From: yang@dante.cs.uiuc.edu (Der-Shung Yang)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.china
Subject: Re: ROC vs PRC
Date: 29 Sep 92 21:05:53 GMT
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana, IL

jfl@navaho.eel.ufl.edu (Yu-Fung Liu) writes:

>In article <1992Sep27.223604.5458@m.cs.uiuc.edu>, yang@dante.cs.uiuc.edu (Der-Shung Yang) writes:
>|> Just FYI, the US Supreme Court just struck down a Minn. state law (? not sure)
>|> that prohibits "hate speech" because it violates the consitutional right
>|> of a person to speak freely (First Amendament). I remember that naked dance 
>|> was also once a controversial topic in Supreme Court rulings. I seem to 
>|> remember that the the boss of the naked dance club won, though I'm not sure.

>What is the relationship between the supreme court of the US and freedom?
>Are you suggest that the supreme court of the US to make final judement
>for the whole world? What about countries like French, UK, Russia ... etc?

Calm down, please. All I said was that let us see how US Supreme Court handled
these issues (I said "just For Your Information (FYI)"). I don't know any laws
about other countries. If there's an expert out there, I'm willing to know how
those countries define freedom and democracy.

>Beside, how the "hate speech" and "naked dance" cases relate to free speech?
>What these two case suggest?

Quite frankly, I was first shocked by the struck-down of the hate-speech law.
Many of us will think, ya, those hate speeches really cause the unstability
of this society and should be stoped. But, as pointed out by a columnist,
if the hate speech law was enforced, then those black-right advocates in the 
60s (?) might all have been in jail because their speeches arouse the hatred
of some white people. So, the Supreme Court (OK, it's "their" Supreme Court)
said, no, this law is too vague and infringes a person's right to express
his/her opinions freely. "Naked dance" is also a way of expressing one's 
opinios, so is "buring national flags". Four years ago, when I first came
to the U.S., these were certainly "crimes" to me. However, after paying some 
attention to how the U.S. defines the term "freedom", I began to think what is 
the real meaning of "freedom"? Is our country giving her people the real 
freedom? I'm not saying that the US is perfect w.r.t. freedom. But, we should 
look at how they mean by "freedom" (along with other countries' viewpoints of 
freedom) and think about "should my country do this or that to her people?"

These two cases suggest that a govn't has to be very careful in making 
the laws.

>In the case of Madonna, she is not being treated equally in some European 
>counties. Her concert was cancelled by some governemnts.
>Did those European countries (west) violated her right? 

I must agree with you that "freedom" is a very vague term itself. Actually,
I doubt whether "naked dance" or "having sex in public performance" is 
really a way of expressing one's opinions and should be protected. However,
I'm leaning more to say that, yes, those european countries violate her right
to express her opinions.

>How the US or the SUPREME court of the US handle such serious crime against
>Madonna. Are they going to use the B-2 bomber?

I guess I probably did not follow this thread too well. I did not see how
this two lines related to my comments. If Madanna felt her freedom was 
infringed by some european govn't, she can sue those govn't in europe, where
the incident happened. If the incident happened in the U.S., she certainly
should go to the U.S. court. I don't know why "B-2" was involved in this
discussion.

>In what way you define "POLITICAL speech", "MODERN countries", "EXPRESSION", 
>and "FUNDAMENTAL freedom". Did the US SUPREME court ever oppress the freedom
>of someone?

Of course, the US supreme court did wrong decisions, too. One example was
the "equal but saparated" policy for education. It was fortunately overturned
later. As I said before, I agree with you that all these terms are vague.
However, the vagueness of "freedom" and "democracy" does not mean that we
should not learn from other countries about what they mean by "freedom" and
"democracy" and examine our own country to see whether she provides enough
"freedom" and "democracy" to us.

BTW, I think "fundamentai freedoms" include thought, speech, survival, etc.,
probably defined somewhere. I think there must be people knowing more about
this issue.

