Suppose you need to hire someone to design a car engine. Would it be better to hire a mechanic or an engineer? Or are they the same because they both work in the automobile industry?
The members of Anonymous are risking going to jail in order to reveal corruption in the government and corporations. You are saying these people are dumb for taking a risk to stand up for something they believe in. It's not dumb, it's courageous.
I am impressed that you're so confident you're right considering you haven't presented a single fact or supreme court case to back up your argument.
You say your position is backed by case law. I looked and I haven't found a supreme court case regarding whether or not a contract like the one in the article is enforceable, so any statements about how the supreme court would rule is speculation. Personally I find it hard to believe that any court would enforce a contract like the one in the article.
My previous post already refutes the first two arguments you made, so I'm not going to respond to them.
Someone who presents a rational argument as clearly as possible is not a sophist.
I looked over some of your other posts and you're mean and unnecessarily abusive. If you're right you shouldn't have to resort to personal attacks to win an argument. I honestly don't understand how you can be that abusive day after day. For me whenever I'm mean to someone, even someone I hate, it makes me feel horrible. You must be a miserable person and I feel sorry for you.
In order to have 'accurately labeled' foods by those standards every product sold would need to have fifty different labels describing the various properties of the food that goes in it. This would cause consumers to stop reading government mandated labels, including actual warning labels.
If the government mandates labeling GMOs, but all the other mandatory labels are warnings, people who haven't studied the issue will assume 'may contain GMOs' is also a warning.
If the government requires GMO food to be labeled people might assume there is evidence that GMO food is dangerous. It would make more sense for producers of non-GMO food to label it that way.
There is no question that Americans have less rights today then they did ten years ago. Why does it matter whether or not the constitution allowed them to be taken away?
1. The First Amendment applies to state laws.
This is based on establishment clause in the 14th amendment. Specifically the text: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." The supreme court has ruled that this amendment extends the protections in the First Amendment to state laws.
2. State laws are used to enforce civil contracts.
You can look this up for your state if you don't believe me. In California where I live civil contracts are enforced by the California Civil Code. This is a collection of laws that was passed by the state legislature.
The only logic I need to use that since the First Amendment applies to state laws and state laws are used to enforce contracts then a contract that violates the First Amendment cannot be enforced by the state.
This wouldn't automatically invalidate all NDA's because the Supreme Court has ruled that trade secrets are not protected by the First Amendment. It does mean that a person can't put any conditions they want into a contract and expect the government to help them enforce it.
I made a rational argument. You haven't refuted it. If you want to agree to disagree that's fine. But don't accuse me of being unreasonable just to save face.
My argument is that the Judiciaries's power to enforce civil contracts is based on state laws and is therefore subject to the First Amendment.
For example any civil contract I agree to is enforced by the California Civil Code. This is a collection of laws that were passed by the legislative branch of the California state government, therefore they are subject to the First Amendment.
You're saying that supreme court rulings are always correct and shouldn't be questioned. There's no arguing with that kind of reasoning.
Let me summarize the argument as I understand it.
Your side: The first amendment only restricts what laws the government can write and therefore can't be used to rule that a civil contract is unenforceable. My side: Federal and state laws are used to enforce civil contracts. Therefore the first amendment can prevent a civil contract from being enforced by the government. Your side: NDA's exist so you must be wrong, even though I can't explain why you're wrong.
I do not find that argument compelling. If my interpretation of the law is incorrect, someone should be able to explain why it is incorrect.
If my interpretation is incorrect than someone should be able to explain why it is incorrect. Just because people disagree with me doesn't mean that I'm wrong.
If this were a contract where someone had sold themselves into slavery there would be no question that the government should not enforce the contract. I don't see why enforcing a contract where someone gives up their right to free speech should be any different.
The government's powers to enforce civil contracts come from laws passed by the government. Any law that allows the government to enforce a contract that violates a person's constitutional rights is unconstitutional. Thanks to the 14th amendment this is true for federal and state laws.
The constitution prevents the government from enforcing contracts that violate a person's constitutional rights. That's not a bug. That's the way it's supposed to work.
It doesn't matter what they government does to enforce the contract, the can't legally enforce any contract that violates someone's constitutional rights.
No-one expects that the ordinary person on the street would be able to understand all the relevant laws - lawyers have jobs for a reason, and to argue that laws should be simple enough to be understood by everyone is disingenuous in this day and age.
How can you expect someone to follow the law if they don't understand the law?
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah. As long as the US government isn't the most oppressive government in the world Americans have no right to complain about government oppression.
Here you go.
Web surfers could click on a "donate now" button that went to a local organization and that organization could eventually write a single check.
Wikileaks had systems like that, the US government just shut down payments to the organizations that were accepting money for Wikileaks.
Why would the government go through the trouble of shutting down payments to wikileaks if it wouldn't hurt wikileaks financially?
