Saboter

Saboteur
Ha Jin
"Comrade policemen, your duty is to keep order, but you purposely tortured us common citizens. Why violate the law you are supposed to enforce?

Thus quote, along with the rest of the story made me think of the American judicial system and the other freedoms we have. I know this story is set in China so their rules are different but it made me think about all of the things we take for granted. The biggest one being Freedom of Speech. While we are taught not to talk back to adults, especially those who are of a higher status than ourselves, we are allowed to raise our own opinions and ask questions. It is called freedom of speech and we take in for granted.

Before I start, I would like to clarify that I am not a communist, and am not anti-american in any way, but I wold like to argue a different perspective than I would usually take. I don't know that I believe all of what I am about to say, but I certainly think it would be interesting to entertain these ideas.

When I read this story, initially I was appalled by how their justice system worked. I thought ti was terrible, until I started thinking. What exactly was so bad? Is it possible I was just shocked because it is different than how we do things here? Maybe its a good thing that its different. We are certainly not perfect. In this story, nothing horrible was done to Mr. Chiu. He was arrested for talking back to a police officer. Now, he wouldn't have been arrested for something like that here, however that is the law where he lives. He, as a professor especially should know that is the law. You don't have to agree with every law, but you should certainly abide by them. He should know that he cannot talk back to a police officer. Then, he was put in jail and was told that he couldn't leave until he apologized. Is that such a horrible punishment? Yes he was stuck in jail when he thought his hepatitis was acting up, but all he had to do was apologize and he would have been set free. I think it was his own stubbornness that was the real problem here.

No obviously, this system is not perfect. What they did to the man who cam to rescue Mr. Chiu was horrible and should not be allowed. Also, in a perfect world Mr. Chiu should not have been arrested for asking a question. Their system is not perfect, but neither is ours. People talk about how amazing America is because of our freedoms, but once you get passed the freedom (something a lot of countries now have) we still have a lot of flaws in out system.

This debate is discussed a lot thorough out the HBO show The Newsroom. (My favorite Show) IN this clip a TV News Anchor is asked What makes America the greatest country in the world. People in the show get very mad at him for his answer here. He tells people America is not the greatest country in the world anymore. He lists all of the reasons why it isn'. However, then he makes what he later calls, "A Rising Call to Actin, " in which he talks about how America used to be the greatest country in the world and how if we can get back to these things, we could be the greatest once again. A lot of what he says in this clip directly applies to Mr. Chiu's experience.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBIMb5ZAY3g

In another scene in the same show, a reporter goes to cover an Occupy Wall street protest where people are being arrested for no reason. Even though the reporter identifies himself as  reporter, he is still arrested for the same thing Mr. Chiu is arrested for. WHen the head anchor goes to bail his reporter out of jail he discusses the judicial system in different parts of the world and how every system has a flaw, but that we should start by fixing ours.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlInwQ9aFn4