While you make an excellent point, I think you're overlooking how governments are funded via other people's money. This adds a much greater level of responsibility for their conduct. Just as I could buy sex toys with my own credit card, yet could not with one from the office - vis-a-vis government leaks are more important.
If you do any of those, then you are liable for arrest, fines, losing your job. It happens every day.
What you are saying went out of style in the 80's if not the 70's. Anyone with a decent job and assets (hell, even a promising future) is being an idiot and taking a huge gamble if they behave like this.
Sort of yes, sort of no. Remember, males are phallically inclined by eons of genetics. This transcends species, even. We're the assertive ones trying to, well, stick things into places. The female's role is to either permit or deny such activities. I do understand that our culture has changed a bit, but I think the anatomy is largely the same. I'd be highly, highly surprised if we reached a point where men and women never ever again played games of pursuit.
And, Assange should not have had unprotected sex with a sleeping woman after she had already told him she did not want to have unprotected sex with him.
How did she not consent to sex with him, exactly? She slept through it? If so, how did she even know for certain it occurred? If she woke, told him to stop and he didn't, why didn't she go straight to the police or call them immediately? Why was it only after the other woman was involved that it became criminal?
It seems to me that he woke her with sexual assertions, while they were sleeping in the same bed and having already otherwise been within a sexual relationship, and she went along with it.
Unless you're aware of something else, this is really the only scenario that could even be close to plausible.
I'll admit, you're wearing me down. Your mind is impenetrable and you cannot see to reason.
I'll just sum up by pointing out that you're not as naive as you claim to be. You simply cannot believe about three quarters of what you're saying, you cannot possibly be so dense as to keep repeating the same false hoods, cannot possibly be so careless as to have failed to pick up a single nuance thus far.
In short, I'm convinced you're faking it, and I'm done spending time with you. Take care.
This is entirely attributable to the US pursuance of the policy of aggression against the DPRK (North Korea).
Is that even true? I'm not overly inclined to trust the US government, but shouldn't we have heard by now about a 'policy of aggression' if we were conducting one? From as unbiased a view as possible, is there any truth to this allegation whatsoever? Are we, or even - can we be construed to be pursuing a policy of aggression against North Korea?
A) Getting two minutes of an audience, however, would be. It isn't as if one can simply take a number and wait to be seated in the Oval Office. Getting the President to do anything that wasn't booked months ago is absolutely, positively non-trivial.
B) The First Amendment means that we're all 'the press'. The law has no rightful power to differentiate further than that.
C) "Imagine a situation where only the darkest corners of the internet would have noticed and the ethical/moral situation doesn't change."
D) I eat meat. This is bad for the animal, but very good for me. It would be difficult indeed to find a 'good' that no one anywhere ever could consider 'bad' in some way. Further, circumventing the process isn't 'refusing to use those laws' - the option to use those laws for other matters still exists, and is in fact strengthened with these other falsehoods exposed and a part of the public record. The only 'bad' we have here is some trust being broken. Big hairy deal - especially in comparison to the deceit revealed.
A) Demonstrate the ease at with one can get the President to do them personal favors and I'll concede the point.
B) Wikileaks isn't new. Darknets existed long, long, long before. I'll not allow you to argue that Wikileaks is soliciting Manning to do things by merely existing. That's not only loose logic, but it's dangerous.
C) Right, all entirely irrelevant to the topic, for all parties except you. You ignored my request in your reply. Reflect on that.
D) Yes and no. But even if 'bad' is a metric satisfied, so what? Bad that does some good is better than nothing. And that's even stipulating that enough requests directly to Barack Obama will result in the government never lying to us again - which isn't reality and we both know that. Yet even in this fantasy, there still exists the viable avenue of leaks when the established process isn't working.
Manning and Assange are heroes AND criminals. These are not exclusive terms, as we have discussed already at length.
Any and all public records that would have been available to the jurors prior should be during the trial as well.
Huh, since when? There is a difference between a government record and public records. Can you access anybody's birth records? Aren't they government records? The Freedom of Information Act guarantees you right to access your records not anyone else's.
Well, I said 'should', rather than is, so I guess 'when' would be 'now', as in 'that is my opinion at the present time'. I also specifically said anything they could access prior, meaning no new access yet no new restriction of access either.
There is no hypothetical to consider.
Ah, I apologize. I'll try to reiterate:
If one of the jurors were to say, "I know what that word means," would this cause a mistrial?
and...
Had the juror in this story done this research by coincidence a month prior, and merely repeated what she 'knew', again are we talking about a mistrial
These questions are salient, because it is assumed that people bring knowledge and education with them. Not every single word of every proceeding is defined. Some are assumed to be known prior.
