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US Supreme Court Upholds Indefinite Confinement
An anonymous reader points out the news that the US Supreme Court today upheld a law that allows the federal government to keep prison inmates behind bars beyond the end of their sentences, if officials determine they may be "sexually dangerous" in the future. The case involves one Graydon Comstock, who was certified as "dangerous" six days before his 37-month federal prison term for processing child pornography was to end. The vote was 7 to 2. Three of the justices who concurred with the decision raised an objection to the broadness of the language used in the majority opinion, written by Justice Kennedy.
No, I can't think of any ways this could be abused.
Reading about this today, I found that the scope of this particular decision is less scary than I initially assumed -- it's limited to prisoners who meet a standard as being "sexually dangerous", so they're not just being held without due process. Apparently this applies to about 100 prisoners nationwide.
The trouble here is that we, as a society, have real trouble in applying common sense in our legal system. You start with an obvious good thing (keeping violent sex offenders behind bars) and it grows into something completely different -- consider the way the term "sex offender" has been distorted. Once you start allowing this sort of action, where's the protection that keeps it from growing into something else?
Are we going to start seeing 18 year-olds locked up forever because they had sex with a girl a few months younger than them? It sounds silly, but we already routinely label this a "sex offense". Will taking a drunken piss in an alley set you up for decades in prison? Again, common sense says that's ridiculous but again, it can already get you labeled as a sex offender.
Until we figure out a way to legislate in a way that applies some degree of common sense, this sort of thing just can't be allowed.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
My biggest problem is this: What other crimes can criminals commit deeming them too dangerous for society? What's the point of a fixed length sentence at all for individuals who are likely to be dangerous after release? What about murderers and/or serial rapists who show no remorse or signs of rehabilitation?
What about repeat domestic abusers?
Drunk drivers(have you seen recidivism rates?)?
What about repeat moving violators?
It's a slippery slope.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
In the USA, child pornography laws have become the nirvana of the tyrant. (the anti sex-tourism law is blatantly un-Constitutional as well)
~
I wonder if they'd do the same for people considered criminally dangerous.
People should not be confined beyond their jail term.If society can only be kept safe from a criminal by confining that person to a mental hospital, subject that criminal to civil commitment procedures just like everybody else. If you think jail sentences are too short, lobby the government to increase the sentences. Just don't imprison people beyond their slated jail terms or commit them to a mental institution without due process.
I was really hoping this law was going to be thrown out, I'm all for prison terms, but when there's no limit its really scary.
This is how liberty dies. First they claim that terrorists don't have rights, then they claim sex offenders don't have rights. Before you know it, nobody will have any rights.
FTA: "The fact that the federal government has the authority to imprison a person for the purpose of punishing him for a federal crime — sex-related or otherwise — does not provide the Government with the additional power to exercise indefinite civil control over that person," Justice Thomas wrote.
Makes sense to me. If the crime deserves a longer sentence, then impose a longer sentence. But let's not cherry pick after the fact.
The real problem is the sentencing guidelines. A true child rapist should go away for life in prison. Then this wouldn't be an issue. I am not talking about statutory rapists, I mean the ones who really prey on children.
This definition includes people who were NEVER ACCUSED OF HAVING ACTUAL SEX with anyone. And could be applied to anyone convicted of any crime at termination of sentence.
NOT good.
The other important point here is that today they limited the application of life without parole, saying it was cruel and unusual punishment to apply to a juvenile who had not committed a murder. This bring America closer in line with with the human rights standards of the Western World.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Here's the supremes' decision:
From working on the Bilski case, I've ended up reading a dozen US Supreme Court decisions, and I've found them surprisingly readable. There are times when you just have to accept that something has a meaning that you don't know, but even with these gaps, the remaining text is usually coherent.
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
Canadian law, and I generally consider Canada to be a free society, has the possibility of indefinite detention if someone is found to be a dangerous offender, and likely to reoffend. It's not very often used, mostly in the most grievous murder and sexual assault cases.
Wikipedia has more information: Dangerous Offender
Justices decide if the Constitution prohibits a law, not if the law is a good idea.
IANACL (I Am Not A Constitutional Lawyer), but I don't understand how this law would necessarily be unconstitutional -- these people are being given access to due process, and are essentially being held on the same legal basis that the government uses to commit the dangerously mentally ill (which, really, is what these folks are).
This isn't to debate the merits of the law itself, of course, but blaming the Democratic-leaning justices for ruling on the law's constitutionality (esp, in a 7-2 decision) is pretty weak.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
If it can be over applied, it almost certainly will be. As a great example look at California's "3 strikes" law. It was sold as a law that would get the worst repeat offenders gone. After all, if you've committed 3 serious crimes, it is clear jail isn't doing anything in terms of rehabilitation or deterrence, it is just time to remove you so you can't commit crimes. Sounds good... Except that it gets applied to all sorts of things. There is a guy who's in prison for life with his 3rd strike being a shoplifting charge. As such the jails there are extremely overcrowded and the federal government is having to step in and force them to release people because the conditions are so bad.
Well, that is just what happens. Also, it tends to happen even worse whenever sex is involved. Sex crimes have the ability to cause a total brain shutdown in much of the population. You say "sex offender" and people automatically think "Forcible rape of a young child." So any proposed law that is anything but the toughest possible on "sex offenders" gets outrage as a response because you aren't "Protecting the children."
So yes, such a thing can and will be over applied.
That means little when the SCOTUS gets to declare what the constitution actually says or means. Sure, the first amendment reads plain as day, but that doesn't stop the SCOTUS from inventing categories such as protected/unprotected speech.
Oh wow, the Irony meeter is broken on this one!
The "sexually dangerous" standard is just a semantics trick that allows the government to classify any sex offender as sexually dangerous to keep them imprisoned indefinitely. There's no due process involved in declaring a person as sexually dangerous, so it applies to anybody the government wants it to.
I take it you don't like the decision?
Then you'd better hope we get more justices like the dissenters... Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Antonin Scalia, dissented in the case... (FTFA)
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
The real problem is the sentencing guidelines. A true child rapist should go away for life in prison. Then this wouldn't be an issue. I am not talking about statutory rapists, I mean the ones who really prey on children.
Woah, my hypocritical bullshit detector just flashed defcon 5...
You should a child rapist be put in prison for any longer than any other sort of rapist? How is it any more acceptable to rape a 21 year old woman than it is a child? This sounds like a typical 'OMG, we must protect the children' hysteria that clouds and distorts this sort of discussion. I don't care if you rape a 3 year old girl or a 35 year old man who is a master of 14 martial arts, a persons degree of ability to defend themselves does not mitigate the crime.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
When they came for the perverts, I said nothing because I wasn't a pervert.
When they came for the [etc etc]
CG Pin-Ups?
I would have to say this is unconstitutional, but it plugs a hole in the legal system that is incapable of dealing with properly dealing with inherently dangerous people. Anyone who is willing to destroy someone else for their own pleasure is someone that has no "right" to mix with the public. The fact that the government has not been able to get sentencing to properly account for this is the real problem and this ruling is a stop-gap measure.
In many ways the old west justice of a lynch mob was far more effective at dealing with many types of crime. Once the lynch mob was done there was no risk of repeat offenders. The downside to lynch mobs is the false/positive verdict that cannot be retracted. A solution is needed, but this law and ruling only highlight how poorly the system is at keeping people safe. It clearly does open the USA to the risk of permanent detainment of people that are at "odds" with the government. I am sure that Obama would not mind "detaining" some BP executives for a while as risks to the greater good.
The summary is incorrect. The majority opinion was written by Breyer, not Kennedy. Kennedy is one of the two (not three like it says) who concurred but thought the majority opinion was too broad. See http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/us/politics/18offenders.html
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
If they're mentally ill (enough to have their freedoms taken away) then they shouldn't be in jail to begin with---jails are for criminals who were in control of their actions; if those folks are mentally ill, then clearly they're not in control of their actions... (yes, mental institutions may resemble jails, but it's a different type of institution with a different purpose).
They werent going to release the most dangerous terrorists anyways. But they were catching a lot of flack for keeping them locked up without trials.
More difficult is the recent flurry of citizens or legal aliens engaging in terror plots. Are they treated the same as foreign agents?
Whatever happened to Habeas Corpus ?
I thought this was a basic principle in the U.S. legal system.. Whereas, a person could not be held in custody without a court order - and I can't think how a court order can go beyond the age of a sentence of imprisonment.
Does this also mean that peeing in the improper place can now be turned into a lifelong sentence without parole ?
this ruling, at worst, is two inches in the direction of tyranny. emphasis: TWO INCHES. for a 200 mile trip to the destination you call "liberty dies". pffffffffft. law is not static. it dithers this way and that like a tree in the breeze. every little perturbation shouldn't send you into hysterical overreaction
you're just a drama queen if you see your government sway slightly this way or slightly that way and you declare its the end of the world, pure tyranny, pure orwell, "liberty dies! OMFG!" ...zzz...
look:: a lot of people point at the hysteria of "someone please think of the children!" well, there's a lot of hysteria here about the true meaning of these rulings. they are not instant gateways to an unstoppable slippery slope to our eternal slavery. overreactive bullshit. they are wanderings, meandering. really!
if you are going to fight the good fight for liberty, know your true enemies. if you can't identify your true threats from your mosquitoes, then you're no help to the defense of liberty at all. your'e a spastic child who doesn't even understand the concepts.
learn it: reaction proportional to threat
threat: a guy with a high chance of recidivism for sexual crimes
proportional reaction: **YAWN**
really, drama queens
you may now castigate me and accuse me of the worst of abuses of freedom. go on, spastic twits, you know you want to do it
zzz
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
One more in a long line of supreme court failures to uphold the constitution. When a prisoner's sentence is up, holding him in prison is false imprisonment and kidnapping.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The decision today doesn't have anything to do with the the fundamental ability of the government to indefinitely detain sex offenders after they've served their sentence. The court decided that back in 1997 in Kansas v. Hendricks. Todays decision was just about whether the federal government has such power. This is a federalism case, not an individual rights case.
