My articles on Hong Kong legal and political issues are freely available to all, but the effort is made possible by monthly and annual donations from readers.
Speaking of 'incitement', I think Trump was as unfairly labeled by his enemy's media with the same loose interpretation of 'incitement' as the Hong Kong gestapo court used to convict Jimmy Lai. It's legal to gather, it's legal to express your anger about something (without encouraging people to do something illegal), and yet the whole impeachment and the congress rhetoric used by his enemy basically boil down to 'not conceding an election is grounds for incitement'.
The society is dangerously irrational when people push the envelope of how far they can stretch words with reasonably well defined legal definitions. As in George Orwell's dystopia, those who control the interpretation of words (doublespeak) gets to play God. That's why I tell HK protestors off when they bitch about why a lesbian got duped by a man pretending to be a woman to get free sex is not considered rape in court (in a jury trial): if the 'victim' was duped by the perp's illusion of gender, she gave consent under free will without being coerced.
I think the first amendment in the US should imply thought crimes are not constitutional because people can't tell your thought unless you expresses it. Individual thoughts, no matter how nasty it is, should not factor into sentencing. Thoughts (inferred from speech/expression) should only be used to satisfy the mens rea criteria. However, Clinton sneaking in the concept of 'hate crime' and eroded America's freedom of speech.
For example, nobody is supposed to intentionally hit somebody without legally acceptable excuses such as self-defense, full stop. Whether the act(s reus) is out of bigotry or not should be totally irrelevant other than proving the INTENTIONAL (mens rea) part. If the 'hate' factor affects sentencing, it means the perpetrator's thoughts are being punished as a crime. If the perpetrator's thoughts can be read for incriminating him for the 'hate' factor, this means his speech/expressions at some point (which is protected by the 1st amendment) is being criminalized.
There's a good reason why we shouldn't criminalize thoughts. If a thought is nasty, we should do our best to convince somebody to change their minds, instead of using government powers to condition them into giving up their thoughts. I don't like where America is going with political correctness.
That said, conservatives are equally guilty for censoring porn or swearwords, especially the 7 words you can't say on TV (George Carlin). If one side start carving exceptions to the constitution here and there, the other side can exploit the same loopholes and ran with it. This is exactly what happened in the last 20 years: the 'liberals/progressives' is now the major proponent of political correctness, which is highly illiberal and totally regressive. Here's George Carlin's thought on it: https://youtu.be/asZ1R-Xylj4
And if you raise chickens on your own farm, you are engaged in interstate commerce, according to America's SCOTUS under FDR. We have cops seizing innocent people's assets under color of law, they harvest organs from those ruled guilty under the same color of law.
The law, whether Communist Chinese or fascist liberal (but I repeat myself) American, is always on the side of those in power. That's just how law is supposed to work, apparently.
I mean, sure, complain about both of these things, and you will get the same response: ignored.
Equally relevant as US chicken cultivation policy, some chickens can distinguish more than 100 faces of their own species.
Excellent article despite its failure to contextualise what is happening in Hong Kong in terms that Americans can understand or relating it back to Foucault power dynamics
Speaking of 'incitement', I think Trump was as unfairly labeled by his enemy's media with the same loose interpretation of 'incitement' as the Hong Kong gestapo court used to convict Jimmy Lai. It's legal to gather, it's legal to express your anger about something (without encouraging people to do something illegal), and yet the whole impeachment and the congress rhetoric used by his enemy basically boil down to 'not conceding an election is grounds for incitement'.
The society is dangerously irrational when people push the envelope of how far they can stretch words with reasonably well defined legal definitions. As in George Orwell's dystopia, those who control the interpretation of words (doublespeak) gets to play God. That's why I tell HK protestors off when they bitch about why a lesbian got duped by a man pretending to be a woman to get free sex is not considered rape in court (in a jury trial): if the 'victim' was duped by the perp's illusion of gender, she gave consent under free will without being coerced.
I think the first amendment in the US should imply thought crimes are not constitutional because people can't tell your thought unless you expresses it. Individual thoughts, no matter how nasty it is, should not factor into sentencing. Thoughts (inferred from speech/expression) should only be used to satisfy the mens rea criteria. However, Clinton sneaking in the concept of 'hate crime' and eroded America's freedom of speech.
For example, nobody is supposed to intentionally hit somebody without legally acceptable excuses such as self-defense, full stop. Whether the act(s reus) is out of bigotry or not should be totally irrelevant other than proving the INTENTIONAL (mens rea) part. If the 'hate' factor affects sentencing, it means the perpetrator's thoughts are being punished as a crime. If the perpetrator's thoughts can be read for incriminating him for the 'hate' factor, this means his speech/expressions at some point (which is protected by the 1st amendment) is being criminalized.
There's a good reason why we shouldn't criminalize thoughts. If a thought is nasty, we should do our best to convince somebody to change their minds, instead of using government powers to condition them into giving up their thoughts. I don't like where America is going with political correctness.
That said, conservatives are equally guilty for censoring porn or swearwords, especially the 7 words you can't say on TV (George Carlin). If one side start carving exceptions to the constitution here and there, the other side can exploit the same loopholes and ran with it. This is exactly what happened in the last 20 years: the 'liberals/progressives' is now the major proponent of political correctness, which is highly illiberal and totally regressive. Here's George Carlin's thought on it: https://youtu.be/asZ1R-Xylj4
And if you raise chickens on your own farm, you are engaged in interstate commerce, according to America's SCOTUS under FDR. We have cops seizing innocent people's assets under color of law, they harvest organs from those ruled guilty under the same color of law.
The law, whether Communist Chinese or fascist liberal (but I repeat myself) American, is always on the side of those in power. That's just how law is supposed to work, apparently.
I mean, sure, complain about both of these things, and you will get the same response: ignored.
Equally relevant as US chicken cultivation policy, some chickens can distinguish more than 100 faces of their own species.
Excellent article despite its failure to contextualise what is happening in Hong Kong in terms that Americans can understand or relating it back to Foucault power dynamics