Be pro-social
From McCain's Eight Most Inappropriate Jokes In 1998, McCain was speaking before a GOP fundraiser in Washington, D.C. when he asked, ‘Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because Janet Reno is her father.’ The joke was wrong on so many levels- for it’s offense to the Attorney General, for it’s offense to the president and … Read more
Beijing airport deploys armed guards – Beijing Olympics News – NBCSports.com Reporting often fails to put information into perspective. “Guards with machine guns began patrolling the Beijing airport. . .” (emphasis added) First, the story tries to scare you by using the term “machine guns.” An M-16 is a machine gun. In other words, all … Read more
Some politicians and some newspapers are erroneously arguing that the federal courts will be “flooded” with requests from the 270 detainees in Guantanamo Bay. This is absurd. In 2004, federal courts handled 92,654 criminal cases. In addition to criminal cases, the courts handled at least 98,000 civil cases (the last year reported is 2002). In … Read more
I have seen a couple of American websites reporting that the Chinese are seeking to “resolutely crush” the Tibetan uprising. I have no doubt that the Chinese are using considerable force to stop the uprising. It is also a near certainty that the Chinese tactics are more severe and heavy handed than the tactics that … Read more
Re: Chuck Asay’s cartoon dated 1 March 2008, in which the final frame accuses Barack Obama of “Class Envy.” I have been regularly reading “Today’s Cartoons” since you launched the feature a few years ago. I do not recall exactly when Chuck Asay was added, but I do remember that I quickly recognized his cartoons. … Read more
When describing the Chinese politico-legal system, Western commentators naturally compare and contrast it with Western legal systems. The Chinese politico-legal system, however, has enough differences that the Western observer is often unable to understand how the Chinese system actually works. Furthermore, many Western observers are left with the impression that because the Chinese system is … Read more
What is Law? A precise definition is free of normative arguments and cultural bias and accurately describes all types of Law.
In 1913, Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld published a seminal article about fundamental legal terminology. He argued that the description of legal relationships was unnecessarily complicated by a lack of precise use of legal terms. The Hohfeldian system is atomistic in that all legal relationships can be described with only eight terms: right, duty, power, liability, immunity, … Read more
Professor Donald C. Clarke hypothesized that there is “a genuine social belief [in China] that deaths don’t just happen; someone needs to be held responsible.” I argue that his hypothesis is consistent with Chinese communitarian values and with Chinese law.
In August 2006, in the small town of Jena, a freshman African-American student asked the principal of the high school if African-American students were allowed to sit under the shade tree that the white students typically sat under. The principal told him students could sit wherever they wanted, and the student sat under the tree. … Read more