It seems to me that declaring someone as "sexually dangerous" should be the exclusive right of a judge or jury, not "officials" who have a clear interest in keeping people locked up (both financial and political).
Doesn't this go against the principal that you can't be accused for the same crime twice. Once you are serving a punishment for one crime, they cannot extend the punishment retroactively.
You have absolutely no idea what 'due process' means. Being "labeled" somthing is NOT due process. Here's an example: Just because I label you a fucking idiot in this thread does not mean you still can't participate in society.
Look everybody someone who has no idea what they are talking about is "interesting!".
When you string together 2 inches at a time, eventually you will reach 200 miles. People may be over-reacting to this ruling but if you consider the bull shit going on elsewhere in our legal system and in government people start getting pissed off.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
It is unconstitutional because Congress has no enumerated power to do this sort of thing. Arguably the states may be able to do it, but not the feds.
The 7-2 majority upheld the law under the freakin' commerce clause. That would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
shut your fucking mouth bitch. you're a know nothing and a dick. you're an asshole.
thank god you finally dropped that shit about that asshat film that never got made. i told you for years it would never come to shit and i was right. what a sack of dung you are.
this one which he disagreed with (Along with Scalia) and the following, stating that juveniles would not be subject to life sentences unless homicide. Thomas was correct in that some juveniles are not on the losing in with lifetime incarceration. There are just too many cases where the threat and violence demonstrated by some "kids" justifies never letting them out again. Much of gang crime falls under this category.
The real problem with this ruling is today its sex offenders (which is odd because they vacated that in juvenile cases) but tomorrow what will it be?
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Yeah but there's always "Sexual Healing".
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
Go blow a chainsaw, you boot-licking sack of lukewarm fermenting shit slurry.
A better title for this post would be "US Supreme Court Upholds Extrajudicial Confinement".
I always mod up spelling trolls.
Ms. Kagan pointed to the Constitution’s “necessary and proper” clause as granting Congress the power to pass the law, though the clause is not ordinarily thought of as a source of free-standing authority. The clause gives Congress the right “to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution” its other powers
Not that it makes it any more right, but it isn't the commerce clause. It's their second favorite misused clause.
Ok, so, if you're a dangerous sex offender, you never need to be let out of prison.
But, you can't get life without parole unless you've killed someone....
http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2010/05/us_supreme_court_ends_life_sen.html
Isn't that what the Age of consent is for? What you need to strive is to lower this age in the States.
By definition Pedophilia means under 14, the middle range above 14 would be Ephebophilia, which is the "lolita" type.
I assume this is a taboo issue there.
Artix
Your Linux, your init.
Before you wish for more Supreme Court justices in the mold of Scalia and Thomas, you may wish to read this article, also in the NYTimes, about another recent court decision where the two were again part of the dissent. In this case, they dissented from the majority's ruling that life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for a teenager who hasn't killed (or been party to a killing) is cruel and unusual punishment.
Scalia's and Thomas' objection to civil commitment has nothing to do with opposing excessive sentences and everything to do with opposing an administration they personally do not like (If you want to play the 'limiting Federal powers' card, please check up on some of their terrorism-related rulings during the Bush administration first).
They can put you away for good for being "sexually dangerous" but not for being a mortal danger to the lives of others?
I am extremely conservative. I have two immediate family members who have been raped and several very close friends. I do not believe the US has any current punishment which is fitting for horrible destruction that rape causes. And yet...
I am incredibly enraged that the Supreme Court would rule that it is Constitutional to violate the 5th Amendment Due Process clause because of the children. If you want to give them counseling, then put a prescribed amount in the sentence. The courts have ruled that "life" sentences violate due process, and yet holding them indefinitely for counseling doesn't?
Emotion should, from time to time, temper the application of law, but never the application of rights ~ shellsterdude.
Right... so if you're going to rape someone, you might as well kill them afterward... fewer witnesses that way.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
It's NOT limited.
The U.S. government believes it can imprison, kidnap, torture, or kill anyone, anywhere. The only necessary condition is that the government apply a label to that person. Sample labels: Enemy combatant. Possible terrorist. Sexually dangerous. Other labels that may be secret. Sometimes no proof is considered necessary.
The U.S. government believes it can spy on anyone, anywhere, and spends more taxpayer money on spying than any government anywhere.
The U.S. government believes it can lie to taxpayers.
Some departments of the U.S. government believe the government can kill anyone, anywhere, for any reason, or no reason at all, or no reason a normal citizen would consider a real reason.
The U.S. government has killed more Iraqis than Saddam Hussein, by a factor of more than 10. The U.S. government called Saddam Hussein cruel.
The U.S. government has a 6 times higher percentage of its citizens in prison than any country anywhere.
The U.S. government has more debt than any country anywhere, in the entire history of the world.
The U.S. government has invaded or bombed more than 24 countries since the end of the 2nd world war.
The U.S. government believes it can interfere with the governments of other countries. For example, in 1953 the U.S. government removed democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mosaddegh.
The government has engaged in violent activity toward another country each year, except one, for more than the last 100 years. Apparently all of that violence was to increase private profit.
I'm not sure it's possible to praise justices Scalia and Thomas on Slashdot without be marked as a Troll, but I'm about to.
There is a lesson in this to be learned by all of those who rail against justices like Scalia and Thomas when they vote contrary to your personal beliefs about social issues.
This is at the core of the difference between tyranny and a constitutional republic.
As Edward Kennedy recently put it, are we a nation of laws, or a nation of men? Today we see again that we are merely a nation of men, ruled by the arbitrary will of an unelected few, rather than by a constitution designed to protect at all costs the liberty of the few from the will of the many.
If you don't like the constitution, we have process in place to change it for exactly that reason. We have many times before. That's the agreement you and I have as members of a civilized, free society. If you think you can walk all over the peoples' document when it becomes an obstacle to your social agenda: FUCK YOU.
Americans are sometimes critical of Canadians being light on crime (especially since Canada got rid of the death penalty for all except those divulging Government secrets) in 1965. But Canada has had "Dangerous Offender" on the books for many years. People who are psychotic, un-rehabitable sexual offenders and responsible for multiple re-incarcerations are declared "dangerous offenders". They can be kept incarcerated for an indefinite amount of time (read: till they die). We don't have 200 year sentences or anything like that (people don't live that long), but we can keep them locked up till they die.
If sex offenders are mentally ill, which caused their behavior, and are still ill that way when their sentence is up, then they shouldn't be released. They probably shouldn't be in jail, either. They should be in a psychiatric jail.
The law in the US regarding sickness vs criminality is so screwed up that there's little chance people's rights will be protected when their illness creates either harm or risk to other people.
--
make install -not war
They are not being given due process. Well.. they were. And the results of due process said they were to be incarcerated for a term of X time. Now, contrary to due process, they can be held further.
If they were mentally ill, why weren't they ruled as such at trial? If they are not mentally ill, why does the basis under which we hold the mentally ill apply?
You're right about blaming the Democratic members of the court, though. In a 7-2 decision, it is fairly plain that the whole court should just be swallowed up into the earth and an entirely new set of justices (or a new system, if necessary) installed that actually respects the rights of the people, even when we don't like those people. If the sentencing terms are not sufficient, fucking change them. There is a whole legislative process for that.
I believe I recall reading that the OSS did this during WWII to people who were a security risk and whom they felt couldn't be trusted not to blab. I can't find a source for this though so it may be fiction or rumour.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
When I agree with Scalia and Thomas and no one else on a Supreme Court decision. You cannot change the rules of incarceration. There is a sentence. If you want to hold prisoners longer make the sentence longer. You could even make the possibility of additional comfinement, but you can't make the sentence a court gave them any longer without a new trial.
Well I guess you can now. Who the fuck cares about the Constitution? No one. No one who matters anyway.
And thats the best reason for not supporting executions, or indefinite confinement without due process of law etc.
It might be rare that a person convicted of a crime who did 20 years or whatever is eventually exonerated but it does happen. Not only does that mean they were wrongfully convicted and imprisoned, but it also means that whoever did commit the crime has gone free for the same period. If they simply executed people who were confined for "life", they would never end up looking into those old cases and find the mistakes that have been made etc.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
Yes I herd about this. Why has it taken so long for this to be brought to light. William Tonkin will@packs4survival.com www.packs4survival.com
All of this is based on the faulty assumption that the prison system is really all about "rehabilitation". Yes, there are in fact people that are insanely perverted that are in prison. But will a few more months or a few more years added to their sentence really do any good?
The game.
If you're a juvenile. That's an important distinction.
There are ways to get life without parole if you are an adult and you do enough bad things.
Regarding the other case, I have to side with the SCOTUS minority. If you want to keep child molesters locked away for ever, then pass laws that require longer sentences, rather than sentencing them to ten years then holding them forever.
And for god's sake, if you skip a safety regulation and 29 coal miners die, be prepared to be charged with manslaughter, at the very least. The day a CEO of a coal company who causes 29 death does the same amount of time as a 19 year-old caught with a pound of reefer, then we can pretend we have a country based on the rule of law and not the rule of money.
So big deal, the United States Supreme Court really showed those horrible child molesters. That's an easy call. Do something hard and apply the same set of rules to the rich and powerful who break laws.
You are welcome on my lawn.
