Yeah. There are just too many corner cases and but-that's-not-what-I-intended and just plain bad luck situations. Laws that try to deal with all of those tend to slop over into non-perps' lives in unexpected ways, generally not for the better.
Sometimes I think we were better off when justice tended to be more preemptory, but also more cognizant of individual cases (ie. left up to someone's good judgment rather than restricted by regulation). Perhaps so even with the occasional abuse or mistake. I think it also kept people more responsible for their own actions, something the legal system has been helping erode by promoting lawsuits as the first response to any slight.
Not only that, but this "parenting by proxy" thing may eventually backfire in other ways, by leading to laws that actively prevent good parenting.
In my weird hypothetical case of the maturbating teen armed with a webcam, who (besides the suckers who downloaded it) goes to jail? the kid for distributing kiddie porn? his parents for letting him do so? his ISP for "hosting" it? the company that made the webcam, for failing to restrict sales to minors?
Considering the state of this can and the number of worms, I'd say the real problem is worm porn... and I'd describe the location of the government's head as somewhere more, ah, pornographic.;)
Here in CA, judges seem to be largely handpicked by law enforcement -- if a major judicial candidate isn't endorsed by the various police departments, they've little chance of getting elected. And no one wants to be seen as the judge who is "soft on crime"... even on victimless crime... let alone on crimes "against children". Dismissing a case of statutory rape involving a 17yo and her 18yo boyfriend could put a halt to your career in a hurry, because sure as shit someone would spin it as meaning you're "in favour of letting children be raped".
From my rant page (http://home.earthlink.net/~rividh/asylum/wartime. htm): ========== 6.18.01 Corpus Christi Texas is now placing "DANGER" signs on the homes and vehicles of some "sex offenders" (without much regard for whether the offense was a genuinely predatory abuse or a chance encounter with a consenting but underage girl). Does anyone else hear an echo of those signs warning "JEW" in Nazi Germany?? ==========
Another way to get out of jury duty is to cultivate lawyers as friends. They don't want anyone who might be "influenced" (or advised) by someone who actually knows the law! -- As a lawyer/judge I know puts it, "A jury consists of 12 people too stupid to get out of jury duty; so what makes you think they're competent to judge your case?"
I don't think I've heard of any modern cases of jury nullification being exercised by the jurors, tho I have heard of a few cases where the judge threw out the verdict (tho mostly in civil cases with a clearly-excessive financial judgment).
This brought to mind a potential corner case in which it only takes one... (and which I'm sure some smartassed kid has already done, if only because kids do stuff like this!)
Is video footage of an underage person masturbating considered "child porn"??
How about if the kid makes the footage themselves, and distributes it via a webcam that all the world can see?
In such a case there is only one person involved in creating the "porn", and no "victim".
But in light of this court decision: Would someone who then downloaded this video be guilty of possessing and even *making* "child porn"??
The sole reason I subbed here is because of the Relationship Change Notification function. Before that, I'd periodically go thru the list hoping to catch the new ones, since I like to then go root up a bunch of their posts, try to figure out what we have in common (or not as the case may be), and drop 'em a few replies. Even then, sometimes I have no clue what attracted 'em to my humble list.
All my freaks but two are just common trolls. Of the two, one is a novice Mac fanboy, and the other is a rabid anti-M$ie (who occasionally makes a good point that I'll reply to, even if he doesn't see it). Oh well, can't please 'em all, especially if you're politically incorrect!
I've heard that in some areas, promoting and/or exercising your right of jury nullification (which I believe is an important check/balance in the judicial system) will get you thrown in jail on the spot, for contempt of court.:(
Never thought of it as "candy" before... now I'll never have any other name for it [g]
[goes to look] In our only point of common relationships, one of your freaks is also one of my fans.... [scratching head].... you don't seem too unreasonable yourself {g} -- Except for a few special cases, I gave up marking "friends" as a hopeless proposition... there must be a couple thousand people here whom I'm friendly with! So I just count all my fans as friends.:) -- And I don't mark foes, since occasionally one might say something worth reading!
Well, actually I agree with you (but was hoping to escape the kneejerk mods as flamebait:) Unfortunately I grok exactly where you're coming from, from my own bitter experiences.
"Civilized society" is tolerably stable at the macro level, but at the micro level it tends to break down the instant someone can take advantage at someone else's expense. IOW, whenever might-makes-right can bully its way to the fore.
One might even view gov't as the ultimate in "might makes right".