In short, there's a gap.
The purpose of limiting information is rather clear. Decide on what is presented. Otherwise you'd have juries decide on extraneous factors.
Agreed, but the extraneous factors are included by design. The implicit is 'use your own best judgement considering all the evidence presented'. Again, again, otherwise the jury would all be members of the bar. It is not. That's by design in order to give the constituency a check-and-balance over the judicial system.
Now the concepts you're putting forward do indeed seem to have perverted this design, but that isn't necessarily something that cannot be repaired. And, indeed now that we're in the internet age, it seems we'd better do something quick.
For example, the general rule is that juries are not told about a defendant's prior arrests as this has a tendency to influence the jury unless it was material to the case at hand. Prior convictions may be disclosed.
Any and all public records that would have been available to the jurors prior should be during the trial as well.
Put it this way, if one of the jurors were to say, "I know what that word means," would this likewise cause a mistrial? And to take it one step further, had the juror in this story done this research by coincidence a month prior, and merely repeated what she 'knew', again are we talking about a mistrial?
Which this case was not remotely about. The juror specifically did outside research and admitted it.
So are you incapable of handling hypotheticals during conversation, or merely unwilling?
Being on a jury requires you to only evaluate the information presented. The instructions to jurors are clear. During the screening process, the attorneys specifically ask whether you will deliberate only on the information presented. You would probably be disqualified if you didn't.
This is likely a solid representation of what happens in court. It does, however, grossly misrepresent what the original design intent appears to be. Again, if the hope was to have law-bots decide then the jury would be drawn from within the bar rather than the public. There's no way to refute the intent of having human beings similar to the defendant decide the outcome. It is intrinsic.
Besides which, you're also doing an excellent job of illustrating the nirvana fallacy. The system today isn't perfect. But that doesn't mean the only other option is to throw it away. The rules aren't without their flaws, but they're far *far* better than allowing juries to research shit on the 'net as they see fit.
Rebuking the concept of eliminating the entire justice system is a straw-man. I've never, ever said that, and in fact advocate a walled-garden for internet access and research. Perhaps you mistook me for someone else...
I think we've arrived at a limit here. Some points:
A) "They failed because they could not get the President to intervene," is a ridiculous standard. Unconstitutionally absurd, in fact.
B) There's no evidence that anyone solicited Manning to do anything, and his statements directly contradict that. Look it up.
C) The potential for publicity is not relevant. The fact that you think it would be relevant is evidence of your bias against the situation. Imagine a situation where only the darkest corners of the internet would have noticed and the ethical/moral situation doesn't change.
D) Illegal actions can often be a proper remedy to bad acts from one's government. You and I have discussed this at length, and it saddens me deeply to see you resort back to an 'illegal is bad' position when you're genuinely capable of a lot more depth than that.
Whatever a person brings with them is screened before they are admitted to the jury.
Really? I had no idea that the selection process was so intense as to cover every single moment of each and every juror's life experience? Where do they find that kind of time??
How would you cope day to day if you limited your sources of facts and information to those that could be verified?
Yes, this. For example, we go through the days believing that the sky is blue. Upon verification, we would discover that it isn't. The gases between here and space are actually colorless. Yet we 'know' that the sky is blue. Insanity does not ensue.
How can an encyclopedia taint a verdict? Isn't it the task of a court to understand the vocabulary used in a trial?
The definition of 'rape' in a Wikipedia article may not be the same as what is on the Florida books. And they had been instructed, as is usual, not to do any research on their own.
Yeah, and you just dodged the same question I'd like to see someone answer as well:
And what would have happened when [she] had read the article before the trial?
'Jury of your peers' was designed to include people who think, not just mindless law-bots.
You're not allowed to bring Encyclopedia Britannica into jury deliberations either. No outside sources of information, that's the rule.
Then why are jurors ever permitted to be educated adults? What is the difference between looking up and knowing a definition prior to the trial and looking up and learning it during? Nothing. There simply is no difference, therefore the rule is wrong.
The [facts, education, and life experience] that the juror brought into deliberations wasn't going to appear in the trial record. So what would happen if it was wrong?
That's in the design, my friend. These are SUPPOSED to be thinking people. They were never, ever, ever intended to be unthinking robots only concerned with the law. If that were the case, the jury would be selected from amongst the bar, rather than from our 'peers'.
Do fill us in on where the judges would get this reliable information from. They have experts in every area on standby at the end of a phone? Or do they just an encylopedia , maybe , gasp , even wikipedia?