> Then you'd better hope we get more justices like the dissenters... Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Antonin Scalia, dissented in the case.
This is one of those few occasions where Justice Thomas was in the minority and I agreed with him.
TOA was a little misleading. I originally had the impression that the guy got 37 months for receiving kiddie porn, and that the issue was whether he was likely to look at kiddie porn again. Uh-oh!... We'd better lock up those picture lookers for LIFE! (Wouldn't it be cheaper to just blind them?)
Actually, the issue is: Once the Government has a dangerous (and dangerous is pretty well-defined) criminal incarcerated, and they know that he/she is not rehabilitated or mentally stable, is the Government entitled to protect society by keeping him locked up until either a State or institution takes custody and care? Yeah, there are some issues about incarcerating someone for something he might do in the future, but the general public is too ignorant to evaluate that properly. So, the solution is to preserve the status quo until you can shift the responsibility/blame onto someone else. After all, the perp is already locked up; what difference does a few more years make?
Considering that a huge number of ex-cons are recidivists, it might be used as an argument to keep everybody locked up forever. I noticed that in the case quoted, it was the State that certified him as "dangerous". Given the demagoguery and hysteria of some of our Texas prosecutors, I'm not sure I trust them to define "dangerous" in any meaningful way.
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
Yeah, I had that argument with someone over the weekend. "Why should people on the watch list be allowed to buy guns?", my response "Why should the Attorney General be able to take away my rights with no due process?"
You're hearing about that because there's legislation to that effect being pushed in the congress. HR2401 - the "No Fly, No Buy act ..."
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Why is rape so much worse than murder or attempted murder?
Because, in addition to the harm done to the victim (including the risk of transmission of a fatal disease), it's a successful reproductive strategy. To the extent that a tendency to such behavior is heritable (and in other animals it seems to be), letting people breed by committing rape creates a larger population of people with a tendency to commit rape in the next generation. Execution of convicted rapists would produce a counteracting selection pressure.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Heh, a huge problem is that "rape" is now defined as pretty much any sexual act a woman later regrets.
I love the case that said since the woman said "stop" in the middle of consensual sex, and the guy stopped a few thrusts later, it was rape. Note the guy didn't force her or keep going until he finished. It took him some time to process the new information and confirm it, before his mind stopped what his body was doing. And, it was rape.
Pretty much every guy knows someone who was falsely accused of rape.
It is an easy crime to allege, and consequence free for false claims. After all the man's name is broadcast to the world (in the US) and the woman's name is legally protected and withheld (1st Amend be damned).
Also, I agree that TRUE child rapists should be imprisoned for life or killed (red card offense), but the problem is determining if someone is a TRUE child rapist.
The number of stories where the child psychologist or prosecutor browbeat the child into giving false evidence are legion.
And we all know that "sex crimes" are the big guns prosecutors hold to people's heads to get them to plea bargain out to lower offenses.
Nifong ring a bell?
Hell, there are 2 cases in my county that fell apart because of prosecutorial antics. The first involving two 8th grade boys tried as sex offenders for smacking other 8th grade girls on the ass (the girls were so offended by the prosecutor they refused to testify and the girls had also smacked the boys on the ass, but the girls were not arrested/prosecuted). And, a second involved sending a man to jail for 4 years due to the prosecutor hiding evidence (this was later reduced to a misdemeanor).
As for why child molestation is worse than adult rape, it is because the "cement" is still "wet" with the child. You molest a kid like that when their minds are still forming and you do a hell of a lot more damage than you would do to a fully formed adult. Neither is "fun" but the damage done to the child is less correctable.
Why would you let someone go before they've rehabilitated? That's stupid.
And why would you keep them in prison after they've rehabilitated? That's also stupid.
So then why sentence a criminal for any number of years at all, when you don't know yet how long it will take? Pulling numbers out of thin air just doesn't sound like a very good idea. Am I way off base here?
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
As do I. Never before in memory (well, except for Guantanamo) has SCOTUS claimed that the government has the authority to incarcerate someone indefinitely without trial. I think we are seeing almost immediate (and extremely unfortunate and dangerous) results of the precedent that was set in the Guantanamo situation.
... Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America." -- James Madison
Not to mention the question of whether the Federal government has any authority to do that in a non-military context. Murder is embodied in state law. As is rape. Where does the Federal government (and SCOTUS) think it gets the authority to do this? There is nothing in the Constitution that would bestow this kind of power on them. And that includes the general welfare and interstate commerce clauses.
All in all, I think it is pretty damned clear that the majority made yet another BAD decision, much like some of the other bad decisions it has made in the last 10-15 years. I think it's time for new blood in the courts. And I don't mean Kagan; she pushed this law when the court last reviewed it. She would be my last choice for Supreme.
--
"If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress.
Hey, along those lines, I just thought of something: maybe if we try hard enough we can get NYCL appointed. What the hey. Kagan hasn't served as judge either.
the same time the supreme court made this ruling today, they made another ruling:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/us/politics/18court.html
which says that juveniles cannot get life sentences for nonhomicides. that sounds like progress to me, no?
so that's two inches in the win column, which means it's just as i say: fluttering in the breeze, two inches here and there
my advice to you is to save your ammunition for the REAL slides in liberty, such as the post-9/11 bullshit. but if you insist on having a heart attack every time something sounds like a vague few inches in a direction you dislike, you're simply a drama queen. liberty needs defending, not hysterics over mosquitoes
but don't let me stop you from whining and moaning. for some people, that seems to be the only point
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Nothing in this decision or in the law says that molesters will be imprisoned forever without trial. Nothing at all.
She would be my last choice for Supreme.
Sure is unfortunate that you have no say whatsoever, isn't it?
Historically both Scalia and Thomas are originalists or textualists. Both believe the executive has more power than is commonly thought and that the federal government has less. Their dissent fits this mold.
Just because we label something a crime does not mean that the punishment should be a fine/penalty. The court doesn't have to be so dim witted; well I guess this court does given the horrible things they have done already.
The solution is so simple: It is a crime committed by a mentally ill person. Insanity pleas should not be considered the weak way out. Somebody who messes with children is mentally SICK IN THE HEAD. You do not let out a mental case until they are no longer a harm to others; there is no fine, no time penalty set; they get out if they are sane or they NEVER get out if they are nuts. Punishment is irrelevant.
QED
In other words, when you are found crazy; not just plea crazy - the punishment phase should be replaced with treatment if convicted. (or possibly prescribed anyhow; lowering the burden for the prosecution... the extents of this are debatable or if an extreme position is needed because abuses could be deemed grievous enough; such as the presumption of innocence for example.) What is possibly "cruel" and certainly is "unusual" is punishing a mental case for a limited time period.
Side Issues:
EVIL - take your religion and shove it. It has no place establishing itself upon us. You can't convince me that a pedophile is SANE but is just EVIL. Why don't you just send them to Satan or remove their demons or thetans?
Errors - we have plenty of errors in the brainless system today where policies tend to rule over actual thinking, as if we can't trust humans to decide and must write procedures to decide because a procedure is better than a human brain? We far far too often use freak errors to change the system when we should accept the inevitable error rates (within reason - it is unreasonable to say "never" or have "zero" tolerance policies.)
Abuse: Yes, you could say the state labels opposition as crazy (literally instead of metaphorically) and arrests everybody (who'd have to commit a crime 1st.) Sure, they could and have done worse just using what already existed at the time. One can't discount something simply because government might abuse it someday; government improperly governed can do just about anything; that is a red herring. Big difference between a padded room for a few and massive re-education camps.
Broken system. Tell me something new. Doesn't mean I can't talk common sense solutions and better frameworks; we didn't get to this level of "civilization" by limiting ourselves.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
> Justice Clarence Thomas
of course he dissented. he still puts pubic hairs on coke cans.
Good old CTS, is no doubt consitently stupid to the last. I learned a long time ago that he has nothing of any reasoned value to say.
Dont respond to him, it only encourages his bullshit.
A hint if there is not a capital at the start of the first few sentences, its most likely him.
Just scroll down and ignore.
I really think I should mention this: I personally know of two couples who were caught in a "statutory rape" situation. In one of them, the girl got shipped off to boarding school, but eventually she got out and she and boyfriend have been a well-adjusted, happily married couple for years now.
In the other case, I worked with the young woman who was waiting for her boyfriend to be let out of prison so they could get married. They had planned to marry immediately when she came of age... if the state had not interfered. The last time I saw her, she had been waiting for years and was still waiting.
I think it's perfectly acceptable to wish for a justice who aligned more closely with what I think the SCOTUS should do in cases across every spectrum of law.
So, no. I do not hope we get more justices like Thomas or Scalia, except in as much as they are like them in *this* particular matter.
If someone is that much of a danger sexually, then why haven't we castrated them? Would that not go a long way in ensuring that they do not commit such a crime again?
A sentence you'll never see on an Internet discussion board: "You know what? You're right."
U.S. Supreme Court in Shaughnessy v. U.S. ex rel Mezei in 1953 held that the US Government had the authority to incarcerate "excludable aliens" indefinitely without trial. http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/mariel.html discusses one long-running example. So you're wrong to claim that "never before in memory" has SCOTUS held that the government has such authority.
It wasn't until 2005 (at which point the persons discussed in that URL had been "indefinitely detained" for 25 years) that SCOTUS held contrariwise http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/13/politics/13immig.html.
I will remember that someone who is dangerous does not ever get out of jail when sentencing our politicians at a future Nuremberg trial for their violations of the Bill of Rights.
Anyone dangerous to the US Constitution should NEVER get out of jail.
I can think of 7 criminals off the top of my head...
