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In the Shan Xi province of China, a young teenager found an old woman lying on the ground. He helps her up. The moment he does, the old woman starts screaming "He pushed me down, he pushed me down!". The old woman's family also says that he pushed her down (he did not, as you all know). She takes this to the court. In the Chinese system of Trial, you are presumed guilty until proven otherwise. Since the boy's family knows no witnesses, he is sued 100 000 Chinese Yuan in trauma and medical fees. Know, this is an outrage! If any of you are going to China, I recommend taking a video of someone who's fallen down saying that he/she fell before you help he/she up. Even though you know the boy is innocent, he is still sued!!!
It's true that in China more people go out of their way to avoid aiding stricken people than help them, but there are a lot more sources to back that claim up. Your OP contained no source, and only a small section of the information, but also a 'warning' based on an incident that occurred nearly 10 years ago. There have been several high-profile examples of the bystander effect over the past few years, all far more suitable to proving your point and far more easily accessible via 'trustworthy' news sources; why go for this one?
In fact, why dredge up an event that happened so long ago, when it holds so little actual discussion value to begin with, and provide us with nothing more to comment than "China's bad rabble rabble rabble?"
Mandorallen turned back toward the insolently sneering baron. 'My Lord,' The great knight said distantly, 'I find thy face apelike and thy form misshapen. Thy beard, moreover, is an offence against decency, resembling more closely the scabrous fur which doth decorate the hinder portion of a mongrel dog than a proper adornment for a human face. Is it possibly that thy mother, seized by some wild lechery, did dally at some time past with a randy goat?' - Mimbrate Knight Protector Mandorallen.
Excerpt from "Seeress of Kell", Book Five of The Malloreon series by David Eddings.
"You need not fear us, unless you are a dark heart, a vile one who preys on the innocent; I promise, you can’t hide forever in the empty darkness, for we will hunt you down like the animals you are, and pull you into the very bowels of hell." Iron - Within Temptation
Also, he was sued, not charged with a crime. There's no innocence/guilt in a civil suit, it's "how well can you prove your side of the story?". It works the same way in the US, we just call it "preponderance of evidence".
It is best to be a pessimist. You are usually right and, when you're wrong, you're pleasantly surprised.
This isn't a uniquely Chinese thing. It's really common across the less developed parts of the world - the more poor the country and the more corrupt its legal system, the more likely this is. It has nothing to do with the legal system as written, but more the level of corruption within police and lower level judiciary.
Jimsolo wrote: I thought that was actually pretty common outside the U.S. and Canada.
No, really, really no. I believe there isn't a single country which lacks the presumption of innocence, the issue is how far a country takes that assumption, and whether it dismisses it for specific crimes, or elements of crimes. On that regard, compared to other developed countries, the US is actually not that high up the list.
In France, for instance, police cannot walk arrested suspects through public places, they cannot publish mug shots of arrested people, and arrested suspects aren't named in public media until there's a conviction. All of these things are common in the US.
Then there's instances in which the presumption of innocence is specfically rejected, or abandoned. Al Capone was famously arrested not for the bootlegging, racketeering and people he had killed, but for tax evasion. What's less known is that the method used by the prosecution to prove tax evasion basically amounted to 'we have a list of all the stuff you own, and what you spend each year on luxuries, you prove to us how you can afford this stuff with your stated level of income', which is a pretty major flip of the burden of proof.
I'm not saying that as a bash against the US, I actually quite like the decision of the US to remove the presumption in the Capone case. I'm just saying that the presumption is a lot more complex than simply having it or not.
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
On top of all the points about the Chinese legal system not being that different to the rest of the world, this form of fraud is not exactly unusual. It's another form of Staged Crash Fraud:
You fake an accident, ensure you have lots of "independent" witnesses and that the innocent party has non, and sue them for lots of money.
Remember kids, always check your facts. This just seems to be another case of racial stereotypes (the Chinese are all crazy and they have a stupid, unfair legal system) making people want to believe a story.
insaniak wrote: Sometimes, Exterminatus is the only option.
And sometimes, it's just a case of too much scotch combined with too many buttons...
It's true that in China more people go out of their way to avoid aiding stricken people than help them, but there are a lot more sources to back that claim up. Your OP contained no source, and only a small section of the information, but also a 'warning' based on an incident that occurred nearly 10 years ago. There have been several high-profile examples of the bystander effect over the past few years, all far more suitable to proving your point and far more easily accessible via 'trustworthy' news sources; why go for this one?
In fact, why dredge up an event that happened so long ago, when it holds so little actual discussion value to begin with, and provide us with nothing more to comment than "China's bad rabble rabble rabble?"
