Call me a communist sympathizer, but, I think the Chinese may have a point:
China Attacks US Human Rights Record [1]
The report concluded the U.S. human rights records is “best described as tattered and shocking.”It cited an FBI report on crime statistics in the U.S. released last year that showed violent crime had increased by 1.9 percent from 2005 to 2006, with 1.41 million cases reported nationwide.
The report also cited news articles that said 30,000 people die in the U.S. from gunshot wounds every year and gun killings have climbed 13 percent since 2002.
It noted the United States has the largest prison system in the world, with the highest inmates-to-population ratio. The report cited police brutality and other instances where law enforcement officials violated civil rights.
China’s report also lambasted the U.S. for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“The invasion of Iraq by U.S. troops has produced the biggest human rights tragedy and the greatest humanitarian disaster in modern world,” the report said.
Throw in the fact that we don’t have health care for all, yet spend more on health care than any other nation and that we’re currently foreclosing on homes across the country thanks to corporate thievery at the highest levels- I’d say we should be working harder to turn this around.
When I was at DECA a few weeks ago [2] and asked how many students knew someone in prison and more than half raised their hands the point was made.
We can spend 11 billion each month in Iraq, but we can’t solve our problems at home.
Only 3000 Americans died on 9/11. 30,000 are killed each year by red blooded gun toting Americans. Maybe we sent the Army to the wrong place?
Watch out my friend this is the other side of America we don’t talk about. Home of the brave land of the free support your killlers and support the apathetic nation that lets it happen.
Thanks to the uneducated, apathetical generation of welfare recipients, subsidized lifestyles and the general entitlement mentality this nation has grown and now are harvesting. If we would of stuck to our American fundamental beliefs, we would not have the war in Iraq, overflowing prisons, civil rights drum beaters, failing schools.
Solutions?
Prison system:
Release all first time, non-violent, drug offenders with mandatory parole and require a privately managed rehab program. Document and deport all illegal immigrants incarcerated. For the remaining prison population, treat them like the sheriff Joe Arpaio would. http://www.texasrainmaker.com/2005/06/04/111793349229233723
Gun Toting Americans:
Gun Control is the ability to produce a tight shot group! That’s my view, but I’m professionally trained. I do know we need a BIG change in how we handle “gun control” in the US. Many attempts to enforce gun ownership will and have only resulted in criminal’s being the only ones with weapons, stripping the law abiding citizens of their guns.
Human rights:
Funny, China, Iraq, Afghanistan and human rights all in the same sentence.
Violations of Civil rights:
With today’s media, TV, radio, and the web nothing goes unreported. So do you think the “reports” can be trusted? They say the numbers are increasing, no . . they just were not made so readily available in the years past. Let’s take today’s numbers of ACTUAL civil rights violations and in a few years check it again.
Foreclosures:
You can blame corporate thievery, but many just need to be educated. Our schools need, hell, TODAY’S PARENTS NEED to teach the value of money. You can’t spend more than you make. Don’t let the credit card companies, mortgage companies, and all of the other predatory business convince you differently. This brings me to another point, parenting: now that’s where we are failing. That’s the greatest degree needed in life if you plan on having children.
Now, more than ever. May God Bless Us.
Most of the problems we have could be solved if Americans would be responsible for their own kids. You can say that there are too many people in jail but if they broke the law then they need to go to jail. This is a compounding situation, meaning that when we send one in another does not come out. We need to relax laws in terms of drugs, but if parents would grab little Joey by the neck and teach him right from wrong then we would have less of a drug problem, better schools, less poverty, less violent crime. But the Super Duper Libs want to hand hold people who have kids who can’t afford them and are not ready mentally to be a parent. When we start recognizing the truth of our faults then we have an opportunity to solve them. But continuous hand out and hand holding will never get us there.
China is not the class of human rights, and David, be very careful with your “only 3000 died” bc you sound like an arrogant insensitive jerk. If it is only 3000, and you are only one, well then……
That will never get you elected.
Shannon – WELL SAID (more properly, well written!!)
Gene – you are right as well. But I’m going to take one of your comments one step further. You say that people should be responsible for their own kids, but more importantly, they should be responsible for themselves!! If that were the case, then they wouldn’t be having kids that they’re not responsible for. But you’ve said that before in oh, so many ways! ;)
Comments like “we don’t have health care for all” always strike a nerve with me. First, you can walk into any emergency room in the country and get treated for whatever ailment you may have. Perfect? No, but we do have health care for all. But generally what the people that make these asinine comments want is for the government to force someone (your employer) to provide health insurance for others. But, what’s next? The government forcing your employer to buy your car insurance for you? The gov’t already requires you to have car insurance, so why not make the employer pay for it?
Actually, if this country wasn’t so full of lard-asses (yeah, myself included) we wouldn’t be spending more on health care than any other nation. Once again, down to personal responsibility.
But, I guess I really have to take seriously what China is saying about our record on human rights. I can do that because I can block out those images of Chinese tanks positioning themselves to drive over their own countrymen demonstrating for freedom. Whoo-Hoo! Way to go, China!!
By the way, gun-toting Americans may kill 30k people per year, but car-driving Americans kill 55k+ per year. Oh yeah, and cigarette-smoking Americans kill how many millions?
Why not just legalize every drug, sell this stuff like we do Coca-Cola and bourbon and instead of trying to “rehab” why not just give them what they want, their drug of choice.
Guns? I had a gun pulled out on me outside the Hot Air Balloon in Vandalia…..not a good experience. I guess if I had a gun things would have been different? Shoot out at the OK corral.
Health care – When will this debate end? I so don’t care.
“If we would of stuck to our American fundamental beliefs, we would not have the war in Iraq, overflowing prisons, civil rights drum beaters, failing schools.? – Shannon
Native-genocide, slavery, McCarthyism, Vietnam, Race Riots, Lynchings, Presidential assassinations, Civil War, Japanese internment camps? What part of American fundamental beliefs are these, aberrations?
How many people have the Chinese killed THIS WEEK ALONE in Tibet to stop ‘Civil Unrest’? And you want to equate that to thug criminals in America actually having to serve their prison sentences? You can claim that ‘we can’t solve our problems at home’ yet we manage not to use gunfire on protest crowds that question the government. You have hit another one out of the park David. If people in China could actually read the internet without Communist Party Censorship of websites deemed not good for the Sociaist Utopia, they would probably be surprised to hear that incarcerating people who were publicly tried by an Independent Judiciary with free-of-charge defense attorney was a human rights violation.
Pedro, I never said the Chinese were better- I was just saying we’ve got problems here.
Stop twisting things.