Slashdot Mirror
Pair Arrested After Telling Lawyer Jokes
fembots writes "Two men were arrested for telling lawyer jokes while standing in line leading into First District Court. A spokesman for the Nassau courts said the men were causing a stir and that their exercise of their First Amendment rights to free speech was impeding the rights of others at the court."
So in this case, "Your Rights Online" refers merely to the fact that these jokesters were standing "on line." With all due respect, I just don't see how this is Slash-worthy.
Next!
"...all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness..." yada yada
Reading the article, however, makes me wonder if we're really getting the whole story here. Given that these aren't just two random individuals but the founders of "Americans for Legal Reform", I personally smell an increased likelyhood that their side of things contains a certain amount of BS. Of course it's just my gut instinct talking and your milage may vary.
Unfortunately this level of doubt precludes the normal level of moral outrage (aka, "hits" or "ad impressions") that these threads are supposed to generate, and for that I apologize.
Now, answer me this: How many RIAA lawyers does it take to screw in a light blub?
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
A: Good morning, Your Honor.
Q: How do you tell if a lawyer is lying?
A: His lips are moving.
Q: Why do they bury lawyers 100 feet into the ground?
A: Because down deep, they're good people.
Q: What's the difference between a vulture and a lawyer?
A: Wing tips
This First Post has an order bug
The package said "Windows XP or better. Pentium Class Processor or better"... So I got a Mac with OS X
...someone better explain to them what IANAL means before they start the sodomy lawsuits...
Trolling is a art,
Lawyers and the courts have been subverting the constitution for years. This is just another example of it. Not surprising, especially given that their own kind was attacked.
These guys weren't randomly standing in line telling lawyer jokes. They purposely and continually go to courts and heckle the lawyers.
The pair said that for years they have stood outside courthouses on Long Island and mocked lawyers. The summary appears to inflame, when it shouldn't.
Slashdot Editors!
(Psst... make a "Law" category rather than stuff everything into YRO.)
Sure it may sound bad this way... But I am sure the two guys went overboard somewhere... They did not simply offend one judge/lawyer/whatever and poof, was off to jail...
This is one situation where I am sure you had to be there to know really what happened, since there is probably two stories to this one, the one doing the arresting, and the ones being arrested...
Sorry for the rant, but what fool calls lawyers names to their faces?
Billy
By "they were arrested for telling lawyer jokes" you mean "they were arrested for 'being abusive and disturbing the peace'"
I was going to try to make some articulate argument about the scope of First Amendment rights as it applies to public places and the social contract, but I'll just sum it up like this:
Two retards act like dicks and get busted for it, and all of a sudden I have to read about it on Slashdot?
The only acceptable defense of scientific results is to say that they were the product of the Scientific Method.
I saw this story on Fark and for spite, everyone told their most offensive lawyer joke.
The easily offended should stop reading now.
A priest and a lawyer are walking down the street together when a young boy crosses their path. The priest says "hey, you wanna screw that boy?" To which the lawyer replies, "Out of what?"
What do you call a thousand lawyers on the ocean floor?
A good start.
Carthago delenda est!
worse than this story n /. would be a dupe of this story on /.
then start posting only lawyer jokes to it.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
when your first amendment rights are being violated? ...Your lips are moving!
Thankyou, I'll be here all week.
You're doing it wrong.
Q: How does a full-partner shield his 25th story corner office from a Nuclear Holocaust?
A: Boilerplate
Seastead this.
After all, just 90% of lawyers make the other 10% look bad...
Life is short; think quickly.
...I stick to dead baby jokes. Since they can't talk, they can't tattle on me.
In general, acting like an asshole in the presence of law enforcement is a bad idea. You may not get convicted, but chances are really good you will get arrested.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Our freedom to tell lawyer jokes....oh, wait....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
If the two were wrongfully arrested, would they be capable of getting some sort of compensation under US law?
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
Good thing they weren't making fun of Police Officers in front of a Police Station or while in one. ;)
;)
Anyway for those who didn't RTFA:
>>>
The men are founders of Americans for Legal Reform, a group of outspoken advocates who use confrontational tactics to push for greater access to courts for the public and to monitor how well courts serve the public. One tactic is driving a truck around the Huntington area emblazoned with the slogan "Stop The Lawyer Disease." They said their rights to free speech were violated Monday.
>>
But Dan Bagnuola, a spokesman for the Nassau courts, said the men were causing a stir and that their exercise of their First Amendment rights to free speech was impeding the rights of others at the court.