While Mowat's writing tends to be somewhat, ah, enhanced for dramatic effect, Goddard doesn't seem so lily-pure either. Judging by the attitudes he expresses in various interviews, he's not above a little embellishment in the name of his own causes de jour.
In fact after reading whatever Google spit up on the controversy, I've come to the opinion that much of what Goddard had to say about Mowat was merely bashing someone he thought of as a rival competing for the same readers' eyeballs.
The two of 'em remind me a great deal of how rival explorers trashed each other's motives back in the days of Amundsen and Perry....
When I was young (early 20s) I found the same thing -- left to my own devices, I naturally ran on about a 28 to 30 hour day. However, this wasn't really good for me -- we're built to be diurnal animals, up with the sun and to bed when it's dark. And I don't think it's really a matter of what my body was doing; I think it was more that when we're young, we have "better things to do", and the stamina to stay awake and do 'em.
From experience I know that I can get by for extended periods on just two sleep cycles per day (each just over 2.5 hours) but the downside is I'm never really rested and am prone to be depressed. I'm much better off when I get 3 cycles worth -- then I'm naturally up with the sun every single day.
Also, I've observed that in otherwise-normal people, staying up half the night then sleeping til noon goes hand in hand with depression. When these people are forced by circumstances to rise with the sun and go do something all day, the depression goes away all by itself. But I've also observed that a persistently inverted sleep schedule is a redflag for paranoid schizophrenia.
"Does that really mean someone who has sex with
children? In that case; no, the person is not "a perfectly normal human being". If it were socially generated, or treatable by "therapy", the problem wouldn't be totally cross-cultural and worldwide (which it is).
And I've concluded that it probably IS "normal", as part of the genetic hardwiring in all species. The desire to have sex with underaged individuals is not unique to humans; the males of every warmblooded species will attempt to rape underaged females whenever possible, and often do so by preference. Their hardwiring says "get YOUR genes into her offspring before anyone else can do so".
But since such behaviour is deemed undesirable in a civilized society, we've been selecting against individuals who can't stop themselves from giving in to their animal instincts; indeed, in western society we've probably largely removed it from the gene pool, by imprisoning the offenders. After all, most people don't reproduce much while incarcerated.
"In this country we have a judicial system that is based on the prevention of crime, not retribution."
While I agree this is what it has become, this is at odds with a court precedent which stated that the police are NOT required to PREVENT a crime, bu rather are only required to pursue a crime AFTER it has happened.
[BTW I *don't* disagree with that ruling, because to agree with it is to institute a system of Thought Police.]
So... are we punishing people for what they did wrong, or are we punishing them to make them into an Example? You can't have it both ways, because to "make an Example" that *has any social impact*, the punishment must be dramatically out of proportion to the harm caused by the crime.
And how does "making an example" differ from "See this guy's broken kneecaps? We'd hate for your kneecaps to end up like that..."??
In fact, restricting travel has been used in the past to prevent certain "undesirables" from voting, or working, or whatever the biggest thugs of their eras didn't want 'em doing. That such tactics are not *presently* used in the U.S. is our good fortune, but this ruling goes to show that such restrictions are not out of the realm of future possibilities.
Oh, and I just had my tinfoil hat lubed and refitted. It had developed the most annoying rattle, and worse, it leaked!!;)
As I understand it, you can call yourself whatever you wish, so long as there is no intent to defraud.
I was told this by a bank official when I wanted to be able to sign checks with an alias. He said I could sign however I wished so long as the bank knew that was an allowed signature (ie. if I put it on my signature card -- back in the days when banks actually confirmed such things).
"How about the ability to travel more than 15 miles away from your home with applying for special permission in front of a Federal Review Board?"
Good point. And it's not like it's never happened... Back in the Olden Times, there were indeed places where you had to have permission from your overlord before you could travel outside of your district.
My college roommate's parents had escaped from Soviet Russia during the height of the Cold War, and he was raised to have an abiding sense of the value of personal freedom. One night in 1973, he was sitting on a curb enjoying the evening, when a cop came along and demanded to see his ID. Well, he wasn't carrying any. The cop then asked his name. He refused to give it, on the grounds that no crime had been committed in the area (yes, he asked the cop) and therefore the cop had no right to know his identity.
He was then arrested and spent the night in jail. He was released the next morning, tho I'm not sure of the circumstances.
Point being, it does happen. And yes, he probably should have pursued it as a civil liberties violation, but that was beyond the means of a poor college student, and back then you didn't file lawsuits at the drop of a hat.
