The world imposes morals on Singapore

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/59cc2f50-5cdb-11da-a749-0000779e2340.html

I've yet to see such clear cut inter-national racism in my life. Declared independent only 40 years ago, Singapore is one of the finest economic superpowers in the world, with a government that acts on behalf of its people and a legitimate desire to participate in the world economy. Unfortunately, they still have a huge amount of trouble preventing drug trafficking as being part of the Golden Triangle and also a major transportation hub.

They try to combat the growing issue by adding such a deterrent as the death penalty to trafficking- which seems to be the only thing that works, and suddenly the church, Australia, and every newspaper in the world is calling out "hey that's not right he's an Australian he has rights!"

Would this have played out differently if Australia were not bent over the bench to their economic ties? Does the World have a right to impose its double-standard morals on an entire population of people in consensus on their own land?

The only racism here is that if the man had been named John Smith instead of Nguyen Tuong Van there'd have been a bigger outcry. The ultra right-wing Howard surely benefitted politically from his execution.

Singapore is an authoritarian one party state, whose media is tightly controlled. To call it representative of the people is disingenous.

Send him back to Australia for life imprisonment, warn Singapore to permit freedom of speech or relations will sour in the future.

The smuggler didn't have diplomatic immunity or anything. He broke a law and deserves punishment. Nothing compicated about it.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200512/s1520406.htm

A win for democracy. Go Singapore. This has nothing to do with the morality of capital punishment, it has to do with Singapore's right to employ its laws without the oversight of foreign governments. That's freedom.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4487366.stm

He was hanged.

>>5 State authority is not the same as freedom.

>>5
countries are already free to set its own laws. that's why they are independant and called a country. oversight from foreign govt. comes from joining world wide organizations like WTO.

anyone got base? I love base!

| oversight from foreign govt. comes from joining world wide organizations like WTO.

or by having economic relations with a country and doing something they don't like, such as creating a defense program, enriching uranium, or being communist.

>>6 States without their own authority do not have freedom.

>>9
states without their own authority cannot be called states.

>>10
Truth, agreement, and props

Nguyen Tuong Van, a 25-year-old Australian, was executed in Singapore’s Changi Prison at 6 a.m. yesterday morning, local time. The state murder stands as an indictment not just of the dictatorial Singaporean regime, but of the entire Australian political establishment as well. The Howard government and the Labor Party opposition closed ranks in the weeks leading up to the hanging to ensure that the outrage of ordinary people did not undermine Canberra’s tacit agreement with the killing. Above all else, no harm was to be done to any aspect of Australia’s commercial and political ties with Singapore.

In the aftermath of Nguyen’s killing, various politicians have issued sickeningly hypocritical statements of sympathy for the man’s family and friends, and wept crocodile tears over Singapore’s enforcement of the death penalty.

The calculated and cynical position of both the government and the Labor Party has sharply contrasted with the genuine revulsion and anger felt by millions of ordinary Australians—and Singaporeans—over Nguyen’s state-sanctioned murder. Thousands of people participated in protests and vigils to mark his death.

Nguyen had been sentenced to die by hanging after his conviction on charges of transporting 396 grams of heroin through Singapore airport in December 2002, en route from Cambodia to Australia. The young man was desperate to raise money for his twin brother, Khoa, who was in serious financial trouble, pending criminal charges, over drug problems. For this tragic mistake, Nguyen, the son of a Vietnamese refugee who had never had any previous trouble with the law, paid with his life.

Nguyen’s killing was an act of unmitigated barbarism. Every aspect of his treatment—by the Singaporean government, Australian politicians, and the media—reeks of hypocrisy, cynicism, and cruelty.

On Thursday, Nguyen was weighed and measured by the Singaporean prison authorities, in order to gauge the length of rope required for a “successful” hanging. This calculation relied on the “Official Table of Drops”, first published by the British Home Office in 1913. After being granted independence, Singapore maintained a series of repressive laws previously enforced by the British colonial authorities, including capital punishment. The island-state also retained the British Empire’s macabre preparations for death by hanging.

If the hangman’s rope is too long, the victim’s falling body weight can result in death by decapitation. If too short, death by strangulation can take as long as 45 minutes. When the rope is correctly measured, the victim loses consciousness when his or her neck is broken in the fall. Brain death then takes about six minutes, while full body death takes a further ten minutes. According to the US-based Death Penalty Information Center: “If the inmate has strong neck muscles ... or the noose has been wrongly positioned, the fracture-dislocation is not rapid and death results from slow asphyxiation. If this occurs the face becomes engorged, the tongue protrudes, the eyes pop, the body defecates, and violent movements of the limbs occur.”

Underscoring the inhumanity of Nguyen’s hanging, Singaporean authorities rejected a plea by the young man’s mother that she be allowed a final embrace with her son. The government conceded what it termed “limited physical contact ... agreed on an exceptional basis”; Nguyen was only permitted to hold hands with his mother and brother through a metal grille in the moments before his death.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/dec2005/nguy-d03.shtml

>>10
Tell that to the EU, noob. Any country in debt or in economic relations will always in a sense under the authority of another country.

Why do you think the US doesn't open its mouth to China? Because they know they'll get bitchslapped if they do. Also, see: Saudi Arabia. The US rubs vasaline on its ass before going to the Middle-East. There is probably not a single country on the face of the Earth that isn't in some way dictated by another country.