Murder is embodied in state law. As is rape. Where does the Federal government (and SCOTUS) think it gets the authority to do this? There is nothing in the Constitution that would bestow this kind of power on them. And that includes the general welfare and interstate commerce clauses.
The geek forgets the American Civil War - the six hundred thousand dead - which profoundly and permanently altered the relationship between the states and the federal government.
The geek forgets the constitutional amendments which gave those changes the force of fundamental law.
The Fourteenth Amendment, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, binds the power of state governments to essentially the same limits as the federal Bill of Rights. Incorporation of the Bill of Rights, Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Nothing in this decision or in the law says that molesters will be imprisoned forever without trial. Nothing at all.
So the guy who has been in prison for three years past the end of his sentence has had a second criminal trial for a crime in order to receive an additional sentence? No?
Does the decision have an absolute date by which he has to be released (after all, even if its 60 years past his death, it's not "forever")? No?
Nothing in this decision or in the law says that people will not be imprisoned forever or given a trial to defend themselves against accusations that they are "dangerous".
its official are government has gone to far. sad thing there using child porn as a shield for it so people are not burning down the white house. you cant hold someone for something they might do. you ever hear of the innocent until proven guilty. if he has served his time unless he has commented other crimes wile in jail you release him.. hes served his time. im not pro sex offender hear but no matter the crime its against are rights to extend someones sentence for no reason other then well maybe. they can deny his prule and make him serve his full sentence but unless hes in for life when its served he has to be released. they have officaly made that man gulty for no crime being he served his sentence for his old crime. when will amarcanes wake the fuck up and get these people out of office before its to late and we will have to take them out with arms.
From TFA
The federal law at issue in the case allows the government to continue to detain prisoners who had engaged in sexually violent conduct, AND suffered from mental illness AND would have difficulty controlling themselves. If the government is able to prove all of this to a judge by “clear and convincing” evidence — a heightened standard, but short of “beyond a reasonable doubt” — it may hold such prisoners until they are no longer dangerous or a state assumes responsibility for them.
This is only applies to @100 inmates. I wonder what else Comstock did that we are unaware of.
free hat!
Please do teach me the math to calculate that 10 (trial) + forever (no trial) - 10 (trial) != forever(no trial).
If someone can get condemned to 10y by a trial, and kept locked up indefinitely, that's indefinite lock-up without trial.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
Notably, most of the five plaintiffs in this case were not "horrible child molesters" but rather men who had been convicted of possession ("receipt") of child pornography. There is no evidence that they have committed or will commit any violent crime. The Attorney General could just as easily use this doctrine to lock up a man who urinated against a building, if his stream crossed over state lines.
Bullshit. Read the article again, and study up on some law.
First, the Federal government has no authority to do this. Whether it says they will be imprisoned forever or not. It's not in their jurisdiction.
Second, "clear and convincing evidence" is FAR lower than the normal standard for incarceration, which is "beyond reasonable doubt". So yeah, it WOULD give the Federal government the ability to incarcerate someone forever, without a proper trial. At least, any kind of "trial" that would be accepted in any other situation.
Third, in the very poster-child case mentioned in the article, the government would have it apply to a "receiver" of child pornography. Note here an important distinction: you may think the person is weird and deranged, but study after study have shown no link between mere "receivers" of child pornography, and actual real-life crimes. The man was not convicted for any crime other than receiving child pornography. He molested no children. In fact, there is ample evidence to show that rather than inciting crime, pornography is cathartic, and that people who might otherwise commit crimes will otherwise take out their obsessions or aggressions on the pornography, rather than real people.
To recap: most "receivers" of child pornography are NOT people who are dangerous to society or children. No matter what the government would have you believe.
Do not misunderstand; I am NOT saying that people who create child pornography are doing mankind a favor. What I am saying is that psychologically, most people who "get turned on" by such stuff would rather deal with it on their own, rather than commit acts they know are completely unacceptable to society.
Further, technically YOU are probably a "reciever" of child pornography, in your emails or internet popups. Whether you want to be or not. That stuff gets stored in your system logs and browser cache, where they can be found later by the authorities. Sure, that doesn't mean you are keeping a collection specifically of child pornography... but it DOES mean that you are in violation of the same laws. Hmmm... maybe we should lock YOU up for 10 years, then change our minds and lock you up for life! What do you think? Is that fair?
No matter how much you think this is "for the children", the fact is that the Fourth Circuit judged properly, and SCOTUS did not. Which just adds to the number of exceedingly bad decisions they have made in the last decade and a half. And even if it were not a bad decision, the Federal government does not have the authority to make it.
it's about time to start killing off these fascists. it's sad to think tyranny in the US will become even more blatant and nothing will be done.
I read commerce clause bolstered by necessary and proper. Necessary and proper doesn't stand on its own. It has to point back to one of the others.
This is an ex post facto law. No way around it. Making such a law is outright forbidden - explicitly - by the constitution to both the feds (congress) and the states. The fact that it's aimed at some sex offender is just used to get the foot in the door -- if you remove "sex offender" and put "murderer" or "litterbug" in there, the effect of the law is the same: To increase punishment after the fact.
SCOTUS, out of control, still. Or again. However you want to put it. There's no way to rein in these traitors to their oaths either -- the system as designed is outright broken. The constitution has zero legal teeth.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
They're all awful people.
"The geek forgets the American Civil War - the six hundred thousand dead - which profoundly and permanently altered the relationship between the states and the federal government."
Nonsense. The Geek forgets none of these things. The Geek has done her research. You have not.
The power to judge constitutionality has never lied with the Supreme Court. That belongs to the states. (I should amend that: SCOTUS has the power to rule things UN-constitutional. It does not have the power to rule them constitutional.) And I am not even going to begin to point you at sources, because if you don't even understand that, I would have to give you a whole page full of links just to prove it. And I am not going to bother. (But I predict that you will interpret that statement as an error, and tell me I am full of BS. Go ahead. I have heard it all before. But I am not impressed with "intellectuals" who skim the surface and delve no deeper.)
So even though I will not bother to refute you using citations, I will go this far: the Civil War did not change the provisions of the Constitution, or what they mean, nor did they nullify any of it. Even SCOTUS will agree with me on that. Even while they ignore it.
If you feel that the Civil War changed the Constitution, or its meaning, I would really like to know how. Please elaborate. It did not, for example, establish a precedent that states could not secede. That only precedent established there (if there is any at all) is that they may not forcibly secede. And even then there was little fear of that: the Northern government established a fort, with clear intent to threaten the South militarily, before the South did anything but talk. Read up on your history. (BTW, I am not a Southerner, nor were my parents, nor the vast majority of my friends.) I am not saying the South was right, but the Civil War was never about slavery. If you are one of those people who think it was, then READ YOUR HISTORY. That's not what happened.
As further evidence that the Feds do not have the authority to do this, I will simply bring up the fact that they never have... until now. Now, ask yourself: how could that be? Maybe there is a reason WHY, a reason that was always acknowledged until now?
I haven't forgotten history. You and SCOTUS have. And it will come back to bite you in the ass.
And he admitted as much in the interview. That is something you'll find in a lot of low level habitual criminals. They aren't mean spirited people or anything, they are just not real bright and as such break the law for rather dumb reasons.
Now while such a person certainly should be punished, locking them up for life doesn't do any good. It costs a lot of money and doesn't make society any safer really. Remember that keeping a person in jail is expensive. If you are going to keep someone in jail for life, it'd better be for a good reason. Sure, someone commits 3 rapes, lock them up for life. Clearly deterrence isn't working and the community is well served by paying the cost to remove their ability to do so again. However even if someone has committed their 50th shoplifting offense, it isn't worth locking them up for life for. It's a minor inconvenience, not a major threat, and not worth the money, never mind the miscarriage of justice.
I've seen you on /. a few times now. Your posts very rarely make any sense, and this one was especially incoherent.
Posts with citations that contradict your assertions already exist in this thread, especially this guy who posted before the poster you responded to.
I guess what I'm saying is, learn how to argue better if you're going to continue doing it.
Involuntary commitment is a road you have to carefully tread down. On the one hand the argument that you want to make people safe and help them makes a lot of sense. On the other hand, who says what is crazy? If a person isn't acting in a dangerous manner (to themselves or others) and claims they don't want or need help, who are you to force it on them?
This is more than just a moral debate, it is one of abuse as well. After all, most people have at least one thing they do that is "abnormal". If you can start using things like that to show they are crazy, well then it can be abused to lock people away who people in power don't like. As an example Richard Feynman liked to talk to himself. He was known to do this (he cheerfully admits it) as he'd be walking around in public. Clearly the man was not insane, but something like that could have been used to claim he was and lock him up if he pissed people off. Simply present it in a sinister light. For that matter, he was rejected from the military for psychiatric reasons, their standards for judging him miscategorized him as crazy.
So it is a situation you have to be careful with. I understand the desire to have mental facilities that you can remand people to for help when they won't help themselves. Hell I had a neighbor that developed schizophrenia and eventually killed himself. Nobody could do anything because he didn't do anything dangerous, just shouted at the space aliens. Like nearly all schizophrenics he insisted he was fine and everyone was out to get him, thus didn't want treatment. Would be great to be able to force someone like that to get they help they need, but you have to weigh that against abuse of the system. Since it is going to be a subjective judgment no matter what you walk a dangerous line when you say "Someone can have committed no crime, done no harm, yet can be institutionalized against their will."
Constitutions and Bills of rights do not grant us what rights we have, they determine what rights can be taken away and how.