The problem is that the "driver's license" has transmogrified -- from its original intent of a certificate stating that you are competent to drive that class of vehicle, into an identity card.
And somehow it's taken with it the concept that we have the right of travelling freely and anonymously (which, not being specifically prohibited in the Constitution, we DO have... see discussions higher up on that. Well, DID have...)
If you're forced to declare your identity before being allowed to travel, you can be singled out and prevented from travelling to a specific destination, say, the court in which you plan to make your appeal.
You could also be singled out and prevented from voting. In fact this used to be done in some areas, to prevent certain special interest groups (frex, racial minorities) from reaching the polls.
If the ruling had stated "a private carrier can require whatever they damn well please", I wouldn't have a problem with it. But a ruling that we don't have a Constitutionally-enumerated right of travel is an incredibly dangerous precedent, as it is far too extensible into every aspect of our lives. Legally, it means you have no right to *so much as walk down the street* without showing your papers.
The root problem here is that public (and now, judicial) interpretation of the Constitution has shifted from "Except for these few things, you can't tell us free men what to do" to "This is the list of what you're *allowed* to do".
But you're right... 9/11 made a wonderful excuse for the gov't to do what gov'ts like most -- take more control. And I don't think it made a damn bit of difference which party, administration, or congress was in power at the time. Any protests from those in power are primarily because the protester didn't think of it first.
You're entirely correct; the ruling demonstrates a massive ignorance and/or disrespect for the Constitution. Not only that, but this is an evil precedent, since it effectively states that "All rights not so enumerated are nonexistent", and could be cited in *ANY* rights-related case hereafter.
I wouldn't have a problem with the ruling if it had stated, "Airlines are private concerns and can do whatever they want." But the way it's worded, it can easily be extended to "All travel requires ID at the point of access," without regard for whether it's publicly or privately owned.
We're well on our way to fulfilling that old Soviet jape, "All things not compulsory are forbidden.":(
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Yeah. There are just too many corner cases and but-that's-not-what-I-intended and just plain bad luck situations. Laws that try to deal with all of those tend to slop over into non-perps' lives in unexpected ways, generally not for the better.
Sometimes I think we were better off when justice tended to be more preemptory, but also more cognizant of individual cases (ie. left up to someone's good judgment rather than restricted by regulation). Perhaps so even with the occasional abuse or mistake. I think it also kept people more responsible for their own actions, something the legal system has been helping erode by promoting lawsuits as the first response to any slight.
You're probably lucky they didn't arrest you for providing cigarettes to a minor. (They would have, here in the California nuthouse.)
OMG, ankle porn; what's next, an exposed thigh?? -- Sounds like Indiana suffers from a 17th century definition of "indecent exposure".
Not only that, but this "parenting by proxy" thing may eventually backfire in other ways, by leading to laws that actively prevent good parenting.
;)
In my weird hypothetical case of the maturbating teen armed with a webcam, who (besides the suckers who downloaded it) goes to jail? the kid for distributing kiddie porn? his parents for letting him do so? his ISP for "hosting" it? the company that made the webcam, for failing to restrict sales to minors?
Considering the state of this can and the number of worms, I'd say the real problem is worm porn... and I'd describe the location of the government's head as somewhere more, ah, pornographic.
Here in CA, judges seem to be largely handpicked by law enforcement -- if a major judicial candidate isn't endorsed by the various police departments, they've little chance of getting elected. And no one wants to be seen as the judge who is "soft on crime"... even on victimless crime ... let alone on crimes "against children". Dismissing a case of statutory rape involving a 17yo and her 18yo boyfriend could put a halt to your career in a hurry, because sure as shit someone would spin it as meaning you're "in favour of letting children be raped".
. htm):
From my rant page (http://home.earthlink.net/~rividh/asylum/wartime
==========
6.18.01 Corpus Christi Texas is now placing "DANGER" signs on the homes and vehicles of some "sex offenders" (without much regard for whether the offense was a genuinely predatory abuse or a chance encounter with a consenting but underage girl). Does anyone else hear an echo of those signs warning "JEW" in Nazi Germany??
==========
Another way to get out of jury duty is to cultivate lawyers as friends. They don't want anyone who might be "influenced" (or advised) by someone who actually knows the law! -- As a lawyer/judge I know puts it, "A jury consists of 12 people too stupid to get out of jury duty; so what makes you think they're competent to judge your case?"
I don't think I've heard of any modern cases of jury nullification being exercised by the jurors, tho I have heard of a few cases where the judge threw out the verdict (tho mostly in civil cases with a clearly-excessive financial judgment).
