I find this question puzzling. You seem to be asking, how can something be involuntary if it is not accomplished by force. But there are plenty (obvious, I think) situations where a person might do something involuntarily without being physical forced to do it. What about cases where a woman is threatened? Or drugged? Or unconscious? Or mentally impaired?
Also, this:
..."rape" seems to apply to anything up to and including consensual intercourse, and she decides she's had her O and wants to be done.
True; I was a little sloppy and wrote "vote for" when I meant "cosponsor." Though I think the motivations tend to be the same for people who do either. Do you have any reason to believe that, in this case, the difference makes a difference?
Yes, it is an EXTREMELY unfortunate term because it seems clearly to suggest that large categories of rapes (in fact, the large majority of rapes -- most are not the stereotypical "violent encounters") are, in fact, not rape.
And, yes, the scientific inquiry you suggest may be a legitimate one. But what Akin was suggesting was not a scientific inquiry it was a scientific conclusion backed up by no scientific evidence whatsoever motivated only by political expediency. The actual evidence (so much as there is) tends to show just the opposite.
As for what you say about statutory rape, maybe maybe not depending on the case. Part of the point of the law, of course, is that some minors cannot actually meaningfully consent to sexual activity urged by an adult. But then again, plenty can. But we don't need to get bogged down in this. As you acknowledge yourself, there are other categories of rape that are non-forcible such as date rapes, etc.
Oops. Run on sentence ran on. Pretend I wrote this, please:
I still call that flimsy. I think most people vote for a person-hood amendment because they think a fetus is a person and it is always morally wrong to kill a person. This may be dumb for its own reasons but it has nothing necessarily to do with one's views about rape.
I worry that what you say about Ryan may be true. But I think that his voting for the person-hood amendment is pretty weak evidence for that conclusion.
I still call that flimsy just because one can vote for a person-hood amendment just because you think a fetus is a person and it is always morally wrong to kill a person. This may be dumb for its own reasons, but I think it's the major reason why anyone votes for a person-hood amendment, and it has nothing necessarily to do with one's views about rape.
I worry that what you say about Ryan may be true. But I think that his voting for the person-hood amendment is pretty weak evidence for that conclusion.
Indeed. Stupid you. "Involuntary" is not the same as "forcible." But the former is a necessary condition for a rape. The second is not. (Some examples for the especially dense: sex under threat of violence, sex under threat of emotional/financial/social harm, sex with a minor, sex with an unconscious or severely impaired person, etc.)
Or think of it this way: if "rape" == "forcible rape", then why change the law?
I'm reluctant to feed the troll, but it needs doing:
Seconded. While nobody should doubt that women can use sex as a women from time to time, EVERYBODY should doubt, for lack of evidence, that this phenomenon is discursively significant when set beside the shockingly common, underprosecuted, and yet extremely serious crime of rape.
Meanwhile, there is an embarrassment of evidence about the prevalence of rape and the ways in which our criminal justice system and society at large do not take the problem seriously enough. This social problem is caused, in very large part, by efforts to discredit and embarrass victims with much the same rhetoric as the GP's. So if, when confronted about a story about someone not taking rape seriously enough, your response is something like the GP's, you are either ignorant of the very well known facts, a cretin, or have your head way up your ass. Probably all three.
A lot of people in the press have been playing fast and loose with Paul Ryan's connection to all this (largely for the flimsy reason that they were both cosponsors of the person-hood amendment), so I don't know what GP had in mind. But this much is worth reflecting on: Paul Ryan and Todd Akin also cosponsored a bill that would allow medicaid only to spend money for abortion services for women who were victims of "forcible rape" (instead of just "rape," which is how the law reads now). We might well have wondered why in the world Ryan and Akin thought that distinction was important. We still don't know about Ryan, but the evidence now seems to indicate that, for Akin, the answer may be that only "forcible" rapes are "legitimate." This, IMHO, is a repugnant view and we should be probably inquire to make sure that the GOPs VP nominee doesn't believe it too.
I've run two small corporations in my life. I'd say, at most, government forms (etc.) consumed no more than 20 hours per year -- and that's only because one of them had multiple classes of stock. The quantity of paperwork has never been a factor in any of my business decisions. Things might be harder if I were operating a nuclear reactor, manufacturing pharmaceuticals, or sending things into space. But other than that, peoples' complaints about "red tape" are badly exaggerated. Someone who doesn't have the energy to spend a few afternoons per year doing paperwork probably wouldn't have been much of a businessman anyway.
But CBS wasn't liable because they were the exclusive license holder, CBS was liable because they broadcasted it. They would have been equally liable if the footage were in the public domain or if they had no license at all (though obviously in the latter case they would also have been liable for copyright infringement).
It may be funny, but it is also true. People only think differently because they usually only hear half the story (at best). Of course, GP said "very often" not "always"...
Lawyer here. GP seems correct to me (though this is largely outside my area of expertise) -- being the license holder of content (for copyright purposes) is simply an entirely different concept from having liability deriving from the creation or publication of the content. I don't know of a statute or case to cite for this proposition, but I wouldn't expect there to be any, just like I don't expect there to be case law explaining the difference between murder and kidnapping.
The reason is that either liability will have come from having posted the materials (for example, because making the post will itself be a material step in the commission of a crime), or being a publisher of the materials (this is true in traditional libel law, though websites like craigslist are usually protected by statutory safe harbors). In the former cases, Craigslist would not be liable regardless of who had what license to publish the material. In the latter case they would always have been liable. In either case, the terms of the copyright license change nothing. I am aware of no species of liability that attaches to becoming the exclusive licensee of copyrighted materials (someone may be able to come up with something, but it would have to be pretty obscure).