>>13
governmental authority vs. diplomacy etc. etc.

As much as the world has condemned Singapore for its actions, it has not provided even one solution that is as effective as the current system reporters have called barbaric. Singapore's neighboring countries have corrupt governments, and the most effective way it can combat drug trafficking at home and abroad is with a promise of death.

>>15

But does it really act as a deterrent?  This is a whole other can of worms, but it makes you think.

>>16
only against die-hard capitalists. Can't spend the money if you ain' around.

If only we killed drug trafficking scum in the US.....

>>16
Figuratively speaking, if you killed every drug smuggler that you caught on your country, the guy who supplies the drugs would need to find a new dealer. In this effect, it does create an immediate detterent because the guy doing the recruiting is going to have a much harder time finding smugglers because everyone in the neighborhood of the executed knows what'll happen to them. If the anger boils over, the dealer might even get lynched to death by the executed person's angry friends.

I wouldn't be suprised if the police in the US incited gang wars on purpose either. Cops can't shoot dead any gangster they want, but if they start a turf war it's basically criminals shooting criminals. If any innocents die, it decreases neighborhood tolerance to their presence. Once the gangs have shot each other enough and the public is thorougly outraged, the police come in and impose harsh sentences nobody can really object to.

if you killed every drug smuggler that you caught on your country
I like the idea

Cops can't shoot dead any gangster they want
Yes, and this is why I think this is a retarded tolerant hippy system made by emofags who wouldn't dare to kill a fly while they watch their family being raped and murdered by gangs.

Singapore used to be a pretty cool place. It was a pirate hub. Now, it's full of bureaucratic fucks.

I like it that Singapore sticked to its laws.
Thats consequent.

Well, well.....all you can say is that over 98% of the humanity is blatant stupid.
Everything results from this.

Hypocricy ftw!

A better idea for drugs is to legalize then, then let all the retards kill themselves from overdosing. Problem solved.

<a href="http://www.buyaionmoney.com">aion kina</a>
<a href="http://www.buyaionmoney.com">aion gold</a>
<a href="http://www.aiongold-money.com">aion gold</a>
<a href="http://www.aiongold-money.com">aion money</a>
<a href="http://www.aiongold-aiongold.com">aion kina</a>
<a href="http://www.aiongold-aiongold.com">aion gold</a>
<a href="http://www.rs2accounts-rs2accounts.com">runescape gold</a>
<a href="http://www.rs2accounts-rs2accounts.com">runescape money</a>
<a href="http://www.aionkina-aionkina.com">aion kina</a>
<a href="http://www.aionkina-aionkina.com">aion gold</a>
<a href="http://www.benniuw.com">股票软件</a>
<a href="http://www.benniuw.com">股票分析软件</a>

>>24

You shouldn't believe everything you watch on television, or what they force-fed you in D.A.R.E. class.

>>12
Serious question: why doesn't anyone impose an execution method of simply shooting the convict in the head?

That's extremely cheap and takes like one minute to set up.

>>27
Russia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Chikatilo

The death penalty is immoral, period.
Killing people for dealing drugs? That's fucking retarded. And Singapore is an assback third world shit hole.

>>29
The death penalty is immoral, period.
So if some scumbag killed your whole family except you, you wouldn't take the pleasure in seeing the motherfucker fry?

>>29
Yes, the death penalty is immoral.  But calling Singapore an "assback third world shit hole" is not helpful, and not true.
You're thinking of Texas.

Few things I find interesting about this four year old article here.  Drug smuggling is punishable by death in Singapore (along with quite a bit of southeast Asia coincidentally) and they have one of the highest execution rates in the world per capita because of this law, but most people there favor the death penalty according to the article.

Why?

I'd assume the same reason most people who are pro death penalty are pro death penalty.  They have no fear of dying.  They obey this law, and I think they see it as keeping foreign drug traffickers from turning Singapore into a slum.  Australia is pissed because an Australian is gonna die (possibly has already been killed) for being stupid enough to traffic drugs in a place where they kill you for that.  I don't care if you're pro death penalty or not playing Russian Roulette like this guy did is just dumbass.

And as an aside, if you are going to condemn prisoners to death, why not death by organ harvesting.  One less criminal and two people with kidneys.  It's logically savage.

Anyhow I think no, if the people of Singapore want to have the death penalty that's Singapore's business and nobody elses.  They know Australia isn't going to break ties or start a war over one guy.  The beautiful thing about trade is now we have greed instead of war.  How's that for progress?

>>31
Incorrect, Texas is probably the best-off state in the union as far as industry and natural resources.

>>33
I stand corrected.  Texas is an assback first World shithole.  Best off?  Exxon Mobil and big Oil, Halliburton, KBR, ATT, Waste Management(love that name), Rent A Center...  You must be very proud.  Texas is a shithole 'cause it thinks the rest of the world is its shithole.

　　 　∧＿∧ 　　　　∧＿∧　　 　sage
　　　（・∀・　）　　　 （　・∀・）　　　　sage
　　　/　　　 ＼　　 　/　　　＼　sage
　 ⊂（　　ヽﾉ　つ　⊂ヽ/　　） つ　　sage
　 　　し（＿）　　　　　（＿）Ｊ

>>35
Please do not use less sage.