Chinese blogging

I've been reading a good amount of Chinese blogs lately and I'm set to write for ChinaSMACK soon (google it!). This is something I just read:

After a particularly gut-wrenching description of the death penalty:

"

This becomes a matter of social prioritization. In the United States, a death penalty inmate can file appeals with free legal representation. The process may take 10 years and tens of millions of dollars before all appeals are exhausted. This is the same government system that is being slammed for failing to provide adequate social services to large numbers of socially vulnerable people. There are many more poor and desperate people in China who need help.

This is not helped by the fact that the detailed statistics and cases are treated as national secrets in China. It is alleged that more than 10,000 executions occur each year. The media provide the details on a small number of cases, but they are the most notorious cases such as mass murderers (e.g. Ma Jiajue). This is a deliberate strategy in that anyone who objects to the death penalty in principle will find himself seeming to defend evil incarnate instead. This is the same strategy that is used in banning Internet sites (e.g by highlighting the most obnoxious pornographic sites) and books (e.g. by highlighting the most repulsive pornographic novels). Meanwhile, there is no sense of how many innocent people might be executed each year.

There is the alternative of a life sentence in lieu of execution. In the United States, it will cost the state more than one million dollars to place a person in jail for life under standard conditions. This is the same government system that is being slammed for failing to provide adequate social services to large numbers of socially vulnerable people. There are many more poor and desperate people in China who need help. Jail conditions in China are significantly worse, so that sentencing someone to life in prison is cruel and unusual too.

I don't know what the answer is.

There will be those who think the answer is democracy, by kneejerk reflex. No, it isn't. Suppose you let the people decide on this: either you shoot the 10,000 people per year, or else you pay 100 yuan per year for their life sentences. How do you think they are going to vote? Shoot them. ASAP."

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