Ah,but the role of police in the system is different - they are to physically enforce the law, while the jury is there to review judge's decision - therefore your analogy is a total red herring. A juror refusing to participate would achieve precisely nothing.. which is i guess just the reason why you are suggesting it.
Furthermore.. a single juror doesn't decide the case.. precisely why the judge isn't allowed to decide without jury's approval. And if juries are consistently finding a law bad, then it likely isn't a good law, because it doesn't represent public interest. The jurors are,after all, randomly selected from the public, unlike the judges and lawyers. Furthermore, in common law system, the judges themselves can take some liberty at interpreting the law and things such as precedents matter , which separates them from civil law courts which investigate whether the letter of the law was upheld - in other words, jury isn't in a very special position with regards to this, they just have the final word.
Calling exercising your rights "jury vigilantism" is rather amusing as well as mentioning a couple dozen irrelevant hurrah concepts such as educated public and strong press being necessary, as if citing evident truths that are at best tangential to your argument somehow added weight to it.
Lastly.. Jury nullification is like antipyretics. It doesn't help with the cause of the problem, but it sure as hell deals with some dangerous symptoms. After all, a bad, broken government can do a lot less evil if its unjust laws are refused by the citizenry.
Untrue. Because the same purpose is accomplished by appeals, so if it was as you say, nobody in their right time would waste time devising a system which has a jury.
The purpose of the jury is also to hold the results of work of the legislative branch to scrutiny - scrutiny of the common people. See, the problem with all your suggestions is that they are far, far easier said than done.. getting new people in the position, carrying out certain sorts of appeals (most realistic) or a bloody revolution.. Therefore they provide a safe shout-out since it's pretty sure none of that is likely to happen.
On the other hand, if you serve on the jury, you have the right to vote against enforcement of a law you perceive unjust, and if you all agree on it, to strike down such action, providing a precedent for the future. I don't have to be a lawyer to say having a few cases of a jury liberating a guy guilty of something despite overwhelming evidence he did do it (pointing to lack of will to enforce such law) would be a gold mine for the defense lawyer in any further case.
This sort of "arguments" are particularly insidious.. they make it a social standard for people "not" to use their full range of legislative rights, and make them "police themselves" like some posters suggest here... but those same rights are surely mentioned in any other case as a hallmark on freedom and "how can you say the people don't have a word"... That's the difference from most "totalitarian" governments which make the.. perhaps say, blunder of making such things explicitly illegal or impossible. After all, you don't feel caged if you don't notice the bars and are persuaded world ends behind that steel grid over there.
> Though the latter is more frequent than the former, the importance of the former--and the administrative problem with preventing jury nullification while still allowing the jury to have any meaningful power--is significant.
That's like saying "the administrative problem of abolishing the armed forces while still allowing extensive international military presence" except that can be solved by having a mercenary legion.
Also... i'd like something to support the above claim about the main use for it.
What else will you say, Mr. Demagogue?
Quite opposite - a just law must stand up to the scrutiny of the people, it must be clearly just. Only people with behind the scenes agenda and lawyer cliques are against such a factor entering the game , because it makes subverting Justice to further their goals harder.
Bullshit.
The precise reason the jury is allowed to do this is to make sure the law stands up to the scrutiny of the common people,as well as to make sure whether he's guilty or not.
The next guy who breaks the unjust law has a precedent on his hands in the case you described above.
But I don't wonder.. the above opinion is exactly the sort the lawyers and judges want you to have, because they don't want any common sense injected into their meddling with justice.
Hmm, given that I play in a DnD 3.5 game and GM another one, i'd say it went undead at the very least.
Given how awesome it is, i'd say the undead species is Demilich
More than that - why should it ever be considered stealing?
The corporations are trying to produce as cheaply as possible, and then sell it as expensive as possible , for biggest profit margin
The people are trying to get the product as cheaply as possible , to maximize their own utility
The two keep each other in check, that is, until one side went off crying and called the law to its aid
And yeah, this whole article is brilliant. There was an awesome bit in the Discworld novel "Night Watch" *i think it was that one) where Sam Vimes goes thinking about how "privilege" comes from the latin for "private law" - law set and serving to a small group of the rich and powerful- in that case it was how the houses of the nobility had watch patrol nearby, IIRC.