I can't tell if you realise that the 19th century is 1800 to 1899. I seriously doubt they had 100mph cars in 1899.
Suppose you need to hire someone to design a car engine. Would it be better to hire a mechanic or an engineer? Or are they the same because they both work in the automobile industry?
The lawyers win, everyone else loses. Just like most patent disputes between large companies.
The members of Anonymous are risking going to jail in order to reveal corruption in the government and corporations. You are saying these people are dumb for taking a risk to stand up for something they believe in. It's not dumb, it's courageous.
I am impressed that you're so confident you're right considering you haven't presented a single fact or supreme court case to back up your argument.
You say your position is backed by case law. I looked and I haven't found a supreme court case regarding whether or not a contract like the one in the article is enforceable, so any statements about how the supreme court would rule is speculation. Personally I find it hard to believe that any court would enforce a contract like the one in the article.
My previous post already refutes the first two arguments you made, so I'm not going to respond to them.
Someone who presents a rational argument as clearly as possible is not a sophist.
I looked over some of your other posts and you're mean and unnecessarily abusive. If you're right you shouldn't have to resort to personal attacks to win an argument. I honestly don't understand how you can be that abusive day after day. For me whenever I'm mean to someone, even someone I hate, it makes me feel horrible. You must be a miserable person and I feel sorry for you.
In order to have 'accurately labeled' foods by those standards every product sold would need to have fifty different labels describing the various properties of the food that goes in it. This would cause consumers to stop reading government mandated labels, including actual warning labels.
If the government mandates labeling GMOs, but all the other mandatory labels are warnings, people who haven't studied the issue will assume 'may contain GMOs' is also a warning.
If the government requires GMO food to be labeled people might assume there is evidence that GMO food is dangerous. It would make more sense for producers of non-GMO food to label it that way.
There is no question that Americans have less rights today then they did ten years ago. Why does it matter whether or not the constitution allowed them to be taken away?
I agree completely. Someone should tell Newt Gingrich.
I only need two premises.
1. The First Amendment applies to state laws.
This is based on establishment clause in the 14th amendment. Specifically the text: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." The supreme court has ruled that this amendment extends the protections in the First Amendment to state laws.
2. State laws are used to enforce civil contracts.
You can look this up for your state if you don't believe me. In California where I live civil contracts are enforced by the California Civil Code. This is a collection of laws that was passed by the state legislature.
The only logic I need to use that since the First Amendment applies to state laws and state laws are used to enforce contracts then a contract that violates the First Amendment cannot be enforced by the state.
This wouldn't automatically invalidate all NDA's because the Supreme Court has ruled that trade secrets are not protected by the First Amendment. It does mean that a person can't put any conditions they want into a contract and expect the government to help them enforce it.
I made a rational argument. You haven't refuted it. If you want to agree to disagree that's fine. But don't accuse me of being unreasonable just to save face.
My argument is that the Judiciaries's power to enforce civil contracts is based on state laws and is therefore subject to the First Amendment.
For example any civil contract I agree to is enforced by the California Civil Code. This is a collection of laws that were passed by the legislative branch of the California state government, therefore they are subject to the First Amendment.
You're saying that supreme court rulings are always correct and shouldn't be questioned. There's no arguing with that kind of reasoning.
Let me summarize the argument as I understand it.
Your side: The first amendment only restricts what laws the government can write and therefore can't be used to rule that a civil contract is unenforceable.
My side: Federal and state laws are used to enforce civil contracts. Therefore the first amendment can prevent a civil contract from being enforced by the government.
Your side: NDA's exist so you must be wrong, even though I can't explain why you're wrong.
I do not find that argument compelling. If my interpretation of the law is incorrect, someone should be able to explain why it is incorrect.
If my interpretation is incorrect than someone should be able to explain why it is incorrect. Just because people disagree with me doesn't mean that I'm wrong.
If this were a contract where someone had sold themselves into slavery there would be no question that the government should not enforce the contract. I don't see why enforcing a contract where someone gives up their right to free speech should be any different.
The government's powers to enforce civil contracts come from laws passed by the government. Any law that allows the government to enforce a contract that violates a person's constitutional rights is unconstitutional. Thanks to the 14th amendment this is true for federal and state laws.
The constitution prevents the government from enforcing contracts that violate a person's constitutional rights. That's not a bug. That's the way it's supposed to work.
The judiciary's power to enforce civil contracts comes from laws that were written by the government.
It doesn't matter what they government does to enforce the contract, the can't legally enforce any contract that violates someone's constitutional rights.
But if the government enforces a contract that limits your right to free speech they are violating the constitution.
There just wern't any true believers to take to heaven.
No-one expects that the ordinary person on the street would be able to understand all the relevant laws - lawyers have jobs for a reason, and to argue that laws should be simple enough to be understood by everyone is disingenuous in this day and age.
How can you expect someone to follow the law if they don't understand the law?
They're keeping the samples so they can use them to make vaccines if there is an outbreak.