>>
"They were being abusive and they were causing a disturbance," Bagnuola said. "They were making general comments to the people on line, referring to them as 'peasants,' and they were causing a disturbance. And they were asked on several occasions to act in an orderly manner, not to interfere with the operation of the court."
>>
Bagnuola said he did not have the name of the lawyer who complained to officers.
>>
Kash said he and Lanzisera were merely saying out loud that the public was being treated like peons or peasants while attorneys, who wave their security passes to court officers and don't have to stand on line, are treated like kings.
>>
"I'm not surprised this happened because anybody who stands up for their rights is put down because these people want only one thing, and that is control," Kash said.
>>
The men were given desk appearance tickets and are due back in court - as defendants - next month.
Judges are lawyers too, this could get interesting. I wonder if they will show the court case on pay-per-view? I got the popcorn all ready just in case it airs.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Wouldn't this be "Your Rights inline" ?
I were there too. He uploaded, not downloaded =)
/. ? =)
Perhaps this will come on
Q. How many lawyer jokes are there?
A. Two - the rest are all true stories.
-sid
Last time I checked, standing outside a courthouse expressing disdain for lawyers is perfectly legal.
In some states, they even allow people to carry signs and march around in circles outside of buildings. In fact, from time to time, these sign wielding people will even chant repetative slogans (gasp). My friend, people have a right to protest, be it against abortion, creationism, blacks, whites, gays, white supremacists and yes...lawyers.
Do I think these guys are stupid douchebags? Of course.
Am I outraged that they were arrested for being stupid douchebags? You bet your ass I am.
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
It looks like Slashdot ate them! :(
:)
;)
Anyway here they are:
Apparently those rights are such that they can offend other people's rights?
Well, okay then, nothing wrong with them exercising their own rights, as long as it does not impede the rights of others in the process, right?
So much for respect of others, obeying the rules of conduct, and following the rules of order.
I'll bet that lawyer plays Golf with the judge who will hear the case.
Police officers also wave their badges at security checkpoints, because they have a job to do and cannot be delayed. The same, for lawyers.
So basically these two men try to take control of a court from lawyers, judges, ballifs, and other staff?
Judges are lawyers too, this could get interesting. I wonder if they will show the court case on pay-per-view? I got the popcorn all ready just in case it airs.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Q: How many RIAA lawyers does it take to screw in a light blub?
A: We at the RIAA think we will never really know, as we are fairly sure that each lightbulb changed by a home internet user represents a lost lightbulb installation fee, which in turn affects the not just the RIAA lawyers but the Lighting Technicians and Carpenters and all the little people involved in music production to such an extent that we now have to over-task our lawyers to combat the menace of the Open Standard Lightbulb Organizations. Th pressure generated by these OSLOs, in turn, prevents us from determining the natural lawyer to lightbulb ratio. Until Congress acts to plug this fee-structure leakage with an appropriate rights management technology and enacts proper criminal penalties for circumvention of our natural right to control the exercise of the lightbulb changing task, we will be forced to file John Doe lawsuits in order to gain the suppoena power necessary to compel the lightbulb supply corporations with the names and addresses of their clearly infringing customers.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
Why could the lawyer simply ignore the men? Yes, I RTFA, and this was set-up to get attention by the two guys telling the jokes, but this is a pretty extreme way to go about stopping them. Besides, anyone but the most naive knows that lawyers will do anything to win, and in return, make tons of cash. I don't care about the money they make, but the methods which they employ scares me.
A blog like any other.
The fool that belives he lives in a free country.
Maybe RMS can update 'The Free Software Definition' to add 'free' as in the United States of America -- The software is free until they decide it's not.
``Free software'' is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of ``free'' as in ``free speech,'' not as in ``free like the USA.''
While not that interesting in the first place, it doesn't have anything to do with my rights online. We're getting more and more irrelevant stories in YRO now, I think it's time to either post these under Politics or create a new category for them.
No, it's Lawn Guyland. There you stand on line.
From reading the article, it looks like they've successfully charged Statler and Waldorf.
Thank you so much, America, for putting these Muppets where they belong.
Now, what to do about Fozzy.....
Lawyer: Stop calling me names or I will sue you!
Jock: Shut up or I will squash you!
Geek: Shut up or I will hack into your Xbox!
W: Shut up or I will invade you!
French: Shut up or I will propose a UN resolution against you!
SCO: Shut up or I will demand a licensing fee!
Boss: Shut up or I will outsource your job!
Microsoft: Shut up or I will create a competing product.....and subsidize it!
Slashdotter: Shut up or I will mod you down!
Goatse: Shut up or I will send your mom a special email!
Table-ized A.I.