"It takes two to tango."
This brought to mind a potential corner case in which it only takes one... (and which I'm sure some smartassed kid has already done, if only because kids do stuff like this!)
Is video footage of an underage person masturbating considered "child porn"??
How about if the kid makes the footage themselves, and distributes it via a webcam that all the world can see?
In such a case there is only one person involved in creating the "porn", and no "victim".
But in light of this court decision: Would someone who then downloaded this video be guilty of possessing and even *making* "child porn"??
The sole reason I subbed here is because of the Relationship Change Notification function. Before that, I'd periodically go thru the list hoping to catch the new ones, since I like to then go root up a bunch of their posts, try to figure out what we have in common (or not as the case may be), and drop 'em a few replies. Even then, sometimes I have no clue what attracted 'em to my humble list.
All my freaks but two are just common trolls. Of the two, one is a novice Mac fanboy, and the other is a rabid anti-M$ie (who occasionally makes a good point that I'll reply to, even if he doesn't see it). Oh well, can't please 'em all, especially if you're politically incorrect!
I've heard that in some areas, promoting and/or exercising your right of jury nullification (which I believe is an important check/balance in the judicial system) will get you thrown in jail on the spot, for contempt of court. :(
Never thought of it as "candy" before... now I'll never have any other name for it [g]
.... you don't seem too unreasonable yourself {g} -- Except for a few special cases, I gave up marking "friends" as a hopeless proposition... there must be a couple thousand people here whom I'm friendly with! So I just count all my fans as friends. :) -- And I don't mark foes, since occasionally one might say something worth reading!
[goes to look] In our only point of common relationships, one of your freaks is also one of my fans.... [scratching head]
Well, actually I agree with you (but was hoping to escape the kneejerk mods as flamebait :) Unfortunately I grok exactly where you're coming from, from my own bitter experiences.
"Civilized society" is tolerably stable at the macro level, but at the micro level it tends to break down the instant someone can take advantage at someone else's expense. IOW, whenever might-makes-right can bully its way to the fore.
One might even view gov't as the ultimate in "might makes right".
While Mowat's writing tends to be somewhat, ah, enhanced for dramatic effect, Goddard doesn't seem so lily-pure either. Judging by the attitudes he expresses in various interviews, he's not above a little embellishment in the name of his own causes de jour.
In fact after reading whatever Google spit up on the controversy, I've come to the opinion that much of what Goddard had to say about Mowat was merely bashing someone he thought of as a rival competing for the same readers' eyeballs.
The two of 'em remind me a great deal of how rival explorers trashed each other's motives back in the days of Amundsen and Perry....
When I was young (early 20s) I found the same thing -- left to my own devices, I naturally ran on about a 28 to 30 hour day. However, this wasn't really good for me -- we're built to be diurnal animals, up with the sun and to bed when it's dark. And I don't think it's really a matter of what my body was doing; I think it was more that when we're young, we have "better things to do", and the stamina to stay awake and do 'em.
From experience I know that I can get by for extended periods on just two sleep cycles per day (each just over 2.5 hours) but the downside is I'm never really rested and am prone to be depressed. I'm much better off when I get 3 cycles worth -- then I'm naturally up with the sun every single day.
Also, I've observed that in otherwise-normal people, staying up half the night then sleeping til noon goes hand in hand with depression. When these people are forced by circumstances to rise with the sun and go do something all day, the depression goes away all by itself. But I've also observed that a persistently inverted sleep schedule is a redflag for paranoid schizophrenia.
"Does that really mean someone who has sex with
children? In that case; no, the person is not "a perfectly normal human being". If it were socially generated, or treatable by "therapy", the problem wouldn't be totally cross-cultural and worldwide (which it is).
And I've concluded that it probably IS "normal", as part of the genetic hardwiring in all species. The desire to have sex with underaged individuals is not unique to humans; the males of every warmblooded species will attempt to rape underaged females whenever possible, and often do so by preference. Their hardwiring says "get YOUR genes into her offspring before anyone else can do so".
But since such behaviour is deemed undesirable in a civilized society, we've been selecting against individuals who can't stop themselves from giving in to their animal instincts; indeed, in western society we've probably largely removed it from the gene pool, by imprisoning the offenders. After all, most people don't reproduce much while incarcerated.
"In this country we have a judicial system that is based on the prevention of crime, not retribution."
While I agree this is what it has become, this is at odds with a court precedent which stated that the police are NOT required to PREVENT a crime, bu rather are only required to pursue a crime AFTER it has happened.