Not much changes. This is too public IMHO for blackmail or similar to take place, especially given it's the US and not back home. Furthermore if it was russian mafia frontend, I'd suspect that the national defense agencies would be looking into them, and as such they'd have to lay bloody low.
So?
First, they might get compensation ruled by the court, money for which gotten seizing the company's assets.
Second thing, if someone wants to fuck you over, better not bend over and supply the lube. Working for an asshole company like that is likely not a win either as their policies are probably jackass dictated in other areas - I also bet many of those people are counting on the stock as their main compensation. Furthermore, doing something like that cuts off the way for other unscrupulous companies who might try the same...it's for the good of IT workers everywhere.
Is to outlaw unjust discrimination on basis of education. In other words, a job offer can't have education requirements that can't be justified (asking for just "college education" without specifying a degree is right out) , any more than one can hire personnel on the basis of what car they drive.
You know there's something wrong with the job market when almost any job higher than McD worker, cashier, or floor washer requires a degree.
Such breaking of "degree inflation" would reduce the demand on degrees,and as such cause the obscene prices asked by the universities to drop. Here in England for example we pay far, far less for education than in USA and I don't see it being of worse quality, quite the opposite.
These sort of , like any other action , are right or wrong depending on context.
In this case,the vigilance is about as right as beating up a perv trying to talk a kid into coming with him or something
The Wall Street protests are different because they are completely inexplicable. Masses of people don't protest without a reason, without a rallying point, or without a charismatic leader. There's always *something* that starts them off, that prompts people to take action. The recent London riots were precipitated by a cop shooting a civilian.
It all depends on the state of the society. See, protests like those you mentioned don't happen *because* of a charismatic personality , or *because* of a particular action, rather, those are just a nucleating core, like when you put your spoon in a glass of very clean, microwave-boiled water and it whooshes into your face. You are dead-on right that these sort of protests get leaders naturally, however, you miss one thing. It is not that the country could be in trouble , it IS long in trouble, and that's why it all is happening.
Let me put it this way. I'm from Slovakia. Our wages are shitty (about 400-500 EURO average) , and there is lots of unemployment , but at least we have state-covered healthcare meaning you can go to a doctor even if you have no money and no job, and our universities don't fucking saddle the graduates with massive debts, because we have free tertiary education. Both of those are leftovers from the good old times before 1989. Even so - the state at the moment is wanting to mess up with said healthcare and privatise it,and it caused a countrywide protest of doctors, who are resigning in mass - about 15% of all. By which i want to say - I am glad I don't live in the US, and well,if the conditions ever got as bad at home as they are in America, we'd have protests and riots too.
That makes about as much sense as striving to drive safely for fear of invisible helicopters.
And i call bullshit. Interesting how for example, during the IInd world war, plenty of atheists, members of communist party fought the fascists, while the church blessed their weapons. But then, the problem is that a religious definition of a good person living a good life just isn't sensible on many counts to anybody not accepting said teachings, similar to the claim that eg. to be a good soldier, alongside all the traits such as patriotism, obedience, bravery, and skill, you HAVE to wear red socks.
Well, there's a simple reason for both of that.
You need to be incredibly powerful to root out religion "just like that". People are naturally superstitious. And well, the kind of person who achieves that usually isn't all that nice, or he'd be smelling plants from the root side.
Second thing is, Phelps and others only aren't worse because they have no power to speak of. Their "creator" already has pretty much all he wants, so they aren't pushing to expand. If you want to see real evil done by religion, look at crusades, jihad... As the US avanturism in vietnam and Iraq shows, it's hard to get people to fight somewhere else for no good reason they can see. Push in some amount of fanaticism, and they'll jump at the chance to volunteer.
Um... if your aorta tears, it won't take hours for you to die.. minutes, more likely. Also, lower blood pressure from blood leaking into cavities means likely loss of consciousness.
What about the Soviet Union?
Also, well, i wouldn't overestimate the efficiency of mechanised warfare, compared to lots of people with some level of arms technology. Look at the mess in Afghanistan or Iraq.
What you say is certainly possible, but very hard to occur - what will probably happen is that a large chunk of population inside such automated cities will be a security force.