It's true that in China more people go out of their way to avoid aiding stricken people than help them, but there are a lot more sources to back that claim up. Your OP contained no source, and only a small section of the information, but also a 'warning' based on an incident that occurred nearly 10 years ago. There have been several high-profile examples of the bystander effect over the past few years, all far more suitable to proving your point and far more easily accessible via 'trustworthy' news sources; why go for this one?
In fact, why dredge up an event that happened so long ago, when it holds so little actual discussion value to begin with, and provide us with nothing more to comment than "China's bad rabble rabble rabble?"
Mandorallen turned back toward the insolently sneering baron. 'My Lord,' The great knight said distantly, 'I find thy face apelike and thy form misshapen. Thy beard, moreover, is an offence against decency, resembling more closely the scabrous fur which doth decorate the hinder portion of a mongrel dog than a proper adornment for a human face. Is it possibly that thy mother, seized by some wild lechery, did dally at some time past with a randy goat?' - Mimbrate Knight Protector Mandorallen.
Excerpt from "Seeress of Kell", Book Five of The Malloreon series by David Eddings.
"You need not fear us, unless you are a dark heart, a vile one who preys on the innocent; I promise, you can’t hide forever in the empty darkness, for we will hunt you down like the animals you are, and pull you into the very bowels of hell." Iron - Within Temptation
Avatar 720 wrote: After searching the internet for a bit, I believe this is the actual story your OP is most likely based on:
Stop you there, its a common ploy.
In Russia they lie besides the roads, if you stop then you are accused of having run them over. So in Russia see someone lying just on the road the rule is: swerve around and drive on.
This lawsuit fraud is also big in South Africa, though there its actually playing nice, others would just murder the passing Samaritan for the contents of their wallet. All over the far east in the legally dodgy areas, though they are wise to it in Thailand.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
kronk wrote: There are scammers and charlatans in every country.
The way to avoid them is never help anyone at any time.
"I gave at the office." Learn it. Live it. Say it often.
You might live by that, other's can't.
I help, but approach cautiously.
First thing you learn as a first aider is: Look for Danger.
Never rush into help someone, always look for danger first even if the rescue requirement is pressing. You help nobody if you become party to the same problem.
And danger often means legal danger now.
So for example never use 'sorry' as a sympathy word, it is too often seen as a legal admission of culpability.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/03/13 16:19:15
n'oublie jamais - It appears I now have to highlight this again.
It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. By the juice of the brew my thoughts aquire speed, my mind becomes strained, the strain becomes a warning. It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion.
Avatar 720 wrote: After searching the internet for a bit, I believe this is the actual story your OP is most likely based on:
Stop you there, its a common ploy.
I don't dispute that; in fact, one of the links in the post you quoted is an article about one, and my second post here contains several more. What I want to know is why the OP used a half-arsedly paraphrased, cropped and unsourced version of the story in the first link I provided--directly after you 'stopped me there', actually--to try and enlighten us with his 'brief news flash', when there are so many other well-written, sourced, more up-to-date, and outright better articles so readily available; the opening post reads like a Tumblr blog entry.
I'm fairly sure I did mention this in my first post, at some point after the quoted first sentence.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2015/03/13 17:20:21
Mandorallen turned back toward the insolently sneering baron. 'My Lord,' The great knight said distantly, 'I find thy face apelike and thy form misshapen. Thy beard, moreover, is an offence against decency, resembling more closely the scabrous fur which doth decorate the hinder portion of a mongrel dog than a proper adornment for a human face. Is it possibly that thy mother, seized by some wild lechery, did dally at some time past with a randy goat?' - Mimbrate Knight Protector Mandorallen.
Excerpt from "Seeress of Kell", Book Five of The Malloreon series by David Eddings.
"You need not fear us, unless you are a dark heart, a vile one who preys on the innocent; I promise, you can’t hide forever in the empty darkness, for we will hunt you down like the animals you are, and pull you into the very bowels of hell." Iron - Within Temptation
And danger often means legal danger now.
So for example never use 'sorry' as a sympathy word, it is too often seen as a legal admission of culpability.
"He said sorry" would never work as an admission of guilt in a UK court.
insaniak wrote: Sometimes, Exterminatus is the only option.
And sometimes, it's just a case of too much scotch combined with too many buttons...
It's true that in China more people go out of their way to avoid aiding stricken people than help them, but there are a lot more sources to back that claim up. Your OP contained no source, and only a small section of the information, but also a 'warning' based on an incident that occurred nearly 10 years ago. There have been several high-profile examples of the bystander effect over the past few years, all far more suitable to proving your point and far more easily accessible via 'trustworthy' news sources; why go for this one?
