Thursday
(1)Current blogger enthusiasm of mine Harry Hutton says that this is an interesting story. It is.
Nguyen was discovered trying to enter Hong Kong illegally hiding beneath a truck crossing the border with the mainland. A routine search revealed the Nguyen was carrying two bullets inside his right shoe and a small kitchen knife wrapped in plastic.Despite the grave threat to public order posed by these weapons, Judge Sweeny contemplated waiving jail time and deporting this dangerous felon ... at which point Nguyen became indignant and insisted that he be imprisoned for the maximum possible term.
The defendant explained that he had paid HK$1,500 (US$200) to a snakehead to arrange his illegal entry into the SAR, with the hope of being caught and jailed on immigration and weapons charges. The fee included transportation the cost of the two bullets and a knife, which were provided by the smugglers. Once captured, Nguyen counted on receiving, courtesy of Hong Kong's taxpayers, room, board and prisoner's pay of HK$5,600 (US$720), or about US$25 per month, after deducting the snakehead's fee.
Nguyen considered this a better prospect than those on offer in Vietnam.
Applying the Solomonic wisdom for which he is renowned, His Lordship pondered the situation for a while and then declared that the law is, after all, the law and, moreover, releasing Nguyen wouldn't be fair to other Vietnamese immigrants – of whom it turns out there are quite a few – currently serving time for trying to cross the border with two bullets and a kitchen knife …
The Washington Times further elucidates:
Hien is the latest in a series of mostly young Vietnamese men arriving in Hong Kong on the "two bullet tour," for which they pay a fee to a gang in their homeland. The package deal includes transport to mainland China, instructions on how to cross into Hong Kong, plus two bullets and a knife.The weapons are to ensure that the immigrant will get a long prison sentence. For Hien it means free shelter, food and $50 a month in pay while he is incarcerated. He paid about $200 for the package deal.
Goodness, they must be short of prisoners in Hong Kong. They pay people to attend. Oh well, I suppose this is a nice, simple, market-based solution to the problem of getting udesirables off the streets.
Everyone says how clever those Vietnamese were to defeat the USA in the Vietnam War. But winning was stupid. The clever thing to do would have been to lose.
I'm confused. Why on earth do prisoners get a stipend?
Posted by telcontar at October 28, 2004 01:51 PM
Why the surprise? doesn't the same thing happen in UK with the illegal immigrants that arrive from various parts of the World?
The difference being that we let them out to serve their 'time', in the community, and pay them via welfare benefits, and they get free medical treatment as well...
Nirvana means different things to different people...
Posted by ernest young at October 28, 2004 02:16 PM
We have become calloused, blase' even, when we hear these stories about the lengths to which the inhabitants of prison countries will go in order to escape.
However, for those who believe that the most dangerous force in the world is not a hurricane with a cute name, but unbridled state power, each time we hear some leftover socialist braying about the wonders of the all-compassionate, all-powerful state, we should make it a point to remind people of stories like this.
Imagine what it would take for you to throw your family and yourself into the sea upon some leaky raft, willing to risk any number of dangers, just to get away from the place where you live. That is the action of prisoners trying to escape Devil's Island, of Papillion.
That is the level of desparation that collectivism brings humans down to. Stand on the cliffs overlooking the sea sometime, and try to feel that burning, aching need so powerful you would throw yourself off to escape it.
The never ending debate about the limits of state power is not just an intellectual enterprise. Ideas in this context literally have the power of life and death over millions of people
Posted by veryretired at October 28, 2004 05:21 PM
I don't always like what you write veryretired, but that was really well put. Excellent comment.
Posted by Duncan at October 28, 2004 06:48 PM
Nice comment, 'veryretired'. Couldn't agree more, We in the West, and particularly in Europe, seem to concede our civic and public freedoms far too easily.
The content of the EU Constitution being a case in point, an undemocratic document, contrived by unelected bureaucrats, for the sole benefit of an elite clique, and being implemented with very little public discussion, the public being presented with a 'fait accompli', and no chance of critisizing said document, on pain of confiscation and imprisonment.
And folk have the gall to scoff when you tell them that we are at war with these Statist intellectual elitists.
Not all wars are fought with guns, but all wars end up with ordinary people making the ultimate sacrfice, it is very rare to hear of a Marx, a Schroeder or a Chirac dying for their beliefs, or even a Blair...
Posted by ernest young at October 28, 2004 08:01 PM
"Everyone says how clever those Vietnamese were to defeat the USA in the Vietnam War. But winning was stupid. The clever thing to do would have been to lose."
Well there wasnt a David Niven in Vietnam :)
The man want to be locked for money. Back to serfs?
Posted by lucklucky at October 29, 2004 07:12 PM
"Everyone says how clever those Vietnamese were to defeat the USA in the Vietnam War. But winning was stupid. The clever thing to do would have been to lose."
Damn right. As a native and happy inhabitant of a former nation that lost to the US more than a hundred years ago (the late, unlamented Confederate States of America), I'd have to say I'm damn glad the boys in gray lost. Losing to the US also turned out to be a winning strategy for what was once northern Mexico, along with Germany, Japan, Afghanistan, and now Iraq (yeah, the dust is taking a while to settle, but anyone who thinks that Iraq is a "disaster" or that the "hopelessly incompetent" Bush engineered a "major clusterf*ck" needs to learn a little bit about the way wars and occupations used to go before the modern United States accomplished the seemingly impossible with astoundingly little loss of life) and hopefully Iran before they finish their nukes.
(Now where did I put my copy of The Mouse That Roared?)
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