Watching rights. (legal system in Singapore)(includes excerpts from 'Country Reports on Human Rights Practices,' published by the United States Department of State) (Column)

Nation, The, May, 1994 by Neier, Aryeh

Should this country, like Singapore, flog vandals? If calls to radio talk shows, letters to the editor and scattered public opinion polls are a fair measure, a lot of Americans think so. Charles Krauthammer speaks for this segment of the population, arguing in a recent syndicated column that we have a lot to learn from Singapore's plan to bastinado 18-year-old Michael Fay, and denouncing "mindless civil libertarianism" as the cause of America's social ills. Singapore's system "works," he says. "Singapore is a city with no litter, no graffiti, no gangs and almost no crime." It is just that simple.

Or is it? If flogging were reintroduced in America, bleeding hearts would likely form oppositional organizations; there would be protest demonstrations on college...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Premium Content Partnership | HighBeam Research provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works.