The reason the laywer made the complaint of DC was because they were telling lawyer jokes and wouldn't shut up. So they WERE arrested for telling lawyer jokes.
There is no indication that they were causing any kind of disturbance. This case will revolve on the testamony of the people in line with them.
Q. Where did Christa McAuliffe go for her vacation?
A. All over Florida.
There were some smiles, but one woman became very angry. It turns out she was a school teacher - and the sister of a good friend, who became a little more distant after the incident.
On the other hand, I first learned about Pollock jokes from John Toplovski - he thought they were hillarious (he was Polish - and very intelligent as are most Poles).
So the moral is: avoid jokes about specific individuals or classes - unless you are very sure of your audience.
where I am sure you had to be there to know really what happened
Two things happened:
1) Two guys went on the same obnoxious crusade to heckle lawyers.
2) Some lawyer was humiliated when his opposition caught him crying in the bathroom.
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
A pair is arrested for telling bomb jokes at the airport.
Geez, what have you been eating???
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Finally the jester got caught.
They were probably using their pda's chatting with each other through some random access point. I for one will not stand for that!
Lawyers are just like hackers, they don't make the stupid piece of shit rules, they just find the loop holes, sometimes for bad reasons, ok so they are black-hat but still hackers. If I had law skilez I would use them for money too, granted I would start out as the young graduate keen to make a difference and bring some good to the world, but after a couple of years I'd be suing 12 year old girls and their grand-parents and still sleeping good at night..
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Whats the differnece between a lawyer and a cafish?
Once is a scum sucking bottom dweller, the other on is a fish.
Baroom.
It reminded me of the time my neighbors responded to my objections to their loud music by claiming that I "just didn't like their style". My response, of course, was that at 2am on a Wednesday, whether they were playing 50Cent or Beethoven was irrelevant - the pounding base was not. I highly doubt that these guys were arrested for "telling lawyer jokes". They were probably arrested for being obnoxious WHILE telling lawyer jokes. Of course, none of us have the facts so it is a moot point.
Q: How many RIAA lawyers does it take to screw in a light blub?
A: RIAA lawyers don't have time to screw in lightbulbs, silly! They're too busy screwing 14 year old kids and their grandmothers...
So if I tell some blond jokes, does this mean some blonds will come and handcuff me?
The only thing that will stop you from fulfilling your dreams is you. - Tom Bradley
because siamese twins don't mess around
Table-ized A.I.
sounds to me like "Your Rights On Line" would be more apropos than "Your Rights Online" --
Once again, this article has little or anything to do with my or anyone's online rights being challenged.
Furthermore, you do not have the right to disturb the peace in a nonconstructive manner, as these guys were going.
What next? At this rate, it won't be long before we see Your Rights Online: Ashlee Simpson Booed
Not completely off topic, but this is totally legit, if these 2 claim priveleges under the US constitution as US citizens.
:)
Very few people realize the difference between State Citizenship (commonly referred to as being a US national) and US citizenship.
I'll cut to the chase, but the main difference is that a US national has rights guaranteed and protected by the constitution, while a US citizen has priveleges granted to them by the federal government. Like every privelege, it can be revoked at any time.
Some links to get you started here and
here
The funny thing is, I remember a SNL skit by christopher walkin where he made about having dual citizenship, US and florida. At the time I couldn't stop laughing...
Enjoy
my last sig was too controversial... now, a new and improved useless sig!
If you read the article, try to discover what is actually fact. Notice how no uninvolved people were interviewed - we only have the statements of the pair and a court official. Each of these people will, of course, spin the event their way. The majority of that article is little better than editorializing - filling in with opinion where facts are lacking.
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
It sounds like they want media attention, and decided one way to get it would be to get arrested in the area of contention. If that is the case, then the lawyers are the dummies for giving them what they wanted.
Engineers have 10 fingers while mathematicians only have 2.718...
WikiAfterDark.com It's a sex wiki, go now!
They are probably one of the many people who feel that lawyers who make up the vast majority of the people writing the laws, the people working for the people who write the laws, the people who lobby for such laws, the people who enforce the laws (the prosecutors not the cops), the people who interpret the laws (the judges), the people who defend you in court, the people you must pay when you need to use the courts, and the people who are paid to use the courts against you, have a bit too much power in our society.
Answer #2: None - Most lawyers are too big a prick to screw anywhere but in a courtroom.
Answer #3: None - That might shed some light on the issues.
Answer #4: None - Lawyers prefer to call an expert witness - a psychiatrist, who will only help change the bulb if the lightbulb really, really, really wants to change.
Answer #5: None - they're too busy suing the electical company for the injuries to their dicks from the last time they tried to screw a light bulb.