Wherever the get the information from, it becomes part of the record of the case and, if necessary, can be discussed by counsel before delivery to the jury or, at worst case, used as grounds for appeal by either side after the fact.
Keeping accurate records of everything the jury was told in order to form a verdict is very important, especially if some of it is later found to be inaccurate.
What about the facts rolling around in their heads prior to being selected as jurors? Isn't most research basically the same thing, just shifted in time?
That gets away from the original intent of the jury. Decide a case based on information presented at trial.
Ah, but you omitted the qualifier, didn't you? We're not entitled to just 'a jury', but 'a jury of our peers'. This implies they bring along with them similar life experiences, education, etc, that they can use to evaluate things like the definitions of words.
Put it this way, if one of the jurors were to say, "I know what that word means," would this likewise cause a mistrial? And to take it one step further, had the juror in this story done this research by coincidence a month prior, and merely repeated what she 'knew', again are we talking about a mistrial?
I couldn't do three quarters of my job without access to research materials. Sometimes I can't even make it through lunch without fact-checking something we're discussing with these resources. They're a part of who I am, and I'd expect the same to be true of any 'peer' fit to cast judgement over me.
If the jurors had been forced to request such information from the judge, then even if the judge was stupid enough to print out a wikipedia article to define rape (which (s)he wouldn't), at least the defendant would know about it and could challenge it or bring it up to the jury.
So the entire situation could be solved with a proxy server that restricts access to inappropriate sites and logs everything the jurors do.
I got on the website, researched exactly the TV I wanted, checked stock online, and headed in to actually buy the thing. It was a 42 inch LDC for a very nice price, and they had eleven of them in the store. When I arrived in the department, I couldn't find any on display. I found the 42 inch LED, but it was close to $200 higher. I asked the sales guy, and he said they didn't have the other one, but the LED as better anyway. I made him look it up in the computer. He wasn't happy, but I eventually got the TV I actually wanted...
Slashdot Mirror
While you make an excellent point, I think you're overlooking how governments are funded via other people's money. This adds a much greater level of responsibility for their conduct. Just as I could buy sex toys with my own credit card, yet could not with one from the office - vis-a-vis government leaks are more important.
If you do any of those, then you are liable for arrest, fines, losing your job.
It happens every day.
What you are saying went out of style in the 80's if not the 70's. Anyone with a decent job and assets (hell, even a promising future) is being an idiot and taking a huge gamble if they behave like this.
Sort of yes, sort of no. Remember, males are phallically inclined by eons of genetics. This transcends species, even. We're the assertive ones trying to, well, stick things into places. The female's role is to either permit or deny such activities. I do understand that our culture has changed a bit, but I think the anatomy is largely the same. I'd be highly, highly surprised if we reached a point where men and women never ever again played games of pursuit.
And, Assange should not have had unprotected sex with a sleeping woman after she had already told him she did not want to have unprotected sex with him.
How did she not consent to sex with him, exactly? She slept through it? If so, how did she even know for certain it occurred? If she woke, told him to stop and he didn't, why didn't she go straight to the police or call them immediately? Why was it only after the other woman was involved that it became criminal?
It seems to me that he woke her with sexual assertions, while they were sleeping in the same bed and having already otherwise been within a sexual relationship, and she went along with it.
Unless you're aware of something else, this is really the only scenario that could even be close to plausible.
I'll admit, you're wearing me down. Your mind is impenetrable and you cannot see to reason.
I'll just sum up by pointing out that you're not as naive as you claim to be. You simply cannot believe about three quarters of what you're saying, you cannot possibly be so dense as to keep repeating the same false hoods, cannot possibly be so careless as to have failed to pick up a single nuance thus far.
In short, I'm convinced you're faking it, and I'm done spending time with you. Take care.
This is entirely attributable to the US pursuance of the policy of aggression against the DPRK (North Korea).
Is that even true? I'm not overly inclined to trust the US government, but shouldn't we have heard by now about a 'policy of aggression' if we were conducting one? From as unbiased a view as possible, is there any truth to this allegation whatsoever? Are we, or even - can we be construed to be pursuing a policy of aggression against North Korea?
I'm genuinely asking...
A) Getting two minutes of an audience, however, would be. It isn't as if one can simply take a number and wait to be seated in the Oval Office. Getting the President to do anything that wasn't booked months ago is absolutely, positively non-trivial.
B) The First Amendment means that we're all 'the press'. The law has no rightful power to differentiate further than that.
C) "Imagine a situation where only the darkest corners of the internet would have noticed and the ethical/moral situation doesn't change."