This is one of the reasons I believe Australia will be no better off having a codified "bill of rights" as we are still dependent on the government de jour to enforce that bill. Meaning if a government is going to ignore our un-explicitly granted rights (currently our five fundamental freedoms), they will ignore our explicitly granted rights just as easily.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
The US government is no longer contained by the Constitution. I feel safer in many ways living in a "3rd world country" now. In the 1930s, smart Germans found means and reason to immigrate to the Americas. Likewise, many Americans may find it better to leave in this decade. The future of the US govt seems to be as a hazard to safety, liberty and prosperity.
Yes, you are correct. The person is in jail, with no rights, and the legislative branch and judicial branches are both corrupt, bowing to public wants. The problem here is that most of the public are idiots who know jack shit. Opinions are like assholes - every one has one. Public opinion is the largest asshole of all. Judge a person, sentence a person, then let them go at the *end* of the judged sentence. Don't just arbitrarily change things to suit your needs. These judges need to be shot. A real society has no need of judges that make warped decisions like this that are clearly supportive of abuses of power.
I know I'm an anarchist, and I can't wait for the day when society falls apart.
Dave
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. --Martin Luther King Jr.
They cannot be locked up forever without a trial.
First they have to be convicted of a crime at a trial. Once that is done, they may now be locked up indefinitely. If you remove the conviction, they have no grounds for holding you (outside of contempt of court), and without even starting a trial, they have even less grounds.
Mission Creep
Except that in this country, trials exist to determine the facts, the judge applies the law and determines sentencing. A better point would be the application of Apprendi. I didn't RTFA, but hopefully thats addressed.
Derived from other boards.
1) SCOTUS already decided that it's OK for states to do this very thing in 1997 (Kansas v. Hendricks, 521 U.S. 346). Both dissenters in this case were in the majority then, which tells you something.
2) I've been told (though I haven't read the decision myself) that the dissent was ONLY about the idea that the Feds can do this, NOT that the confinement is unconstitutional in of itself.
3) Therefore, if you take Hendricks and this case together, EVERY SINGLE JUSTICE has declared the detention itself constitutional.
If you don't like it, THAT is what needs to be changed, not the justices.
Except, as I said in another post, the only reason that states are able to do this now is because, in '97, BOTH dissenters here ruled that it was constitutional for states to do so.
So even getting more of them might not help. (If you think it's enough that they don't want the Feds doing so in addition to the states, that's probably reasonable, but still.)
...you Americans refused to pay, because it didn't convenience you.
And now, when it's nearly too late, you start to whine that you haven't got any freedoms anymore?!?!
Live with it. This is what you wanted, this is what you get. If you're willing to sacrifice someone else's freedoms, you're also sacrificing your own.
I've always said that if a bill were to be named "The Anti-Child Slavery Act" and all it did was give billions of dollars to the bill's author, it would still get passed because of its name. In reality it can do much worse than just legal plunder, as we see with this ruling, it can overturn rights guaranteed in the Constitution.
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
"A fate worse then death"
"And even then there was little fear of that: the Northern government established a fort, with clear intent to threaten the South militarily, before the South did anything but talk. "
You should really get your history straight.
For one:
Fort Sumter was built after the War of 1812, not to antagonize the South, and the battle erupted over resupplying the fort. To top that off, the South fired first...... And to set the record straight, the MAIN cause of the Civil War might have been state's rights, but slavery was still an issue no matter what you want to say. If it was a non-issue like you claim, why would the election of an abolitionist set the South off?
Slavery was the straw that broke the camel's back.
And for your results, you forget what this did to state's rights. This is where a lot of people today argue that in order to prevent secession in the future, the federal government took too much power away from the states...balance of power was inherent in the Constitution...
And no matter what you want to claim, the Supreme Court has always been made to trump EVERY other court even state's decisions. Of course they can say something is constitutional. That is what they do every-time they rule that something is not un-constitutional. Double negative there... I know its confusing...
Where does the Federal government (and SCOTUS) think it gets the authority to do this?
I'm halfway through reading the decision, and there's this bit with respect to State Rights in there:
Nor does this statute invade state sovereignty or other-wise improperly limit the scope of “powers that remain with the States.” Post, at 7 (THOMAS, J., dissenting). To the contrary, it requires accommodation of state interests: The Attorney General must inform the State in which thefederal prisoner “is domiciled or was tried” that he isdetaining someone with respect to whom those States may wish to assert their authority, and he must encouragethose States to assume custody of the individual. 4248(d). He must also immediately “release” that person “to the appropriate official of” either State “if such State will assume [such] responsibility.” Ibid. And either State has the right, at any time, to assert its authority over theindividual, which will prompt the individual’s immediate transfer to State custody.
You may or may not agree with me, but since I am God, I am always correct and wise beyond your comprehension. You may not question me lest you run the risk of being turned into salt.
Okay. So the SCOTUS decided that it is OK to keep someone locked up beyond their sentence term because of what they MIGHT do? This isn't too far removed from rounding up all people on parole and sticking them back in prison because they MIGHT do something bad. This isn't too far removed from putting people who fit into a particularly risky demographic into prison because of what they MIGHT do.
The justice system that was created in the U.S. was created the way it was largely to remove itself from the ridiculous crap that exists in the British system... and now we're becoming just like them or worse. We shouldn't jail people because of what they might do. That is a slippery slope we don't want to slide down.
Never before in memory (well, except for Guantanamo) has SCOTUS claimed that the government has the authority to incarcerate someone indefinitely without trial.
The whole of Title 18, Part III, Chapter 313 concerns the way that courts can hospitalize a person found guilty of a crime. The chapter has been on the books since at least the '49, thats when section 4246 was added. Section 4246 allows a psychiatric review of a prisoner due for release, and allows for their civil confinement if they are found to be mentally incompetent. It has been used before, it exists on a state level in various mental health laws. I can not find a case that the SCOTUS has heard where their ruling was based on this chapter of law, but it is 4am and I don't have subscriptions to the proper journals. There are several appellate court cases that I could find; see U.S. v. Ecker, or Anthony Threatt's appeal where the law was upheld but the evidence was ruled to not be substantial enough. You can also see O'Connor v. Donaldson where the court ruled that a person could not be indefinitely detained under mental health laws if they were non-dangerous and capable of living on their own or with family/friends/etc. They specifically did not rule that indefinite detainment was forbidden, if the patient was dangerous. And I believe there are cases where they have upheld the ability of the state to declare a person, who may have committed no criminal act, to be mentally unfit and in need of hospitalization. So, yes, they have allowed the state government to have this ability. Section 4246 and 4248 just make it a federal law, allowing all states the same ability in very narrow circumstances.
None of that is to say I agree with it, but please do not argue that this concept of civil commitment has not been used before. It has been used many times, usually on a much shorter basis as it is used at the state level to try and treat people with psychiatric disorders who may harm themselves or others. See 5150s and other involuntary commitment laws. My opinion of the law is, however, based on the state's ability to treat the patient. Since there seems to be no known treatment for pedophiles, unlike other psychiatric disorders, it seems absurd to me that the state can hold this patient until he is treated.
I take it you don't like the decision?
Then you'd better hope we get more justices like the dissenters... Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Antonin Scalia, dissented in the case... (FTFA)
Yeah, I totally hope we get more justices who believe it's constitutional to execute the innocent and that the First Amendment's freedom of religion only applies to monotheists. Not to mention that the interests of the candidates in a disputed presidential election outweigh the interests of the electorate in selecting the candidate they voted for. Yeah, let's hope for more of that.
A judge's record is bigger than any single case; we'd be wise to keep that in mind.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
> Then you'd better hope we get more justices like the dissenters... Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Antonin Scalia, dissented in the case.
This is one of those few occasions where Justice Thomas was in the minority and I agreed with him.
You know what they say, even a broken clock is right twice a day.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
An "ex post facto" law is one that is applied to a crime that happened before the law criminalizing it was written. So long as they wrote the law before these criminal acts were committed, they're not creating an ex post facto law. I know it translates as "after the fact" but it doesn't mean what you think it means and it never has.
If you are going to ask someone to study up on some law, you should at least read the opinion you are referencing:
This decision makes no decision on the government's ability to incarcerate someone forever, without a proper trial. It simply says assuming the state law is valid, then the Federal government can also make a similar law.
The case has been remanded to the lower court for further proceedings. Read page 4 of the opinion for a quick history of why the limited question was before the court. The case is United States v. Comstock.
Yes... if only there was a system of government where the decision-makers were elected and held responsible for their actions by the people.
*sigh*... one can dream, can't one?
"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." - Mao Zedong (the authority to do anything)
"The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything." - Joseph Stalin (the immunity to consequences)
"All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach." - Adolf Hitler ("Think of the childdreeennnnn!!!!")
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
And here I thought the US already had indefinite confinement in the form of multiple consecutive live sentences...
Actually you can be locked up forever without a trial through civil commitment.
Keep wringing your hands you fucking pussies! There is only one answer to this sort of tyranny - secede!!! Will it ever happen? No, you are all too stupid, and you are much smarter than the average dumbfuck walking the streets. What a fucking nightmare - I was born in 1955, and have watched a once semi-free nation become a total slave concentration camp. Does anyone here have any idea why I should have any hope that things will not just keep getting worse and worse?
Social Credit would solve everything...
...how soon will they decide that this can be applied to anyone they deem to be a potential threat of even the slightest amount? Served your time? Sucks to be you! You're on the "dangerous persons list," so your rights to be released don't matter!
Fuck that shit. My country has gone down the tubes when a few assholes can say "you're dangerous," and you can be hauled away and never see the light of day again--no trial, no charges that would stick in any competent count...you're just gone. The America I knew and loved died and was replaced by some zombie controlled by a cruel puppet-master.