Finally, your cited text, that's what bullshit looks like when it's formally documented.
Agreed. But so do their professions of innocence.
Honestly, if I was on a jury hearing the case of a lawyer who was brutally murdered, unless the guy was Jimmy Carter off the clock, it'd probably be a hung jury. It's called karma.
And I feel that too.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
...are you on about?!?!? What has any of what you said have to do with the topic?
B.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
Q: Why should you avoid running over a bicycle-riding lawyer?
A: It might be your bicycle.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
legal definition of nuisance.. and this link has a lot of references as well
Now go to your state's statutes and look up alcohol and noise complaints, those are the two spots you will most likely find a statute about public nuisances. Just because you are too dumb to understand the law doesn't mean you are exempt from it.
-dk
an inconvenience or troublesome offence, as annoys the whole community in general, and not merely some particular person
Oops. Looks like you, and your thin-skinned lawyer, just lost.
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
It makes the lawyers taller.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
The key word here is "outside"...
From the article:
The line leading into First District Court in Hempstead Monday morning was long and frustrating...
Hmm... so the line to get into the court was inside the court? You must come from a truly interesting physical realm.
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
/. that threat carries little weight.
On
>> Buy yourself some extremely long bed sheets. You'll be making an escape rope out of them very soon.
i.e. if everyone standing in line is annoyed (which sounds like what happened).
other examples: driving around neighborhood with 1000 watts of music coming out of your trunk
hosting a party with 400+ people without asking/warning neighbors
so if you have a party in the middle of a forest and a cop happens to drive by, you won't get a ticket for a public nuisance (but possibly other violations if there are any). and for the college kids out there where police use this excuse to break up parties, ignore it until you have to go to court over it. then ask all of your neighbors to come and testify that you were not bothering them.
-dk
i.e. if everyone standing in line is annoyed (which sounds like what happened).
Oh dear. You lose again.
From TFA: "But while that rib and several others on barristers got some giggles from the crowd, the attorney standing in line about five people ahead wasn't laughing."
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/01/12/lawyer.jokes.arr est.ap/index.html
Picking a slightly less biased article, we learn that said individuals were in line to answer a DUI charge.
A little biased news reporting seems to be in play here, too.
All said: 1st lawyer ought to be listed on the complaint. Since he's not, dismiss it. But don't go on about those two being saints... and I'm sure they weren't being nearly so nice as they make themselves out to be.
A good lawyer can get them off.
Oh, wait....
When VCR's are outlawed, only outlaws will have VCR's.
A lawyer wrote a will for an elderly lady. She asked the price and he said, "One hundred dollars, please." She gave him a crisp new $100 bill without noticing that a second $100 bill was stuck to it. Immediately, the lawyer faced an ethical dilemma: "Do I have to report this on my taxes?"
Curiosity was framed; ignorance killed the cat. -- Author unknown
Awareness is very disturbing to people who want to remain blissful in their ignorance.
Sad, isn't it.
Think about it like this. It isn't "Your online rights" as much as "Your rights, discussed online."
Light is filtering down from above. Would you like to use DIVE?
Hmm...
r chive/doe _education_spending.shtml
Education: (~373 billion annual budget)
http://www.policyalmanac.org/education/a
By far, the greatest part of education revenues came from nonfederal sources (state, intermediate, and local governments),
FDA annual budget ~ 8 billion.
FAA annual budget ~ only 28 million??!!
DoD annual budget ~ 115 billion.
Considering most of the education money doesn't come from the Fed anyways, and the huge size difference between things that would absolutely be cut, like DoD spending, and things like FDA and FAA, I think a reasonable, minimal rather than maximal, compromise can be met.
Of course... I'm crazy, what am I thinking. If we cut ONE SINGLE PENNY from any one of those programs, and don't increase them every year (with someone else's money) then we're wavering in our commitment to the ideal these organizations are supposed to uphold. (You know, the ideals they uphold for us, so we don't have to...)
But, you know, forget Libertarians for a second, they're crazy, they want to reduce the size of the Fed by 90% ASAP. Get any of the Democrats or Republicans to reduce the size of the Fed by 10%, or try for all they're worth, and I'll vote for *them* in every term thereafter until they start increasing it again (beyond a realistic inflation).
The lawyers simply can not fit inside of the lightbulb. They will have to screw outside of it.
That is a variation of an old California joke:
How many Northern Californians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
None: Northern Californians will screw in the hot tub.