D) I eat meat. This is bad for the animal, but very good for me. It would be difficult indeed to find a 'good' that no one anywhere ever could consider 'bad' in some way. Further, circumventing the process isn't 'refusing to use those laws' - the option to use those laws for other matters still exists, and is in fact strengthened with these other falsehoods exposed and a part of the public record. The only 'bad' we have here is some trust being broken. Big hairy deal - especially in comparison to the deceit revealed.
A) Demonstrate the ease at with one can get the President to do them personal favors and I'll concede the point.
B) Wikileaks isn't new. Darknets existed long, long, long before. I'll not allow you to argue that Wikileaks is soliciting Manning to do things by merely existing. That's not only loose logic, but it's dangerous.
C) Right, all entirely irrelevant to the topic, for all parties except you. You ignored my request in your reply. Reflect on that.
D) Yes and no. But even if 'bad' is a metric satisfied, so what? Bad that does some good is better than nothing. And that's even stipulating that enough requests directly to Barack Obama will result in the government never lying to us again - which isn't reality and we both know that. Yet even in this fantasy, there still exists the viable avenue of leaks when the established process isn't working.
Manning and Assange are heroes AND criminals. These are not exclusive terms, as we have discussed already at length.
Any and all public records that would have been available to the jurors prior should be during the trial as well.
Huh, since when? There is a difference between a government record and public records. Can you access anybody's birth records? Aren't they government records? The Freedom of Information Act guarantees you right to access your records not anyone else's.
Well, I said 'should', rather than is, so I guess 'when' would be 'now', as in 'that is my opinion at the present time'. I also specifically said anything they could access prior, meaning no new access yet no new restriction of access either.
There is no hypothetical to consider.
Ah, I apologize. I'll try to reiterate:
If one of the jurors were to say, "I know what that word means," would this cause a mistrial?
and...
Had the juror in this story done this research by coincidence a month prior, and merely repeated what she 'knew', again are we talking about a mistrial
These questions are salient, because it is assumed that people bring knowledge and education with them. Not every single word of every proceeding is defined. Some are assumed to be known prior.
In short, there's a gap.
The purpose of limiting information is rather clear. Decide on what is presented. Otherwise you'd have juries decide on extraneous factors.
Agreed, but the extraneous factors are included by design. The implicit is 'use your own best judgement considering all the evidence presented'. Again, again, otherwise the jury would all be members of the bar. It is not. That's by design in order to give the constituency a check-and-balance over the judicial system.
Now the concepts you're putting forward do indeed seem to have perverted this design, but that isn't necessarily something that cannot be repaired. And, indeed now that we're in the internet age, it seems we'd better do something quick.
For example, the general rule is that juries are not told about a defendant's prior arrests as this has a tendency to influence the jury unless it was material to the case at hand. Prior convictions may be disclosed.
Any and all public records that would have been available to the jurors prior should be during the trial as well.
Put it this way, if one of the jurors were to say, "I know what that word means," would this likewise cause a mistrial? And to take it one step further, had the juror in this story done this research by coincidence a month prior, and merely repeated what she 'knew', again are we talking about a mistrial?
Which this case was not remotely about. The juror specifically did outside research and admitted it.
So are you incapable of handling hypotheticals during conversation, or merely unwilling?
Being on a jury requires you to only evaluate the information presented. The instructions to jurors are clear. During the screening process, the attorneys specifically ask whether you will deliberate only on the information presented. You would probably be disqualified if you didn't.
This is likely a solid representation of what happens in court. It does, however, grossly misrepresent what the original design intent appears to be. Again, if the hope was to have law-bots decide then the jury would be drawn from within the bar rather than the public. There's no way to refute the intent of having human beings similar to the defendant decide the outcome. It is intrinsic.
Besides which, you're also doing an excellent job of illustrating the nirvana fallacy. The system today isn't perfect. But that doesn't mean the only other option is to throw it away. The rules aren't without their flaws, but they're far *far* better than allowing juries to research shit on the 'net as they see fit.
Rebuking the concept of eliminating the entire justice system is a straw-man. I've never, ever said that, and in fact advocate a walled-garden for internet access and research. Perhaps you mistook me for someone else...
I think we've arrived at a limit here. Some points:
A) "They failed because they could not get the President to intervene," is a ridiculous standard. Unconstitutionally absurd, in fact.
B) There's no evidence that anyone solicited Manning to do anything, and his statements directly contradict that. Look it up.
C) The potential for publicity is not relevant. The fact that you think it would be relevant is evidence of your bias against the situation. Imagine a situation where only the darkest corners of the internet would have noticed and the ethical/moral situation doesn't change.