[BTW I *don't* disagree with that ruling, because to agree with it is to institute a system of Thought Police.]
So... are we punishing people for what they did wrong, or are we punishing them to make them into an Example? You can't have it both ways, because to "make an Example" that *has any social impact*, the punishment must be dramatically out of proportion to the harm caused by the crime.
And how does "making an example" differ from "See this guy's broken kneecaps? We'd hate for your kneecaps to end up like that..."??
How is this fair and just?
In fact, restricting travel has been used in the past to prevent certain "undesirables" from voting, or working, or whatever the biggest thugs of their eras didn't want 'em doing. That such tactics are not *presently* used in the U.S. is our good fortune, but this ruling goes to show that such restrictions are not out of the realm of future possibilities.
;)
Oh, and I just had my tinfoil hat lubed and refitted. It had developed the most annoying rattle, and worse, it leaked!!
Yes.. my point being, it's too bad the 9th is not stated in such an obvious way that any idiot can recognise what it means!
As I understand it, you can call yourself whatever you wish, so long as there is no intent to defraud.
I was told this by a bank official when I wanted to be able to sign checks with an alias. He said I could sign however I wished so long as the bank knew that was an allowed signature (ie. if I put it on my signature card -- back in the days when banks actually confirmed such things).
Maybe it should have been phrased a bit more obviously, frex, "You are allowed to do all things not herein explicitly prohibited".
"How about the ability to travel more than 15 miles away from your home with applying for special permission in front of a Federal Review Board?"
Good point. And it's not like it's never happened... Back in the Olden Times, there were indeed places where you had to have permission from your overlord before you could travel outside of your district.
My college roommate's parents had escaped from Soviet Russia during the height of the Cold War, and he was raised to have an abiding sense of the value of personal freedom. One night in 1973, he was sitting on a curb enjoying the evening, when a cop came along and demanded to see his ID. Well, he wasn't carrying any. The cop then asked his name. He refused to give it, on the grounds that no crime had been committed in the area (yes, he asked the cop) and therefore the cop had no right to know his identity.
He was then arrested and spent the night in jail. He was released the next morning, tho I'm not sure of the circumstances.
Point being, it does happen. And yes, he probably should have pursued it as a civil liberties violation, but that was beyond the means of a poor college student, and back then you didn't file lawsuits at the drop of a hat.
The problem is that the "driver's license" has transmogrified -- from its original intent of a certificate stating that you are competent to drive that class of vehicle, into an identity card.
And somehow it's taken with it the concept that we have the right of travelling freely and anonymously (which, not being specifically prohibited in the Constitution, we DO have... see discussions higher up on that. Well, DID have...)
If you're forced to declare your identity before being allowed to travel, you can be singled out and prevented from travelling to a specific destination, say, the court in which you plan to make your appeal.
You could also be singled out and prevented from voting. In fact this used to be done in some areas, to prevent certain special interest groups (frex, racial minorities) from reaching the polls.
If the ruling had stated "a private carrier can require whatever they damn well please", I wouldn't have a problem with it. But a ruling that we don't have a Constitutionally-enumerated right of travel is an incredibly dangerous precedent, as it is far too extensible into every aspect of our lives. Legally, it means you have no right to *so much as walk down the street* without showing your papers.
The root problem here is that public (and now, judicial) interpretation of the Constitution has shifted from "Except for these few things, you can't tell us free men what to do" to "This is the list of what you're *allowed* to do".
All well and good, until you get stopped at a checkpoint, and being afoot (or ahorse, or abike) won't help you there.
"Or, in the case of post-911 America, ising."
;)
Hmm. Something just isn't right there...
But you're right... 9/11 made a wonderful excuse for the gov't to do what gov'ts like most -- take more control. And I don't think it made a damn bit of difference which party, administration, or congress was in power at the time. Any protests from those in power are primarily because the protester didn't think of it first.
Bunch of dangling participles, the lot of 'em.
You're entirely correct; the ruling demonstrates a massive ignorance and/or disrespect for the Constitution. Not only that, but this is an evil precedent, since it effectively states that "All rights not so enumerated are nonexistent", and could be cited in *ANY* rights-related case hereafter.
:(
I wouldn't have a problem with the ruling if it had stated, "Airlines are private concerns and can do whatever they want." But the way it's worded, it can easily be extended to "All travel requires ID at the point of access," without regard for whether it's publicly or privately owned.
We're well on our way to fulfilling that old Soviet jape, "All things not compulsory are forbidden."
Not to mention, "Papers, please!"