And before anyone from outside think too badly of Americans, I should mention that the KKK itself gets protestors, who normally outnumber the KKK by at least ten to one. The KKK is normally this sad little group of twenty people who make sure to stay well behind the police while people yell at them.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
I would vote libertarian socialist
Put down the crack pipe FUD-boy. Libertarians are all about government staying away from citizens' personal doings. That happens to be the opposite of socialist.
Stupid college kids with their parroting. You're no better than name-droppers.
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
A rabbi, preist, lawer and some kids are in a lifeboat, after thier ship sank. The lifeboat is overloaded and beginning to sink. The rabbi says, "We've all had full lives; we should jump overboard to save the children."
The lawer says,"Screw the children!"
The priest says,"Do you think we have time?"
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
Apparently "Americans for Legal Reform" drive around drunk so they can get arrested and harass lawyers during there visit to court ;)
He's dead!
Corporatism != Free Market
Slashdot
OLD News for Nerds. Stuff that Mattered.
With a wrap like that. shesh!
My karma is getting better everyday.
I'm just impressed that my little shithole county's shithole courts are actually mentioned in a slashdot article.
Nothing to see here... move along...
/~mikeg
It does when the first article makes it seems like they went to the courthouse as some sort of free speech protest.
WRONG. Anarchsts coined the term, "Libertarian" to avoid laws against "Anarchism." Anarchists were originally (and some still are) libertarian socialists. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism .
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
RTFM. Other people were laughing. Only the lawyer on the line complained.
If you had read the article, you would also have noticed that the persons arrested were not mere average joes. They are members of a legal reform group that looks out for cases such as this one.
They were silenced for their views that were contradictory to the court.
Ryosen
One man's "Troll, +1" is another man's "Insightful, +1".
They could have been telling hunter jokes in the woods.
Q: How many lawyers does it take to violate someone's first amendment rights?
A:(from a lawyer): THAT'S NOT FUNNY!
A:(from anyone else): Just one.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Guess he's one of the one you pissed off with your ipod dissing. Keep up the good work.
What is the difference between a lawyer and a catfish.
One is a scum sucking bottom feeder and the other is a fish.
6F 9E A9 1E 96 9F 74 27 ED B8 81 6D 0C 4E 1E 78
My other Sig is a 229.
If they were falsely arrested, they can pursue their greivance in the courts, except that they would have to violate their own principles to do so...
That's poetic justice.
This entire story is about the act of them getting arrested for telling lawyer jokes. The reason that they were in court is completely irrelevant. You can't just base their guilt or innocence *of this charge* on an unrelated piece of information.
It doesn't matter if they were in court for jaywalking, smoking crack, killing kittens or being KKK members- their rights under our legal system do not depend on those facts and the matter of whether it was right to arrest them for telling lawyer jokes has nothing at all to do with this.
"Yes and Yes. Now what is your third question?"
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
You have a view of socialism tainted by the cold war. Real socialism means government and property in the hands of the workers, not the government. The basic theory of libertarian socialism as aposed to anarcho-capitalism (like the libertarian party) is that not only should people be free from government control but also from economic coersion, which allows employers to exploit their employees.
See Wikipedia
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
These guys were arrested for making fun of our laughable judicial system. Need proof that our judicial system is laughable? These guys were arrested for making fun of...
Sorry, if it was in a court room during a trial, sure, but all these guys did wrong was piss off the wrong people. Article mentions they are part of an organization to promote better public access to the courts. Obviously these two were a thorn in a side or two. Arresting them is pure abuse of power just to make a point.
Send whiskey and fresh horses!
Search google if you like. The wikipedia page does work though.
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
warning: This post is likely to contain gobs of dripping sarcasm. Consume at your own risk.
The kind of fools that are disturbed by the fact that a highly-paid professional--a paper-pusher! -- frightens us so.
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
I think people need to realize that 1) First Amendment rights are not unlimited, and 2) courthouses are one of the places where your First Amendment rights are bridged. Schools are another. Regardless of how much of a disturbance their jokes were making, THEY WERE IN A COURTHOUSE. You can protest all the hell you want OUTSIDE the courthouse, but not inside.
Huh?
This is about an event in a physical court building, not a website or somewhere else in cyberspace.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Linux at home
I don't know if it was mentioned... When approached they "threatened" the court officers... So is said by the union :-P
It may seem to us that it's an abuse of power to have two men arrested over making defamatory statements about lawyers, but if they were telling Jewish jokes instead, and someone was offended, then it wouldn't seem odd that they were arrested for disorderly conduct.
They purposely and continually go to courts and heckle the lawyers
That is the beauty of freedom that people overlook. The idea is that if you are unhappy with something and you want to spend all day talking about it to to a person or a crowd of people then those people have the protected right to agree or disagree with you with out recourse. That is what makes freedom.