The thing is, the serfs have numbers in their side. Once people are without their basic needs fulfilled and have no perspective for the future, it is very easy to spark a revolution. Sure, the initial revolts can (and probably will) be put down, but that won't defuse the whole problem, more the opposite. Since the common people won't be needed, there are three scenarios i see.
1) "common people" are pretty much exterminated - nukes or similar. The rich live with their automated workforce.
2) "common people" win, results in socialism with slow advances towards communism. IMHO, preferable
3) "common people" "coexist" with the rich - The rich use automatics and defend themselves, while the rest of the world lives with suboptimal amount of resources outside. Compare situation in places like South Africa - slums vs massive mansions. Kinda unstable.
Since, it can't cope with people not being needed, as even if it'd be economically feasible, it refuses to provide people with anything free. When human work becomes obsolete, and unemployment crosses some threshold, there will be widespread revolts. Compare with industrial revolution and Luddites.
I would be inclined to believe you if the copyright wasn't unconstitutionally extended several times in the last 50 or so years. Never mind the fact that only a criminal court can award punitive damages - civil cases can't
Evidence police, stop it right there!
http://www.altenergystocks.com/archives/AIVs.bmp This.bmp shows the rough breakdown of the energy consumption of a car during it's lifetime. As you can see, just a very small fraction is embodied energy cost - most is gasoline.
If you disagree and blame the source of the graph, i invite you to calculate it yourself taking the energy content of gasoline,some easy number for consumption, and the average mass + composition of a car.
In other words, it's blatantly untrue that embedded energy cost makes high efficiency vehicles waste energy.
As a second point of note - the "cash for clunkers" program can be a great idea - in my country (Slovak Rep.) it was done by our last government - it succeeded to keep our automobile manufacturing at work , and fixed the problem of us having one of the worst vehicle parks in europe , with tons of people riding such grandpas like Wartburg, Skoda 105, Skoda 120, polish Fiat, and various old Lada models, all of them 25+ years old and in crappy condition.
I am not an enviromentalist at all, but do give credit where it is due.
Slashdot Mirror
Well.. it's a textbook example of worker alienation - one of the results inherent in the conflict between worker and capitalist.
Ah ,but the role of police in the system is different - they are to physically enforce the law, while the jury is there to review judge's decision - therefore your analogy is a total red herring. .. which is i guess just the reason why you are suggesting it. ,after all, randomly selected from the public, unlike the judges and lawyers. Furthermore, in common law system, the judges themselves can take some liberty at interpreting the law and things such as precedents matter , which separates them from civil law courts which investigate whether the letter of the law was upheld - in other words, jury isn't in a very special position with regards to this, they just have the final word.
A juror refusing to participate would achieve precisely nothing
Furthermore.. a single juror doesn't decide the case.. precisely why the judge isn't allowed to decide without jury's approval. And if juries are consistently finding a law bad, then it likely isn't a good law, because it doesn't represent public interest. The jurors are
Calling exercising your rights "jury vigilantism" is rather amusing as well as mentioning a couple dozen irrelevant hurrah concepts such as educated public and strong press being necessary, as if citing evident truths that are at best tangential to your argument somehow added weight to it.
Lastly.. Jury nullification is like antipyretics. It doesn't help with the cause of the problem, but it sure as hell deals with some dangerous symptoms. After all, a bad, broken government can do a lot less evil if its unjust laws are refused by the citizenry.
Untrue. Because the same purpose is accomplished by appeals, so if it was as you say, nobody in their right time would waste time devising a system which has a jury. .. perhaps say, blunder of making such things explicitly illegal or impossible. After all, you don't feel caged if you don't notice the bars and are persuaded world ends behind that steel grid over there.
The purpose of the jury is also to hold the results of work of the legislative branch to scrutiny - scrutiny of the common people. See, the problem with all your suggestions is that they are far, far easier said than done.. getting new people in the position, carrying out certain sorts of appeals (most realistic) or a bloody revolution.. Therefore they provide a safe shout-out since it's pretty sure none of that is likely to happen.
On the other hand, if you serve on the jury, you have the right to vote against enforcement of a law you perceive unjust, and if you all agree on it, to strike down such action, providing a precedent for the future. I don't have to be a lawyer to say having a few cases of a jury liberating a guy guilty of something despite overwhelming evidence he did do it (pointing to lack of will to enforce such law) would be a gold mine for the defense lawyer in any further case.