>If both PRC and ROC oppress freedom, why they are being treated differently?
>Why PRC recieved such strong critism but not ROC? 

I think this is what you're really complaining. No, they shouldn't be treated
differently. I think that's the 6.4 TAM that "attracted" so many critisms.

>What make the difference, money, power or something else?
>Why the SUPREME court have right to carry out the policy of forced intergration
>of Americans. Why the SUPREME court of the US left out South Africa and
>Taiwan? As far as I know, South Africa is the best friend of Taiwan government 
>and is one of the few countries that still addmit ROC. What makes the difference?
>Is it because the SUPREME court think money is more important than racism?

I'm also confused here. What's the issue here? Did the US Supreme Court say
a word about PRC? (If so, tell me what they said.) As to the "policy of 
forced integration of Americans", I don't know if you refered to a ruling 
that said the U.S. can kidnap (sp?) other country's president and prosecute
him. If so, then yes, you're right. This is the most rediculous ruling I
ever seen.

>|> As to Madonna's case, if she can really make a big case by going all the
>|> way up to Supreme Court, she might win.
>                                ^^^^^
>So... you are not sure.

Yes, I'm not sure. If the freedom is so well-defined, then there's no need
for a supreme court there.

>During the civil war, the majority of South did vote yes. They also vote
>to be independent. Anyway, they choose their own president.
>As a result, I can not trust them. If they never think slavery is ok,
>they would never bring in slave from Africa and slavery would never 
>widly accepted in the South. 
>I would also like to mention that there are only a few nothern states 
>when Thomas Jeffeson wrote down the consitution. 
>So who suppose to have the final say, the vote or the consitution?

Good point. Slavery was probably as contraversial as abortion now. However,
at that time, slaves (and women?) had no right to vote. That's not a real
democratic society. As to who has the final say, at least in the U.S.,
the law is not produced by a direct vote. Assuming the slavery bill is
passed in Congress (?), the Presidence can veto it. If the President accepts
it, the law can be overturned by the Supreme Court due to its 
unconsitutionality. Then the Congress can vote for an amendament to the
Consitution, then... I don't know, since it rarely happened. (Anybody can
comment on this?)

The point is, in a democractic society, nothing has absolute power. Like
the abortion issue, it was almost overturned 20 years later. If you can get
support from most of the people, you'll win.

>|> Actually, the success of a democracy does not rely solely on the process
>|> of voting. It's very important for everyone to be able to listen to all
>|> the different voices and finally makes his/her own decision while voting.
>|> (Therefore you should be confident that the majority will not vote yes
>|> for slavery nowadays.)

>They surely listen to the African when they capture them (probably about age,
>weght, ... etc)
>They surely listen to the French, Spanish... etc when they took over the South,
>California.
>They surely listen to Indians, Chinese, arabic when they break their countries
>apart and reprogram their next genernation. 
>.... yet they never got the majority vote or approved by the bible... etc.

Saying the US is domestically democratic country does not mean that it is
an internationally democratic country. I agree with you that I don't like
US' international policy, either. However, this does not bother me to learn
their Supreme Court rulings.

BTW, whether it's approved by the Bible is not an issue. I also don't like
the idea to put an "In GOD we trust" on the US dollor bills. But, that's 
another issue.

>What is your way of living? How the SUPREME court judge your standard of
>living?

I don't know what my uses of US Supreme Court rulings bother you so much.
Just because the US has an inappropriate international policy (esp. toward
to PRC) does not mean that there's nothing for us to learn from their
Supreme Court rulings. Try to listen to different voices.

BTW, it seems that only we two are participating in this discussion. I think
I'll use email next time unless there's some other related posts. If there's 
some netters interested in this issue, please let me know.


--
DerShung Yang    
yang@cs.uiuc.edu 
Beckman Institute
Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Newsgroups: soc.culture.china