Now we do have other avenues availible ie media, but it does *NOT* replace your right to speak in public.
I would say in terms of free speach if I was a loud mouth shouting my opinion then you would have just as much a right to ignore me, agree with me, or stand across from me and scream back. As long as there is no violence and no one is get a lynch mob going that is ok and it is good because it gives all of us a pulse of our society.
Many would have you belive this is wrong and if you want opinion to listen to a radio or watch television. That is what I would call opression the media is a nice to look at thing but has no real meaning or purpose any more. If a housing complex down your street is kicking people out to make room for higher paying patrons would this make the news? Maybe.
If not and you went outside and told evreyone your opinion should you be arrested ?
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
A public Nuisance is what ever the cop said it is before they were arrested. Likely it will be tossed once a judge hears it.
(So how many times have you failed that bar exam?)
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
If a couple of guys stood outside Planned Parenthood and made slut jokes, would that be OK?. OK, if you don't consider that a good analogy, how would you feel if someone was gathering a crowded near your business making fun of your job? I suspect many of us would deal with it just fine, but many would not, especially if it had been a lousy day at work.
Sorry to reply to myself but some people seemed to really like this so here is more of it in my as of yet incomplete essay on lawyers. I may post this on my seldom updated website in the coming days.
Lawyers:
I am probably one of the many people who feel that lawyers who make up the vast majority of the people writing the laws, the people working for the people who write the laws (clerks, assistants, interns, sycophants, ball washers), the people who lobby for such laws, the people who enforce the laws (the prosecutors not the cops), the people who interpret the laws (the judges), the people who defend you in court, the people you must pay when you need to use the courts, and the people who are paid to use the courts against you, have a bit too much power in our society.
If thats not bad enough they all invariably belong to the same organization known as The Bar Association, which is supposed to make sure lawyers act ethically, kind of the way the longshoreman's union makes sure that our ports are run efficiently. Now there are different Bar Associations for each state and some courts like the federal courts and the Supreme Court of the United States have their own Bar Associations. They are all basically the same, like branches of a major bank trading under different brand names appropriate to the region in which they operate only the Bar is far worse than any bank because a bank can only screw you out of money you are stupid enough to trust them with in the first place, and even if you really get yourself in hot water with the bank they are not allowed to imprison you or kill you, which is the one serious improvement that can be credited to modern lawyers, the elimination of debtor's prison.
Lawyers, who are far worse than banks, have become the ultimate gatekeepers to the use and protection of what is supposedly our government. The prime directive of any government to its citizens is its exclusive right to use force against pretty much anyone it wants to for any reason or no reason at all. Although in some rare cases a government expresses it's desire to, at least in theory, obey its own directives, called laws, there is no one allowed to use force to make them keep their promise.
Where did lawyers come from. Well the story goes that the gentle, "democratic" very loving (of boys), and tolerant Roman city-state, invented lawyers. They invented lawyers because in Roman courts only noblemen were allowed to speak and occasionally a mere peasant, called a plebian, who differed from a slave mainly in that he was not himself and could own property but unlike a nobleman could not use force to protect it, mistakingly thought that he might be able to get "justice" if he could convince the noblemen, who consisted of two groups, lawyers and military officers, that he was right and some other guy was wrong. The other guy was probably a nobleman who screwed the plebian out of money or raped his daughter and the only way to convince a court, run by other noblemen, that a plebian was right and a nobleman was wrong was by hiring another richer, more important, and perhaps smarter nobleman to plead the case for him. Otherwise the plebian, thats you by the way unless your checking account exceeds FDIC insurance limits. Peasants had little reason to use the courts against other peasants because they could just kill, maim, fight off, rape another peasant and the courts, run by nobleman and the military police, run by nobleman really couldn't give a shit.
If only things had stayed that way, but like any bank that charges exorbitantly high fees (almost all of them), the idea expanded so that now in just about the entire developed world, and by developed we mean a place where a lawyer is more useful than a gun in getting your way, only lawyers are allowed to speak in court. Well, that is not entirely true, you can speak in court if you want to, but the judge, also a lawyer, will likely disregard everything you say, especially anything that makes sense, and tell you ver
"We the people, for the people" is a socialist manifesto.
Discuss
--- Four bases should be enough for any genetic code
And I feel that too.
Hmmm, if everybody felt the same (and I have a strong suspicion that most do...), the jury would not longer be hung, hehe ;-)
Shark-hunting season is open! Now, if you no longer can exercise your First Amendment rights, at least you can exercise your Second Amendment rights instead! (Disorderly conduct gets a judge, whereas that other offense gets a jury trial!)
