consumers may fall victim to fraudulent offers – in the mail, in the media, and on the Internet.”

The FTC report stated that in the year prior to the survey the number of victims of the most common types of consumer fraud reached almost 36 million with 53 million incidents.

In fact, in 2010, the Better Business Bureau reported, “$2.9 trillion is lost to fraud annually.” In a decade that adds up to $29 trillion or more than twice the National Federal debt.

So, next time you read in the media or in a Blog that China is filled with crooks and corruption, remember that China is not alone.

Discover the facts about Riots

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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The Illusion of Freedom – Part 4/4

May 10, 2012

The McCarthy era started in the late 1940s and lasted to the late 1950s.

It is difficult to estimate the number of victims of McCarthyism. The number imprisoned is in the hundreds, and some ten or twelve thousand lost their jobs. In many cases simply being subpoenaed by HUAC or one of the other committees was sufficient cause to be fired. Many of those who were imprisoned, lost their jobs or were questioned by committees did in fact have a past or present connection of some kind with the Communist Party.

However, for the vast majority, both the potential for them to do harm to the nation and the nature of their communist affiliation were tenuous. Suspected homosexuality was also a common cause for being targeted by McCarthyism. The hunt for ‘sexual perverts’, who were presumed to be subversive by nature, resulted in thousands being harassed and denied employment.


HBO Documentary of Freedom of Speech in five parts – Part 4

In fact, in 1954, a Gallup poll found that 50% of the American public supported McCarthy, while only 29% had an unfavorable opinion of the senator. In addition, Earl Warren, the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, said that if the US Bill of Rights had been put to a vote it probably would have been defeated.

McCarthy bullied, threatened and abused witnesses while he accused them of Communist sympathies. However, in the late 1950s, public opinion turned against McCarthy.  He was forced out of public life and died several years later an alcoholic.

Then there is sedition—another restriction on so-called freedom of speech in the US.

In July 1798, Congress passed and the President signed, the Sedition Act – a bill that made it a crime to speak or write anything against the government. A person charged under the Sedition Act was subject to a maximum of two years in prison and a $2,000 fine. The 1798 Sedition Act would be repealed in 1801. However, after the US entered World War I, President Woodrow Wilson signed into federal law the Sedition Act of 1918.  The law made it illegal to speak out against the government, the war or to discourage anyone from enlisting in the military.

By the time the law was repealed in 1920, more than 2,000 people had been prosecuted.


HBO Documentary of Freedom of Speech in five parts – Part 5

According to Cornell University Law School, today, federal law says, “Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.”

What do you consider freedom and does it really exist?

Return to  The Illusion of Freedom – Part 3 or start with Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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2 Comments | America, American culture, China, Chinese Culture, Communism, cultural differences, democracy, legal system, media, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The Illusion of Freedom – Part 2/4

May 8, 2012

Years ago, I was having dinner in a restaurant in Westwood, California and witnessed a grimy homeless person across the street rummaging in a trash can. He found a Styrofoam container full of food and was so happy to have something to eat that he found a shady spot under a tree and rolled around on some cool grass before he started eating the found food. Freedom to him may have been having no job, not paying taxes, and not having to worry about a mortgage or rent. I’ve met homeless people that claim this is the reason they stay homeless—for the abstract sense of freedom it brings.

The last element that led me to write this series of posts was an e-mail a friend sent with a link to Carolina Journal Online.com, which reported that “State Threatens to Shut Down Nutrition Blogger.”

It seems that Steve Cooksey, an American citizen, took advantage of what he believed were his freedom of speech rights in North Carolina and blogged about beating diabetes through diet and exercise.

However, now he may face up to 120 days in jail, because in North Carolina, it is a misdemeanor to “practice dietetics or nutrition” without a license. According to the law, “practicing” nutrition includes “assessing the nutritional needs of individuals and groups” and “providing nutrition counseling,” which it seems Cooksey may have done with his Blog.

In addition, it is illegal to use the word “cure” in the United States unless the F.D.A. gives you permission.


HBO Documentary of Freedom of Speech in five parts – Part 2

“Just talking about curing an illness is literally a criminal offense, because only the F.D.A. can grant permission to use the word ‘cure’, since this word supposedly constitutes making a “medical claim”, and F.D.A. contends that anything producing a positive health effect is automatically a (“unapproved”) drug, under their regulation. This is not a hypothetical risk either. There are doctors and laymen in prison now for curing diseases.” Source: The Health Wyze Report

Freedom Forum.org asks and the answers, Does the (US) First Amendment mean anyone can say anything at any time and the answer is “NO” because the US Supreme Court rejected an interpretation of speech without limits.

Over the years, the courts decided that a few other public interests—for example, national security, justice or personal safety—override freedom of speech.

In fact, the US First Amendment does not protect statements that are uttered to provoke violence or incite illegal action, and jurisdictions may write statutes to punish verbal acts if the statutes are “carefully drawn so as not unduly to impair liberty of expression”.

If the US can restrict freedom of speech in the national interest, why can’t China? When China locks up someone, such as Chen Guangcheng, a blind Chinese Activist, China’s government may feel that what he is saying publicly might provoke violence or incite illegal actions.

To learn more about Chen Guangcheng and the alleged accusations made against China in his case, see NPR’s Blind Chinese Activist Reported Under U.S. Protection.

What do you consider freedom and does it really exist?

Continued on May 9, 2012 in  The Illusion of Freedom – Part 3 or return to Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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3 Comments | America, American culture, China, Chinese Culture, Communism, cultural differences, democracy, legal system, media, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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