I don't think that offenders with a high chance of recidivism should be released but that should be taken care of during the sentencing phase of the original trial. If a guy is a habitual rapist, give him a life sentence, don't do this legal jujitsu nonsense after he's served a sentence. Too many possibilities for abuse.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Even if you agree that that particular juvenile was punished excessively, you could still disagree with a decision that offers a blanket prohibition against juvenile life-sentences. If that kid had raped a few toddlers, would the "liberal" justices have had the balls to dispute sentencing him to life?
I was in prison for a few years with a group of pedophiles.
( FYI : I was there for an entirely different offense )
During that time it became obvious to me that many if not
all of these pedophiles saw nothing wrong with their behavior,
despite the fact that some of them had sex with children as young
as six years of age. It was also obvious that most of them couldn't
WAIT to get out so they could do it again. As such, I think it is
necessary to have an option under the law to make sure some of these
sick twisted bastards who prey on young children can be locked up
for the rest of their lives.
I acknowledge that the idea of locking someone up forever is a frightening
thing. Perhaps instead of locking these baby rapers up forever we ought to free
them all and give the parents of their victims an hour or two alone
with them.
I'm not talking about statutory rape here --- I am talking about grown men who
prey on children. And these bastards need to be kept apart from the rest of society,
for the protection of society. again, unlike almost all of the readers of Slashdot, I've
had the opportunity to observe pedophiles at close range for several years. And the
sad truth is that almost all of them ARE GOING TO REOFFEND, because it is
behavior they are unable to control, without external assistance. To those of you who
will demand a "citation" : I saw what I saw, I heard what I heard, and I am speaking
honestly, without any agenda other than telling the truth.
And this is a power the government has held since well before this case emerged.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
Sorry, but I just can't let this fly.
Slavery was THE issue of the Civil War. Yes, there were many other issues involved, but slavery was central. Given how many of the state constitutions of the CSA specifically mentioned slavery as their motivation for secession, you're on thin ice here.
All this nonsense about the Civil War not being about slavery is just neo-Confederate apologism.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
Fortunately, you're not deciding, because I think she's going to be a great justice.
She sounds like someone who can formulate and parse a complex argument and see the simple principles of the Constitution for what they are: a framework. It's not a religious document where every word should be dissected, like the Torah, and plumbed for hidden meanings.
My opinion is that Kagan is the justice Obama should have appointed instead of Sotomayor, and this time he should be nominating Diane Wood. Then, when Ginzburg retires, you go with Sotomayor, pick up a draft pick, and then when he has to replace Scalia or Thomas he comes out with the hammer: my buddy Cass Sunstein. Now that's a liberal majority that'll put limits on Presidential powers, and do away with the fiction of corporations being "persons". They'd also have no trouble affirming campaign finance reform, which is the only possible thing that could ever save us.
One other thing, John Q, can you tell me where the quote you subscribe to James Madison is from? It's been a while since I've read the Fed Papers, and I don't remember so good any more, but I'm pretty sure it's not there. Could it be from the Debates? If so, there's a lot of stuff there that he later admitted was a little too strident, in his Papers.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Sorry, meant to write "Jane Q". My eyes ain't so good any more.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I browse 4chan occasionaly. My computer is never ever ever seing the inside of a repair shop. The biggest threat I pose to children is that I'd probably teach them naughty words but tell them that they mean perfectly normal things.
Where do you think the child pornography comes from that placates these people? From exploited children, no?
Bullshit. Read the article again, and study up on some law.
First, the Federal government has no authority to do this. Whether it says they will be imprisoned forever or not. It's not in their jurisdiction.
Second, "clear and convincing evidence" is FAR lower than the normal standard for incarceration, which is "beyond reasonable doubt". So yeah, it WOULD give the Federal government the ability to incarcerate someone forever, without a proper trial. At least, any kind of "trial" that would be accepted in any other situation.
Third, in the very poster-child case mentioned in the article, the government would have it apply to a "receiver" of child pornography. Note here an important distinction: you may think the person is weird and deranged, but study after study have shown no link between mere "receivers" of child pornography, and actual real-life crimes. The man was not convicted for any crime other than receiving child pornography. He molested no children. In fact, there is ample evidence to show that rather than inciting crime, pornography is cathartic, and that people who might otherwise commit crimes will otherwise take out their obsessions or aggressions on the pornography, rather than real people.
To recap: most "receivers" of child pornography are NOT people who are dangerous to society or children. No matter what the government would have you believe.
Do not misunderstand; I am NOT saying that people who create child pornography are doing mankind a favor. What I am saying is that psychologically, most people who "get turned on" by such stuff would rather deal with it on their own, rather than commit acts they know are completely unacceptable to society.
Further, technically YOU are probably a "reciever" of child pornography, in your emails or internet popups. Whether you want to be or not. That stuff gets stored in your system logs and browser cache, where they can be found later by the authorities. Sure, that doesn't mean you are keeping a collection specifically of child pornography... but it DOES mean that you are in violation of the same laws. Hmmm... maybe we should lock YOU up for 10 years, then change our minds and lock you up for life! What do you think? Is that fair?
No matter how much you think this is "for the children", the fact is that the Fourth Circuit judged properly, and SCOTUS did not. Which just adds to the number of exceedingly bad decisions they have made in the last decade and a half. And even if it were not a bad decision, the Federal government does not have the authority to make it.
Even with a conviction, if you've served the sentence associated with that conviction, there is no grounds for holding you. That's the point of this whole line of argument. You're effectively being held indefinitely without a trial.
Once you've served your sentence for a conviction, anything beyond that sentence is wrongful imprisonment unless you receive another trial.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
Normal incarceration does not require "beyond reasonable doubt" except in murder cases. I agree with your general point, but I wanted to correct that particular argument.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
Hate to reply to my post but I can't delete it now after further research... it seems "beyond reasonable doubt" is the standard for all (or most) criminal cases within the USA. I retract my previous post.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
Our Founding Fathers had great wisdom to include the 2A in the BoR.
The 3rd box is now exhausted.
It's almost time to fo.
From TFA
The federal law at issue in the case allows the government to continue to detain prisoners who had engaged in sexually violent conduct, AND suffered from mental illness AND would have difficulty controlling themselves. If the government is able to prove all of this to a judge by “clear and convincing” evidence — a heightened standard, but short of “beyond a reasonable doubt” — it may hold such prisoners until they are no longer dangerous or a state assumes responsibility for them.
This is only applies to @100 inmates. I wonder what else Comstock did that we are unaware of.
It doesn't matter what he did that we're unaware of, it's what he was convicted for that matters. He was convicted of a non-violent crime for which he served his sentence. Now he's being held indefinitely based on a "sexually dangerous" "certification" by the Attorney General of the USA. (The article does not give any specifics as to how the AG came up with that "certification".)
Whether this applies to 100 inmates or not, it's clear that it's already being misapplied.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
I've heard it said in the bar that if you injure someone in a car accident you're better off making sure they're done for than helping them.
Injury lawsuits cost a lot more than the vehicular manslaughter charge.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Nowadays we're hearing about a lot of cases that are more than "Bob who lives in the dirty trailer down the road." Molestation by priests has gained a lot of coverage, as has abuse by those in other power position (educators, etc).
I wonder though, how many actually end up going to jail. It seems that it becomes big news, dies down, and then they manage to get a fairly low sentence or none at all.
Pervs in jail seem to fall under the same category as many, too ill-educated and/or poor to afford a good enough lawyer. However, in terms of the media focus I think it's gone a bit beyond the "drooling pervert" model and has put more view on the "sophisticated immoral abuse of a position-of-power" types.
Ever heard of someone being raped with a bottle?
How about a dildo?
How about a woman doing the assaulting?
Contrary to the popular belief it is the big head that does the crime, not the little one.
The Court does not reach or decide any claim that the statute or its application denies equal protection, procedural or substantive due process, or any other constitutional rights. Respondents are free to pursue those claims on remand, and any others they have preserved.
SCOTUS let this one go because the defendant didn't make your arguments! I can tell nobody on Slashdot read the decision because nobody is arguing any of the questions that the case was actually decided on.
Regarding the other case, I have to side with the SCOTUS minority. If you want to keep child molesters locked away for ever, then pass laws that require longer sentences, rather than sentencing them to ten years then holding them forever.
Which is not what the dissent said. This case was not about whether a state, say Texas, could do this. It's well-established they can; it's called civil commitment. This case was about whether the Federal government can do it.
Essentially, the topics examined were:
Neither side argued this on 5th Amendment Due Process grounds.
Germany just got sentenced by the ECHR to pay 50.000 EUR in compensation in a similar case.
http://cmiskp.echr.coe.int/tkp197/view.asp?item=12&portal=hbkm&action=html&highlight=&sessionid=53724427&skin=hudoc-pr-en
And for god's sake, if you skip a safety regulation and 29 coal miners die, be prepared to be charged with manslaughter, at the very least. The day a CEO of a coal company who causes 29 death does more time than a 19 year-old caught with a pound of reefer, then we can pretend we have a country based on the rule of law and not the rule of money.
So big deal, the United States Supreme Court really showed those horrible child molesters. That's an easy call. Do something hard and apply the same set of rules to the rich and powerful who break laws.
fixed that for you... (who in their right mind would think a pound of a dried up plant is the equivalent or worse than the loss of 29 lives, utter craziness)
SCOTUS claimed that the government has the authority to incarcerate someone indefinitely without trial.
No they haven't. His incarceration is ending. His civil commitment is beginning. All they've said is that you can still be committed to a mental hospital for being crazy/dangerous, even if you've just completed your prison sentence for committing a crime. The latter does not get you out of the former.
The article doesn't even say anything about child molesters. It is about a man who was convicted for receiving child porn.
How is this mod'd insightful and not "Wooosh!"?