This sort of "arguments" are particularly insidious.. they make it a social standard for people "not" to use their full range of legislative rights, and make them "police themselves" like some posters suggest here... but those same rights are surely mentioned in any other case as a hallmark on freedom and "how can you say the people don't have a word"... That's the difference from most "totalitarian" governments which make the
> Though the latter is more frequent than the former, the importance of the former--and the administrative problem with preventing jury nullification while still allowing the jury to have any meaningful power--is significant.
That's like saying "the administrative problem of abolishing the armed forces while still allowing extensive international military presence" except that can be solved by having a mercenary legion.
Also... i'd like something to support the above claim about the main use for it.
What else will you say, Mr. Demagogue?
Quite opposite - a just law must stand up to the scrutiny of the people, it must be clearly just. Only people with behind the scenes agenda and lawyer cliques are against such a factor entering the game , because it makes subverting Justice to further their goals harder.
Bullshit. ,as well as to make sure whether he's guilty or not.
The precise reason the jury is allowed to do this is to make sure the law stands up to the scrutiny of the common people
The next guy who breaks the unjust law has a precedent on his hands in the case you described above.
But I don't wonder.. the above opinion is exactly the sort the lawyers and judges want you to have, because they don't want any common sense injected into their meddling with justice.
Hmm, given that I play in a DnD 3.5 game and GM another one, i'd say it went undead at the very least.
Given how awesome it is, i'd say the undead species is Demilich
Cui bono?
Sonny Bono!
Sorry, couldn't resist.
More than that - why should it ever be considered stealing?
The corporations are trying to produce as cheaply as possible, and then sell it as expensive as possible , for biggest profit margin
The people are trying to get the product as cheaply as possible , to maximize their own utility
The two keep each other in check, that is, until one side went off crying and called the law to its aid
And yeah, this whole article is brilliant. There was an awesome bit in the Discworld novel "Night Watch" *i think it was that one) where Sam Vimes goes thinking about how "privilege" comes from the latin for "private law" - law set and serving to a small group of the rich and powerful- in that case it was how the houses of the nobility had watch patrol nearby, IIRC.
Not much changes. This is too public IMHO for blackmail or similar to take place, especially given it's the US and not back home. Furthermore if it was russian mafia frontend, I'd suspect that the national defense agencies would be looking into them, and as such they'd have to lay bloody low.
So? .it's for the good of IT workers everywhere.
First, they might get compensation ruled by the court, money for which gotten seizing the company's assets.
Second thing, if someone wants to fuck you over, better not bend over and supply the lube. Working for an asshole company like that is likely not a win either as their policies are probably jackass dictated in other areas - I also bet many of those people are counting on the stock as their main compensation. Furthermore, doing something like that cuts off the way for other unscrupulous companies who might try the same..
Is to outlaw unjust discrimination on basis of education. In other words, a job offer can't have education requirements that can't be justified (asking for just "college education" without specifying a degree is right out) , any more than one can hire personnel on the basis of what car they drive. ,and as such cause the obscene prices asked by the universities to drop. Here in England for example we pay far, far less for education than in USA and I don't see it being of worse quality, quite the opposite.
You know there's something wrong with the job market when almost any job higher than McD worker, cashier, or floor washer requires a degree.
Such breaking of "degree inflation" would reduce the demand on degrees
These sort of , like any other action , are right or wrong depending on context. ,the vigilance is about as right as beating up a perv trying to talk a kid into coming with him or something
In this case
Do you realise that those complainers then , and those who complain now aren't necessarily the same people? "People on slashdot" is a broad class.
People would be using the Zune. While it is true that history can do without any individual, it is irrelevant in this case.
The Wall Street protests are different because they are completely inexplicable. Masses of people don't protest without a reason, without a rallying point, or without a charismatic leader. There's always *something* that starts them off, that prompts people to take action. The recent London riots were precipitated by a cop shooting a civilian.
,and it caused a countrywide protest of doctors, who are resigning in mass - about 15% of all. ,if the conditions ever got as bad at home as they are in America, we'd have protests and riots too.
It all depends on the state of the society. See, protests like those you mentioned don't happen *because* of a charismatic personality , or *because* of a particular action, rather, those are just a nucleating core, like when you put your spoon in a glass of very clean, microwave-boiled water and it whooshes into your face.