Now I understand why the movement of migration to Canada... U.S. society is sick!
Stupidity is an equal opportunity striker.
Fellow slashdotter Bill Dog
From the few blurbs I read/heard and the article, they were basically telling the truth as we (the common dreck; ie. non-laywers) see it.
Let's see- using the 1st Amendment rights impeded... uh, what other rights? The 3553rd right to not be made fun of? Kinda neat how the most important Amendment was the 1st.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
of the lawyers.
Lawyers are the entire power stucture on the USA: judges are lawyers, politicians are lawyers, and of course lawyers are lawyers.
"lawyerocracy" indeed.
Jeff Merkey: Stop calling me names or my lawyer will sue you!
Groklaw: Shut up or I will censor you!
That's all I could think of.
Indeed, the wikipedia entry for liar is quite appropriate!
As long as they haven't heard the jokes a million times already. Maybe the guys just needed new material?
There was a trucker driving down the highway, when he came across a priest hitchhiking on the side of the road. Being the good christian, he offered the priest a ride. The priest accepted, and they were off down the road again. A little while later, the trucker saw a lawyer hitchiking by the side of the road too. Well, the trucker did the only thing he thought right, he pulled the truck over to the side of the road thinking to run down the lawyer, but at the last minute he remebered that there was a priest sitting next to him, and swerved to miss the lawyer. As he passed, he heard a loud bump. OH NO! he thought I killed a lawyer with a priest sitting next to me. I'm going to go to hell. He turned to the priest, and said "Sorry Father, I didn't mean to." to which the Priest replied, "Dont worry my son, I got him with the door!"
I LIKE TOAST!!!
Agreed. But so do their professions of innocence.
It sounds like they are innocent, at least legally.
I don't think they were professing to innocence of being jackasses.
AccountKiller
Q: What's black and tan and looks great on a lawyer?
A: A Rottweiler.
Q: Did you hear about the lawyer who was accidentally overpaid by his client?
A: He was in a moral dilemma because he didn't know if he should tell his partner.
uh, oh...maybe I should post anonymously...
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
They aren't protestors.
They're scumbags causing a disturbance who want sympathy to get out of it.
The one guy is a drunk driver, one of the crimes I have absolutely no sympathy for.
Maybe we need a lawyer jokeathon to lightn up the day!
:D
and to start the day:
A dying man calls his priest (rabby or whatever), doctor and lawyer to his death bed, gave each 25,000 USD and ask them to pur the money on his tomb in case he dies to make sure hell be welthy in the afterlife according to his regional cultural beliefs.
A week later he dies, the three attend the funeral and put their respective envelopes with the body.
Three months later they meet ocationally, and the priest tells the other two that he only gave 10,000 USD back only because he did not want to waste all that money; the doctor confesses as well only to giving back 8,000 USD!
The lawyer starts telling them that they should be very ashamed, and that his an example to honesty since his personal check in the envelope was for the complete 25,000!
"Thoughtcrime is the only crime that matters."
When was the last time that shooting a cop, or even showing them a gun, or just widespread public gun ownership, has kept them from abusing their power? The rising police state is swelling at the same rate as gun ownership, and most gun owners would say that cops need *more* power to push around people, because "we're too nice to criminals". We've had the 2nd Amendment for centuries - why hasn't it stopped the government's abuse of power, including shooting people without recrimination in highly armed neighborhoods?
--
make install -not war
RTFM(manual)? Shouldn't it be RTFA(article)?
From reading this article it never stated if more people than just the one lawyer complained. The article said that "they were asked several times to settle down", by whom? The lawyer? Or court bailifs?
It never stated why the men were there, were they there on business meaning they had a court appearance or were they merely there to witness the days court proceedings, which is their right.
The fault is their own, wether there on business or just exercising their legal right to appear. They should have conducted themselves in a mature manner if however, the lawyer was the only one to complain and the men were not asked to leave the courts, which if they were there to simply watch, surely they would have been told to if causing a disturbance an arrest was not warranted given the facts of the article.
Seems to me one lawyer threw his weight around because the ambulance chaser was offended by a few wise cracks. The old codgers were bored and having some fun.
To the lawyer who had the gezers arrested just because you have passed a BAR exam and possibly have a law degree doesn't give you the right to be a total prick. Get your head out of your ass, it was old guys cracking jokes, you can't take a joke then bury your head back into your mothers teet you whiny little pratt.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
The lawyers will get it, and that's what counts.
Seastead this.
They are allowed to do that.