"clear and convincing evidence" is FAR lower than the normal standard for incarceration, which is "beyond reasonable doubt"
Are you sure about that? My understanding was that "clear and convincing evidence" was the actual legal standard and "beyond reasonable doubt" was how that was described to juries.
most "receivers" of child pornography are NOT people who are dangerous to society or children.
Yes, the danger is just creating the market for the producers, and that's nowhere near enough to keep someone in jail indefinitely.
I was surprised to hear here that it really is jail. I would have expected a transfer to a mental hospital when the sentence was over.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Here's the decision. Go read it, at least the first few pages. This is not a due process case. It's a states' rights case:
All the court said is that this falls within the federal government's powers, and doesn't violate the Tenth Amendment (which reserves some rights to the states). It didn't say it was okay on due process grounds. In fact, a district court did rule that the law was unconstitutional on due process grounds, and an appeals court upheld that (citations omitted):
In short, the law has been struck down. The district court struck it down on two grounds. The government appealed both to the appeals court. The appeals court upheld the district court on one of the grounds without addressing the second one. The Supreme Court overruled the lower courts on that ground (legislative powers). The law is still struck down for violating due process, pending further appeals. This case has nothing to do with due process.
MediaWiki developer, Total War Center sysadmin
It has been a conviction of pressing necessity, it has been a belief that we are to be deprived in the Union of the rights which our fathers bequeathed to us, which has brought Mississippi into her present decision. She has heard proclaimed the theory that all men are created free and equal, and this made the basis of an attack upon her social institutions; and the sacred Declaration of Independence has been invoked to maintain the position of the equality of the races. That Declaration of Independence is to be construed by the circumstances and purposes for which it was made. The communities were declaring their independence; the people of those communities were asserting that no man was born--to use the language of Mr. Jefferson--booted and spurred to ride over the rest of mankind; that men were created equal--meaning the men of the political community; that there was no divine right to rule; that no man inherited the right to govern; that there were no classes by which power and place descended to families, but that all stations were equally within the grasp of each member of the body-politic. These were the great principles they announced; these were the purposes for which they made their declaration; these were the ends to which their enunciation was directed. They have no reference to the slave; else, how happened it that among the items of arraignment made against George III was that he endeavored to do just what the North has been endeavoring of late to do--to stir up insurrection among our slaves? Had the Declaration announced that the negroes were free and equal, how was the Prince to be arraigned for stirring up insurrection among them? And how was this to be enumerated among the high crimes which caused the colonies to sever their connection with the mother country? When our Constitution was formed, the same idea was rendered more palpable, for there we find provision made for that very class of persons as property; they were not put upon the footing of equality with white men--not even upon that of paupers and convicts; but, so far as representation was concerned, were discriminated against as a lower caste, only to be represented in the numerical proportion of three fifths.
--Jefferson Davis, in his farewell address to the Senate, 1861.
Yeah, it's totally flamebait to point out the logical flaws in someone's statement.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
Heh. What Constitution is that? The Jewish Constitution?
You walked head-first into that one.
Of course politicians said it was about slavery! We already knew that. You did not make your point.
My very point was that the fact that it has been used on the state level is irrelevant. The question is whether Congress has the authority to do it at the Federal level. And I argue that they do not.
Justice Breyer's statement that it is okay as long as it is "rationally related to the implementation of a constitutionally enumerated power" is disingenuous. That is an unjustified broadening of the standard (to such an extent that it actually amounts to a power grab by SCOTUS). It should be in direct pursuance of the enumerated powers, not just "rationally related". By the latter standard, literally everything imaginable would be "thrown under the power of Congress" to use James Madison's phrase. And that was clearly not the intent of the framers of the Constitution.
The "necessary and proper" clause was defined by the framers of the Constitution, as clearly shown in their other writings, to mean only things that were subordinate to the enumerated powers themselves. The government -- including SCOTUS -- does not have the authority to use that clause to give itself jurisdiction beyond those enumerated powers. And nowhere in the enumerated powers (section 8) is anything like this to be found.
I think Thomas hit the nail on the head, and illustrated precisely my point, when he wrote "The fact that the federal government has the authority to imprison a person for the purpose of punishing him for a federal crime -- sex-related or otherwise -- does not provide the government with the additional power to exercise indefinite civil control over that person."
The statement was made by Madison regarding a bill introduced in Congress' very first year, proposing to give a subsidy to cod fishermen.
I do not know whether this was spoken aloud to Congress, or written at about that time.
My statement might not have been technically accurate in that sense. But the Federal government still does not have the legal authority to do it. Only the states do. See Justice Thomas' dissenting comment.
--
"... the government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general." -- James Madison
"And no matter what you want to claim, the Supreme Court has always been made to trump EVERY other court even state's decisions. Of course they can say something is constitutional. That is what they do every-time they rule that something is not un-constitutional. Double negative there... I know its confusing..."
Incorrect. It is correct enough in certain situations, but the Supreme Court was not given final authority over everything. In particular, contrary to popular belief, the Supreme Court is not the final arbiter of what is constitutional. The states are. And I expect that statement will get a response from somebody.
But the point was not whether the SCOTUS has the authority to rule on the matter, but whether their ruling was a good and proper one. It was not. Breyer's comment that the Federal government has authority as long as the subject is "rationally related" to the enumerated powers is nonsense. Such a standard would give the Federal government authority over literally everything, since literally anything can be thought of as "rationally related" in some way. That was clearly not the intent of the founding fathers or the Constitution itself.
And I did not forget what the civil war "did to state's rights". It did nothing to them. The states have the same rights under the Constitution as they have always had, with the exception of the amendments. The only way to change that is to change the Constitution itself.
Pardon me, you are correct about Fort Sumter. They did not build it then. But they did make a point of very conspicuously manning it and supplying it in preparation for war. Which was in itself seen as an act of aggression.
What broke the camel's back was the Southern economy, not slavery per se. The South's economy simply could not survive the combination of the tariffs that had been placed on trade and the industrialization of the North. Lincoln's election was a clear sign that the South was economically doomed under a Federal government the policies of which were dominated by the North.
I should have been more precise and stated that the civil war was not primarily about slavery, the way most of us were taught in school. I really did not mean to imply that it wasn't an issue at all.
I don't much care if you think I am incoherent. I do like to stir things up occasionally, but not to the extent of trolling. Nevertheless, given the majority of comments I receive, I daresay that while many people might disagree with me, those who think I am incoherent are generally those who don't know much about the topics being discussed.
The guy who made the comment you linked to was wrong, by the way. It may be that his memory goes back to 1953, but that was long before I was ever born. He did cite an example of the court ruling in a similar fashion, but it wasn't even close to "in memory". For me, anyway. So my statement was accurate as it stands.
Further, if you think I am incoherent, then you must think justice Clarence Thomas is incoherent too, since he agreed with me.
And I argue just fine, by the way. I seldom actually lose. I have been wrong time to time, but not all that often.
In any case, just so you won't have to look it up, here is part of what Thomas wrote:
"The fact that the federal government has the authority to imprison a person for the purpose of punishing him for a federal crime -- sex-related or otherwise -- does not provide the government with the additional power to exercise indefinite civil control over that person."
Pretty much what I was saying, all along. As I stated before, I was fully expecting people to claim I was full of BS. The reason is because much of the history that many of us were taught in school was either a distortion or a gross oversimplification. Sure, slavery was an issue in the civil war. But it wasn't THE issue. The war was not mainly about slavery (even though politicians claimed it was). The main reason was simple economics.
Thing is, I agree with you and Justice Thomas, this whole decision is pretty blatantly in violation of the fourteenth amendment of the constitution and nearly the whole of established law as I understand it.
My problem is with the way you're arguing.
For example, the post I initially replied to consists entirely of you stating opinions, proclaiming anyone who disagrees with you to not only be wrong, but an idiot on top of that, and having not done their research.
You clearly have the time to sit around and argue on /. and you clearly have done a great deal of research on the subject, but instead of coming across as knowledgeable and right, you come across as an arrogant prick.
You're not even a troll who's trying to be a prick for the lulz, which is kinda've sad because you'd be so good at it.
So yeah, if you've done the research and you're able to support your points, do it - the lack of any supporting evidence is what renders your posts incoherent.
this post is, again, completely nonsensical and incoherent.
Seriously, if you're going to make a point that you know people disagree with, support it.
If SCOTUS can rule things unconstitutional, then it can rule things constitutional by refusing to do the former. This is a basic legal symmetry.
The important question is whether SCOTUS has a say in the constitutionality of any given act.
It claimed that it does in Marbury v Madison 5 U.S. 137, and the other branches, inferior courts, the States, and the legal profession generally have accepted the principle of judicial review with SCOTUS having the task of ultimately deciding whether the various activities of any government body is or is not in conflict with the Constitution.
Could primary legislation by Congress gut Marbury v Madison, restricting SCOTUS from consideration of constitutionality because it is not one of the Judicial Powers explicitly enumerated in III.2(2)? Would this be lawful and constitutional?
Would it be constitutional for a State's judicial branch unilaterally declare that since the Constitution does not explicitly delegate SCOTUS that power of judicial review, then the power must still remain with the State? More importantly, would such a declaration work in practice? What if different States had different views on the question of whether SCOTUS has that power of judicial review?
Certainly a Constitutional Amendment could strip SCOTUS of that power, or entrench it explicitly.
The *legislatures* of the States (or conventions within the States) have a role to play in amending the constitution, obviously.