D) Illegal actions can often be a proper remedy to bad acts from one's government. You and I have discussed this at length, and it saddens me deeply to see you resort back to an 'illegal is bad' position when you're genuinely capable of a lot more depth than that.
Whatever a person brings with them is screened before they are admitted to the jury.
Really? I had no idea that the selection process was so intense as to cover every single moment of each and every juror's life experience? Where do they find that kind of time??
Seems reasonable, though, to digitally sequester individuals as a cost to allowing them permission to think while within the jury box.
So these Frenchies, during the 'frenzy of the Revolution' dug up a king who had been dead a hundred years, lopped off his head, and stole it?
For the love of god, WHY?
Well, I've got twenty minutes I can spare... Where shall I plug it in?
The jurors job is to determine if the evidence presented shows that the defendant violated specific laws.
That's what the judge tells you. Your real job is to see that justice is carried out. This is not always the same thing.
THIS! The juror serves as the constituent's check-and-balance over the judicial system. Never forget that.
How would you cope day to day if you limited your sources of facts and information to those that could be verified?
Yes, this. For example, we go through the days believing that the sky is blue. Upon verification, we would discover that it isn't. The gases between here and space are actually colorless. Yet we 'know' that the sky is blue. Insanity does not ensue.
How can an encyclopedia taint a verdict? Isn't it the task of a court to understand the vocabulary used in a trial?
The definition of 'rape' in a Wikipedia article may not be the same as what is on the Florida books. And they had been instructed, as is usual, not to do any research on their own.
Yeah, and you just dodged the same question I'd like to see someone answer as well:
And what would have happened when [she] had read the article before the trial?
'Jury of your peers' was designed to include people who think, not just mindless law-bots.
I hope you die painfully and slowly. You deserve it for being an idiot of the highest order.
You're on a roll today, aren't you Dog-Cow? Everything okay?
You're not allowed to bring Encyclopedia Britannica into jury deliberations either. No outside sources of information, that's the rule.
Then why are jurors ever permitted to be educated adults? What is the difference between looking up and knowing a definition prior to the trial and looking up and learning it during? Nothing. There simply is no difference, therefore the rule is wrong.
The [facts, education, and life experience] that the juror brought into deliberations wasn't going to appear in the trial record. So what would happen if it was wrong?
That's in the design, my friend. These are SUPPOSED to be thinking people. They were never, ever, ever intended to be unthinking robots only concerned with the law. If that were the case, the jury would be selected from amongst the bar, rather than from our 'peers'.
Do fill us in on where the judges would get this reliable information from. They have experts in every area on standby at the end of a phone? Or do they just an encylopedia , maybe , gasp , even wikipedia?
Wherever the get the information from, it becomes part of the record of the case and, if necessary, can be discussed by counsel before delivery to the jury or, at worst case, used as grounds for appeal by either side after the fact.
Keeping accurate records of everything the jury was told in order to form a verdict is very important, especially if some of it is later found to be inaccurate.
What about the facts rolling around in their heads prior to being selected as jurors? Isn't most research basically the same thing, just shifted in time?
That gets away from the original intent of the jury. Decide a case based on information presented at trial.
Ah, but you omitted the qualifier, didn't you? We're not entitled to just 'a jury', but 'a jury of our peers'. This implies they bring along with them similar life experiences, education, etc, that they can use to evaluate things like the definitions of words.
Put it this way, if one of the jurors were to say, "I know what that word means," would this likewise cause a mistrial? And to take it one step further, had the juror in this story done this research by coincidence a month prior, and merely repeated what she 'knew', again are we talking about a mistrial?
I couldn't do three quarters of my job without access to research materials. Sometimes I can't even make it through lunch without fact-checking something we're discussing with these resources. They're a part of who I am, and I'd expect the same to be true of any 'peer' fit to cast judgement over me.
If the jurors had been forced to request such information from the judge, then even if the judge was stupid enough to print out a wikipedia article to define rape (which (s)he wouldn't), at least the defendant would know about it and could challenge it or bring it up to the jury.
So the entire situation could be solved with a proxy server that restricts access to inappropriate sites and logs everything the jurors do.
What's the big deal?
I got on the website, researched exactly the TV I wanted, checked stock online, and headed in to actually buy the thing. It was a 42 inch LDC for a very nice price, and they had eleven of them in the store. When I arrived in the department, I couldn't find any on display. I found the 42 inch LED, but it was close to $200 higher. I asked the sales guy, and he said they didn't have the other one, but the LED as better anyway. I made him look it up in the computer. He wasn't happy, but I eventually got the TV I actually wanted...