You are dead-on right that these sort of protests get leaders naturally, however, you miss one thing. It is not that the country could be in trouble , it IS long in trouble, and that's why it all is happening.
Let me put it this way. I'm from Slovakia. Our wages are shitty (about 400-500 EURO average) , and there is lots of unemployment , but at least we have state-covered healthcare meaning you can go to a doctor even if you have no money and no job, and our universities don't fucking saddle the graduates with massive debts, because we have free tertiary education. Both of those are leftovers from the good old times before 1989. Even so - the state at the moment is wanting to mess up with said healthcare and privatise it
By which i want to say - I am glad I don't live in the US, and well
That makes about as much sense as striving to drive safely for fear of invisible helicopters.
And i call bullshit. Interesting how for example, during the IInd world war, plenty of atheists, members of communist party fought the fascists, while the church blessed their weapons.
But then, the problem is that a religious definition of a good person living a good life just isn't sensible on many counts to anybody not accepting said teachings, similar to the claim that eg. to be a good soldier, alongside all the traits such as patriotism, obedience, bravery, and skill, you HAVE to wear red socks.
Well, there's a simple reason for both of that. ... As the US avanturism in vietnam and Iraq shows, it's hard to get people to fight somewhere else for no good reason they can see. Push in some amount of fanaticism, and they'll jump at the chance to volunteer.
You need to be incredibly powerful to root out religion "just like that". People are naturally superstitious.
And well, the kind of person who achieves that usually isn't all that nice, or he'd be smelling plants from the root side.
Second thing is, Phelps and others only aren't worse because they have no power to speak of. Their "creator" already has pretty much all he wants, so they aren't pushing to expand. If you want to see real evil done by religion, look at crusades, jihad
Um... if your aorta tears, it won't take hours for you to die.. minutes, more likely. Also, lower blood pressure from blood leaking into cavities means likely loss of consciousness.
What about the Soviet Union?
Also, well, i wouldn't overestimate the efficiency of mechanised warfare, compared to lots of people with some level of arms technology. Look at the mess in Afghanistan or Iraq.
What you say is certainly possible, but very hard to occur - what will probably happen is that a large chunk of population inside such automated cities will be a security force.
I didn't say they'll win, just that they will "occur" again.
The thing is, the serfs have numbers in their side. Once people are without their basic needs fulfilled and have no perspective for the future, it is very easy to spark a revolution. Sure, the initial revolts can (and probably will) be put down, but that won't defuse the whole problem, more the opposite. Since the common people won't be needed, there are three scenarios i see.
1) "common people" are pretty much exterminated - nukes or similar. The rich live with their automated workforce.
2) "common people" win, results in socialism with slow advances towards communism. IMHO, preferable
3) "common people" "coexist" with the rich - The rich use automatics and defend themselves, while the rest of the world lives with suboptimal amount of resources outside. Compare situation in places like South Africa - slums vs massive mansions. Kinda unstable.
Since, it can't cope with people not being needed, as even if it'd be economically feasible, it refuses to provide people with anything free. When human work becomes obsolete, and unemployment crosses some threshold, there will be widespread revolts. Compare with industrial revolution and Luddites.
I would be inclined to believe you if the copyright wasn't unconstitutionally extended several times in the last 50 or so years. Never mind the fact that only a criminal court can award punitive damages - civil cases can't
Evidence police, stop it right there! http://www.altenergystocks.com/archives/AIVs.bmp This .bmp shows the rough breakdown of the energy consumption of a car during it's lifetime. As you can see, just a very small fraction is embodied energy cost - most is gasoline. ,some easy number for consumption, and the average mass + composition of a car.
If you disagree and blame the source of the graph, i invite you to calculate it yourself taking the energy content of gasoline
In other words, it's blatantly untrue that embedded energy cost makes high efficiency vehicles waste energy.
As a second point of note - the "cash for clunkers" program can be a great idea - in my country (Slovak Rep.) it was done by our last government - it succeeded to keep our automobile manufacturing at work , and fixed the problem of us having one of the worst vehicle parks in europe , with tons of people riding such grandpas like Wartburg, Skoda 105, Skoda 120, polish Fiat, and various old Lada models, all of them 25+ years old and in crappy condition.
I am not an enviromentalist at all, but do give credit where it is due.