The post to which you first replied was a response to a particular statement that someone else had made, which was itself both condescending and groundless. And what I stated in my reply was true: it would have taken a couple of full history lessons to prove my point, which I could have done, but which sure as hell would not have gained me any points with anybody else on Slashdot. Proof of that kind (i.e., that takes up several pages) is generally not very welcome here on Slashdot. I know, because I've done it before. And I was being perfectly honest with the guy: I could have spent a couple of hours collecting all the references to prove my point, and then write it all up, but why should I spend all that time for his benefit? Odds are he would not have appreciated it anyway.
/. supporting my points with (sometimes lengthy) lists of citations. Again, that has rarely gained me any Brownie points here. I could please you, or I could please other people, but there is no pleasing everybody. So I just do what I please, and damn the torpedoes. I cite evidence when I feel like citing evidence. Especially when discussing scientific issues. But there are times when I don't have the time to do that, and other times when I just don't feel like bothering.
I do have reasons for the things I do, whether you like them, or my style, or not. I have spent plenty of time here on
Let me turn this around and ask: why did you feel the need to step in and comment about an exchange that was between two other people? And link to someone who contradicted me and tried to claim that 1953 was "in memory"? I don't think that is true, for most people alive today.
You are welcome to dislike me or my style. That's fine. Whichever you choose will not bother me. But don't tell me how to behave. I have been a member of Slashdot for many years, and my methods have been learned during that time. Slashdot is an informal forum. It is not a formal debate (although sometimes we choose to treat it that way), nor is it a courtroom, or yet a science lab. Most of what appears on Slashdot consists of baseless opinions anyway... if, while discussing a particular topic, I do not cite evidence to support my opinion, you are free to assume it is just my opinion. I often do take the trouble to cite references to back up my points -- apparently you haven't seen that yet, but it is true -- but I am under no obligation whatever to prove anything to anybody.
Two reasons:
1. I'm a prick who likes to poke fun at people for the lulz. You provide the lulz because you take this so seriously. This is how I know you'd be so good at it, because you've got all the skills and even the mindset necessary, you're just not doing it intentionally.
and if it makes you feel better, you can just stop reading now.
2. You honestly seem to believe yourself when you say you're being completely justified when you say whatever you want. That other people in the thread are making condescending and groundless claims, and that backing up what you say is completely unnecessary.
this is not the case
Sit back, re-read the thread, out loud if necessary, and think to yourself about how you sound. You quite honestly sound like a jackass, this is part of your personality, it's how you behave, online, and quite possibly in the real world. I guarantee that if you're behaving like this in the real world, it's holding you back, personally and professionally.
Take a good long look at yourself, make some changes as necessary, lemme know if it works out for ya.
You honestly seem to believe yourself when you say you're being completely justified when you say whatever you want.
That is not even close to what I actually stated. Go back and read, yourself. You are entitled to an opinion but you do not have a right to "put words in my mouth", as the saying goes. Perhaps you should take your own advice, and read a little more carefully, and pay attention to what you sound like.
Sit back, re-read the thread, out loud if necessary, and think to yourself about how you sound. You quite honestly sound like a jackass, this is part of your personality, it's how you behave, online, and quite possibly in the real world. I guarantee that if you're behaving like this in the real world, it's holding you back, personally and professionally.
(1) as I mentioned before, you are entitled to your opinion. Why you feel the need to express it to me is beyond my comprehension, because it should have been clear to you by now that I do not care. But again, maybe you should do a bit of mirror-gazing yourself, because (2) one thing I do not do is go around Slashdot, telling people how to behave or what my baseless personal opinions of them are. That's generally considered to be rude and off-topic here. And it's also pointless, because (3) you know nothing about who I am, what I do, or how I conduct myself elsewhere. And (4), it doesn't matter here that much either because my comment scores over a long period of time clearly show that the majority do not agree with you.
I think maybe it's you who should take some stock of yourself, because you are rudely poking your nose (and mouth) where they don't belong.
And why should I? To make you happy? You sure seem to be generous with other peoples' time.
But here is a freebie, just for the heck of it: the fact is that Jefferson Davis' speech, which took place nearly 100 years after some of the events he mentioned, was itself a bit of revisionist history.
If you know anything about the time period surrounding the founding of our country, then you know that there is no way the "founding fathers", at that particular place and time, could have written the Constitution in such a way that it would be perceived as an attempt to abolish slavery, and expect it to pass. They would have been seen as buffoons, and they would have been laughed (or been driven) out of town.
It is easy to say, as Jefferson Davis did nearly 100 years later, that they should have done something different. But given the state of society at the time, they really could not have. Society would not have permitted it.
Saying, as Davis did, that the Founding Fathers should have abolished slavery would be pretty darned similar to someone today calling Davis a hypocrite because he did not try to give women a right to vote. It's nonsense because he was a product of his society, and society simply would not have let him do it at that point in history.
What? No, Jefferson Davies was saying in this speech that if the founding fathers were going to abolish slavery, they would have done it. He did not say that the founding fathers should have abolished slavery, and indeed, left congress after this speech, and led the south to secede over the issue.
You're.. You're just too stupid for words.
Protip:
If you don't care about something on the internet, don't write several paragraphs about why you don't care. No matter how eloquently you make your point, you're contradicting yourself.
If someone is out of line you tell them they're behaving out of line - otherwise they'll never get better. This is true in the real world, and online.
Now THAT is funny. Troll, but funny.
So pardon me. I wrote "should" when I should have written "would". You say I am stupid, yet you make a distinction that makes no difference at all in the context of what I wrote. Would have, should have... it makes no difference because they could not have, which still makes Davis' argument wrong, and him a revisionist idiot. Not that he got the parts about the Constitution itself wrong. But he is wrong in implying that they would have done so if that is what they wanted to do. Because there is no way in hell that the society of the time would have let them do that. They were not stupid, and they knew full well that if they tried, the Constitution would never be ratified. So Mr. Davis (not Davies) did not actually make his point, nor did you.
Protip for yourself: learn how to read.
What I don't care about is your opinion. I put that pretty plainly and in simple terms. The rest is stuff that I have every right to care about: whether you are publicly misrepresenting my statements (which by now you have done several times), and the fact that you are being hypocritical, and doing the very things of which you have accused me.
For one thing, your first argument is "incoherent", for reasons I have just explained. Apparently you did not get the meaning of what I wrote. I did tell you that you were out of line, several times, in plain and relatively small words so that you would not misunderstand. But THAT didn't work, did it?
So, because you do not seem to have understood my words, there or elsewhere, I will use yours: you have been out of line, several times now. And you might as well go away, because you have not persuaded me to change my mind, even a little, about anything, with ANY of your arguments.
What exactly do you think we're arguing about here?
The point was that the Civil war was about Slavery (there were other factors certainly, but Slavery was a pretty big one) - and it's justified by the leader of the South directly stating his state was seceding from the Union because of the issue of slavery, then the point is made.
The soundness of his Jefferson Davies' argument isn't even relevant.
Everything I've written is my opinion, including the topics you've singled out as things you care about. Except you don't care about my opinion. Think about that for a while.
Yes, I'm a little hypocritical here, I openly admitted I'm here because I like to poke fun at you for the lulz, it's no secret.
From what you've been telling me so far, you don't want to be considered a troll, even though you're trolling. If you don't want to be one, any similarities between my writing and your own should be taken as a bad sign.
I'm not the one who's trolling. You have already admitted that you are. I've just been trying to get you to go away. And not everything you have stated counts as opinion, which is a point I made earlier but which you obviously did not understand. When you publicly state something about someone that is untrue as if it were fact, that has crossed the line and is not an "opinion" anymore, either in common practice or legally.
Nonsense. While that is the general topic of course, MY comment was specifically about the validity of Davis' (NOT "Davies") argument. It was directly relevant because that was what the other person quoted to try to prove his point. (Which he did not accomplish, and neither did you.) And if you don't understand that, why are you even here?
YOU weren't discussing that, either. Instead, you have been writing about nothing but me. So once again: take a look in the mirror, fella, before calling others out.
I am done with you. If you continue, do not expect any replies from me. You have added exactly nothing to the conversation, and your whole point has seemed merely to try to get me pissed off or something. Well, it won't work. It's been tried by people a lot better at it than you. Consider yourself ignored from now on.
I understand what you're trying to say...
You're just wrong.
Don't tell me you're ignoring me, ignore me
You're really bad at this, but learning your lesson is for your own good. Seriously.
I did not say I was ignoring you (LEARN HOW TO READ!), I said I would be ignoring you. And I only said that so it would be clear to you that you are going to be ignored... not just overlooked. And you appear to have some comprehension problems. Maybe take a remedial reading class? You also seem to think you have something to teach me. Even funnier.
But... You're not ignoring me. Still.
Hell, you came in to check what I've written in response to you. There's a very clear disconnect between what you're saying and what you're actually doing.
This is just a symptom of the same problem I've been trying to hammer into you all along, if you just say "X is the case, but I don't have to justify it and back it up" - whether 'X' is "The Civil war wasn't about slavery" or "I'm ignoring you" or "I don't care" or "I'm going to make something of myself." Then the statement is worthless. It's a fundamental error in the way you think.
Don't just say you're going to do something, do it.
Admittedly, I should not have written "from now on". But aside from that, you're just wrong. First, I check all replies to my comments; you are nothing special. Second, you think you're being smart when you're really just being a smartass. From your comments it's clear that you think you can put me in a Catch-22: if I answer, I'm wrong, and if I don't, you get the last word by default. But it's only a Catch-22 in the same sense as the old question "When did you stop beating your wife?" It's meaningless in the real world, and I can change my mind if and when I want.
No worries, you will be ignored. But I will decide when, not you.
if you had said, "I beat my wife regularly" and then I asked, "When did you stop beating your wife" then your analogy might hold water.
You've got this bizarre obsession with being "right" even in impossible circumstances of your own construction. Why is that?