In fact, why dredge up an event that happened so long ago, when it holds so little actual discussion value to begin with, and provide us with nothing more to comment than "China's bad rabble rabble rabble?"
And danger often means legal danger now.
So for example never use 'sorry' as a sympathy word, it is too often seen as a legal admission of culpability.
"He said sorry" would never work as an admission of guilt in a UK court.
It used to be an issue in American courts, though I think many (most? all?) have moved away from that definition since it's a word that can have multiple meanings (especially in light of the "I'm sorry if you were offended" non-apologies... if "sorry" was always translated as an admission of fault, then people making those non-apologies could be considered admitting guilt, and thus open to all kinds of lawsuits).
It is best to be a pessimist. You are usually right and, when you're wrong, you're pleasantly surprised.
sebster wrote: This isn't a uniquely Chinese thing. It's really common across the less developed parts of the world - the more poor the country and the more corrupt its legal system, the more likely this is. It has nothing to do with the legal system as written, but more the level of corruption within police and lower level judiciary.
Jimsolo wrote: I thought that was actually pretty common outside the U.S. and Canada.
Then there's instances in which the presumption of innocence is specfically rejected, or abandoned. Al Capone was famously arrested not for the bootlegging, racketeering and people he had killed, but for tax evasion. What's less known is that the method used by the prosecution to prove tax evasion basically amounted to 'we have a list of all the stuff you own, and what you spend each year on luxuries, you prove to us how you can afford this stuff with your stated level of income', which is a pretty major flip of the burden of proof.
I'm not saying that as a bash against the US, I actually quite like the decision of the US to remove the presumption in the Capone case. I'm just saying that the presumption is a lot more complex than simply having it or not.
Not 100% correct, though i can see how that would be interpreted that way.
What the government's case was against Capone is that he falsified tax returns for years, and used the lists of his assets found in ledgers and other evidence as proof that he had done so.
Capone's imprisonment is not a case of the violation of Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat, that the burden of proof falls with the accuser, but of incompetent defense (untimely objection to the banned admission of certain damning ledgers, hence making those ledgers admissible, and basing at least part of his defense on "I don't have to pay taxes because of Gambling losses", and probably most damning, when ordering his lawyer to normalize his tax debt, due to some miscommunications, his lawyer quite literally hands the prosecuting law enforcement agents a signed letter acknowledging that Capone owed about 100,000 in back taxes for unclaimed income. How Capone didn't have this guy murdered is absolutely beyond me, because he did more to convict Capone than Elliott Ness or Frank J. Wilson ever did! ).
They used the huge sums of money he spent as evidence of the fact that he had not claimed the proper amount of taxes on his tax returns. Tax evasion is what he was convicted of.
I think you're referring to the fact that it was not ruled until 1927 that illegally obtained income had to be declared on taxes, but Oliver Wendell Holmes correctly surmised that this was not a matter of creating a criminal act where none existed, but that the ruling closed a loophole which existed only because the stretch of the 5th amendment in this manner had never officially been ruled on. Ergo, but for that ruling, Capone only could have been charged for evaded taxes on non-claimed income from '27 to his arrest / trial / sentencing in 30-31.
I will say this, if you refer to the grounds on which is appeal was denied, then I 100% agree with you. That was pretty bs (that somehow his incarceration time in Miami magically subtracted from the age of the offenses, and therefore his prior '27 tax evasion convicted charges were not ex post facto.... i mean gak... my head is spinning just reading that. ).
Easy distinction to overlook, but a critically important one: without those series of events, it becomes very difficult to properly prosecute Organized Crime's leadership without a smoking gun literally in the hand of the bosses.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2015/03/14 16:34:27
This creates an interesting dilema. Should you help a person who is down? It is the right action morally but also seems to carry a risk (This seems to be relative to what country you live in). So what is the correct way to respond?
Something that might be related to this when a man would abuse a woman verbally or physically in public (If it was the other way around, with a woman abusing a man, lets face it, nobody would give a feth. But this isnt really relevant.)
and someone tried to interfere with them and help the person being abused they not only risk a hostile reaction from the abuser but also from the victim on the basis of "mind your own business" or what not.
There was a study being done in Sweden and England where they would test people's reactions to abuse like that in public.
An overwhelming majority ignored it in one way or another and afterwards many people started yelling "what is wrong with this country" etc.
I remember hearing about this incident a few years ago in America, where some soldier who just returned form his deployment, he was walking trough a park when he saw a man beating up his wife.
He rushed to help, overwhelmed the man who was no match for a trained soldier, yet instead of showing gratitude the woman shot and killed him in the back.
What is my point? Well i dont really have one.