The law was bent to give favortism to those who didn't like what they said.
the only stupid person here is the lawyer for proving their point. A smart lawyer would have done what they tell there clients to do, shut the hell up.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"But Dan Bagnuola, a spokesman for the Nassau courts,"
not the lawyer who reported them.
" said the men were causing a stir "
stir? is that a legal term? in what way is a stir illegal? I notice he didnt say disturbance.
"and that their exercise of their First Amendment rights to free speech was impeding the rights of others at the court."
who? who didn't get there time in court because of them? what rights were impeded?
"They were being abusive and they were causing a disturbance," Bagnuola said.
Ok this is good. please point aout an abusive comment?
"They were making general comments to the people on line, referring to them as 'peasants,' "
Notice, they don't mention the context?
"Look at them go in like kings while were treated like peasants.How do you like being a peasant?
none of those comments seem disturbing at all. Since the people who are accusing them of commiting a crime released the press statment, I am inclined to think if they had said something disruptive, there would hahe been quotes.
"and they were causing a disturbance."
OK we've seen 'stir' once and disturbance twice, still no information on the disturbance other then vauge generalities
" And they were asked on several occasions to act in an orderly manner,"
how do they mean, sit down, shutup and do what your told? is that the new civility in this country? Again the only person how was disturbed seem to be one lawyer who only complained anonymously. nobody else in line compained, and in fact they were laughing.
" not to interfere with the operation of the court."
If standing in line making jokes interferes with the courst system, then somethiing is wrong.
I, for one, have had enough of this crap were we are told how we must behave or we can go to prison.
My God, we loive in a time were hardly anyone complains when airport officials feel up small children. What the fuck is wrong?
The point was that the rules are changed bent and suspended for people in power. i.e. abusive lawyers.
FInally: No I do not think all lawyers are bad, but I believe a lot of them are spoiled SOB who need a fucking wake up call. If lawyers continue to ignore the growing outrage against them, then eventually they will end up against the wall.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
A man walks into a curio shop and begins to browse. His eyes are immediately drawn to an odd-looking bronze figurine in the shape of a rat. The tag says $12.
"Where did you get this bronze rat? Is this really $12?" he asks the shopkeeper.
"Oh, that is a very special rat, sir. The statue is $12, but it is $500 for the story behind it."
"I can do without the story," says the man and hands over the $12.
"You'll be back for the story, I am thinking," smiles the shopkeeper.
Soon after the man exits the shop with his purchase, he notices a rat emerge from a sewer grate and begin to follow him. Another appears a moment later, then another. Soon a dozen or more rats have appeared and are running along behind him. Alarmed, the man begins walking faster, but this only draws more rats out of the sewer. In a panic, he begins to run, but within a minute, hundreds, then thousands of rats are chasing the man down the street.
Desperate to escape them, he flees down a pier and hurls the brass rat into the water. The swarming rats pour off the end of the pier and swim down after the bronze rat until all have drowned.
After the man has caught his breath, he returns to the shop.
The shopkeeper chuckles from behind his counter, "So, you have come back for the story, then?"
"No, says the man, "But I was wondering if you happened to have a golden lawyer?"
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
How did the parent get modded informative??? He linked to a rather crackpot web site with lots of really, really not convincing explanations of the "difference" between "State Citizenship" and "US citizenship". Oh, and did I mention the whole goal of the linked website is to show you don't have to pay federal income tax, or more specifically I think, that the federal government can not leagally tax "Stage Citizens"? Because, I guess, the author doesn't like having a federal government.
I wonder how these two would have done with nigger jokes at a NAACP gathering, or moron jokes at the Special Olympics? Would all of us 1st Amendment fans be defending them for that kind of behavior?
Boy, you Americans sure do have a lot of freedom!
"You can justify anything by putting it in quotes, adding a famous name and making it a sig" - Albert Einstein
If they could count any higher, they'd be lighting technicians.
I agree that there probably was more to the case. Heck, after seeing that they're involved in a campaign involving a van with billboard and seeing the list of other jokes, I wouldn't be surprised if the joke were less of a quiet aside to a friend and more of a shouted at the top of the lungs announcement. *shrug* But honestly, they're doing a pretty good job. They'll get massive publicity for this and I doubt the media will paint them as anything but a pair of fun-loving jokesters unjustly persecuted by the law. After all, everyone loves an underdog and haven't all of us wanted to start cracking jokes like that when stuck in tortuous legal situations?
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
Winter in our city gets so cold, some days, that the lawyers have to put their hands in their own pockets.
Looking at space, radio, science and computing from a 'down-under' amateur enthusiast perspective.