What is the proper reaction when you see someone in need? Do you try your best to help someone in need and risk yourself in return? Or should you ignore it, which is the logical thing to do yet it strips away a part of your sanity?
motyak wrote:[...] Yes, the mods are illuminati, and yakface, lego and dakka dakka itself are the 3 points of the triangle.
Daemonhammer wrote: This creates an interesting dilema. Should you help a person who is down? It is the right action morally but also seems to carry a risk (This seems to be relative to what country you live in). So what is the correct way to respond?
Something that might be related to this when a man would abuse a woman verbally or physically in public (If it was the other way around, with a woman abusing a man, lets face it, nobody would give a feth. But this isnt really relevant.)
and someone tried to interfere with them and help the person being abused they not only risk a hostile reaction from the abuser but also from the victim on the basis of "mind your own business" or what not.
There was a study being done in Sweden and England where they would test people's reactions to abuse like that in public.
An overwhelming majority ignored it in one way or another and afterwards many people started yelling "what is wrong with this country" etc.
I remember hearing about this incident a few years ago in America, where some soldier who just returned form his deployment, he was walking trough a park when he saw a man beating up his wife.
He rushed to help, overwhelmed the man who was no match for a trained soldier, yet instead of showing gratitude the woman shot and killed him in the back.
What is my point? Well i dont really have one.
What is the proper reaction when you see someone in need? Do you try your best to help someone in need and risk yourself in return? Or should you ignore it, which is the logical thing to do yet it strips away a part of your sanity?
Get them to take a video of them saying you're trying to help.
Many areas have what are called "Samaritan laws" which protect someone attempting to render aid from lawsuits and the like.
This most often comes into play if you must render CPR (as a non-medical professional). Doing chest compressions on someone is likely to result in cracked ribs, but if you crack someone's ribs while saving their life via CPR, then you can't (generally speaking) be held liable for their medical bills for the ribs.
It is best to be a pessimist. You are usually right and, when you're wrong, you're pleasantly surprised.
Psienesis wrote: Many areas have what are called "Samaritan laws" which protect someone attempting to render aid from lawsuits and the like.
This most often comes into play if you must render CPR (as a non-medical professional). Doing chest compressions on someone is likely to result in cracked ribs, but if you crack someone's ribs while saving their life via CPR, then you can't (generally speaking) be held liable for their medical bills for the ribs.
Luckily the UK has no 'Good Samaritan'laws. Even though the rest of Europe does.
It is totally legal to sit on the side of a pond and watch a small baby drown, despite the huge moral weight that would probably remain with you for the rest of your life.
DS:90-S+G+++M++B-IPw40k03+D+A++/fWD-R++T(T)DM+ Warmachine MKIII record 39W/0D/6L
Well, in the US, you are not required to render aid, as a private citizen. You could, in the US, watch said baby drown. What the Samaritan law does, though, is protect you if, in diving in to save that baby, you break its arm or something. You cannot be held liable for that injury if it is incurred in the course of saving its life.
EDIT: The "Good Samaritan" laws we have are not, as depicted on Seinfeld, to prevent people from being jerks, but to ensure that someone trying to do the nice thing is not culpable if things go wrong.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/03/16 00:15:58
It is best to be a pessimist. You are usually right and, when you're wrong, you're pleasantly surprised.
Psienesis wrote: Well, in the US, you are not required to render aid, as a private citizen. You could, in the US, watch said baby drown. What the Samaritan law does, though, is protect you if, in diving in to save that baby, you break its arm or something. You cannot be held liable for that injury if it is incurred in the course of saving its life.
I think your Samaritan law is different from the European one. Under European Law, if you see someone in danger you have a legal obligation to try and save them, otherwise you could be charged with an offence.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Basically it is a Duty to Rescue.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2015/03/16 00:20:04
DS:90-S+G+++M++B-IPw40k03+D+A++/fWD-R++T(T)DM+ Warmachine MKIII record 39W/0D/6L
Psienesis wrote: Well, in the US, you are not required to render aid, as a private citizen. You could, in the US, watch said baby drown. What the Samaritan law does, though, is protect you if, in diving in to save that baby, you break its arm or something. You cannot be held liable for that injury if it is incurred in the course of saving its life.
I think your Samaritan law is different from the European one. Under European Law, if you see someone in danger you have a legal obligation to try and save them, otherwise you could be charged with an offence.
Basically it is a Duty to Rescue.
Really? I never heard of this. What if saving someone's life would endanger you?
Could you tell me where i could read more about this?
motyak wrote:[...] Yes, the mods are illuminati, and yakface, lego and dakka dakka itself are the 3 points of the triangle.
Seriously though, pretty sure most, if not all, of Europe works with innocent until proven guilty.