I sympathize, though I think you may underestimate the number of meritless lawsuits brought against federal officials. I happen to be a federal official with absolute immunity and I can tell you that, even though I know a great deal about the law and I have sworn an oath (which I take very seriously) to uphold the constitution, I would have serious reservations about doing this job if I were not immune from suit for damages. And my job is probably much more appealing than a lot of other government positions out there, like U.S. Marshall, customs agent, etc.
A little more information might help too: very high government officials (like the president, judges, etc.) get total immunity for acts they perform within the scope of their duties. Presidents also get immunity from suit while they are in the office to prevent the endless political disruptions it would cause.
More run of the mill federal officials (including law enforcement officers) get a much more limited immunity. They can still be sued for constitutional violations but only if they were personally involved in the violation and the conduct was such that a reasonable person would have known it was illegal. So, for example, if a cop shows up at your house, breaks down the door, and beats you for no reason, you should have no problem suing her for damages. If the situation is more ambiguous, like the NYPD's stop and frisk program (which, for the record, I think is illegal, just not unambiguously so), then the officers cannot be sued for damages. But there is still nothing stopping you from going to court to get an injunction to put a stop to the program -- and if they violate the injunction then they're exposed to all the usual penalties for contempt.
(By the way, since this is starting to get a bit specific, a reminder: I am definitely not your lawyer, I am almost certainly not admitted to the bar in your jurisdiction, and you should not rely on anything I say as legal advice. It may well be incorrect, or otherwise unwise to take seriously. It this were actual legal advice, I would research all of this to make sure it was absolutely correct, and not just write what I vaguely remember from law school. But this is just a post on slashdot.)
Funny, I would have thought that the worse offense would be correcting a pointless detail, while adding nothing else to the conversation other than ad hominem attacks. I of course know there were no B-52s in the 1940s. It was a typo. B-52, B-25...see the similarity?
Lawyer here. There is nothing at all new about the doctrine of sovereign immunity. It goes back hundreds and hundreds of years. As a U.S.-trained lawyer, there is nothing at all surprising about any of this. It may be that we should abandon the doctrine -- I've never heard anyone give a very satisfactory explanation for it -- but it is probably unfair to blame the 9th circuit for not doing so. It would have been a very major break with hundreds (thousands, really) of years of legal tradition and almost certainly would have been reversed summarily by the Supreme Court.
It can get a little bit complicated but basically, you can't sue the government FOR DAMAGES unless the government has consented. For some reason, the government has actually consented to suit in a number of situations in the Federal Tort Claims Act (fun fact: passed after a B-52 crashed into the Empire State Building in the 1940s). This typically extends to suits against government themselves and suits against officials in their so-called official capacity.
But there are two other possibilities: you can still sue the government for non-damages remedies like (typically) an injunction. You can also sue government officials in their individual capacities, but they typically enjoy some degree of immunity themselves (if they didn't, all the law suits would dissuade anyone from working as a federal official).
I believe you're confusing patent and copyright. Prior art is a concept relevant to patent law, but not copyright (which is the sort of claim EA is bringing). In essence, a copyright claim requires an infringing work to be substantially similar to an original.
A representative is a type of congressman; a congressman can be either a representative (i.e., a congressman sitting in the House of Representatives) or a senator (a congressman who sits in the Senate).
Yeah, this law is bad. In the U.S., at least, there are pretty well-defined (and very small) legal categories that this sort of language could match up with and, thus, restrain it's application more than one might expect. So, it's possible that this law isn't the carte blanche it seems to be, but even if not it is never a good thing to (in the best case scenario) make citizens feel more oppressed than they actually are or (in the worst case scenario) encourage overzealous prosecutions that the courts will later have to reverse (hopefully...). (In reality a law like this invites a little of both.)
It does seem, though, like it makes a huge difference in this case which tweet Daley was arrested for making. Was it the merely critical one or was it the threatening one? This makes the difference between a silly sounding law, rendered mostly harmless by responsible prosecution, or a tyrannical law both in word and effect.
It is also possible for a manufacturer to be liable for injuries arising out of "foreseeable misuse." Though I don't have an opinion on whether this would be appropriate here. As you can probably tell, I was just assuming it for the sake of argument.
Sure, you can get fired from a job over it, and they probably have difficulty finding another soon thereafter. But life ruined? Sounds like hyperbole to me. Got any evidence?
Slashdot Mirror
Do you really think that male contempt for women is so high in the West that they'd dismiss rape claims out of hand?
Also, yes. You just did, in very elaborate fashion.
Cite your study so the rest of us can read it. I call bullshit.
I find this question puzzling. You seem to be asking, how can something be involuntary if it is not accomplished by force. But there are plenty (obvious, I think) situations where a person might do something involuntarily without being physical forced to do it. What about cases where a woman is threatened? Or drugged? Or unconscious? Or mentally impaired?
Also, this:
..."rape" seems to apply to anything up to and including consensual intercourse, and she decides she's had her O and wants to be done.
is despicably false.
* "...women can use sex as a WEAPON..." of course. Oops.
True; I was a little sloppy and wrote "vote for" when I meant "cosponsor." Though I think the motivations tend to be the same for people who do either. Do you have any reason to believe that, in this case, the difference makes a difference?
Yes, it is an EXTREMELY unfortunate term because it seems clearly to suggest that large categories of rapes (in fact, the large majority of rapes -- most are not the stereotypical "violent encounters") are, in fact, not rape.
And, yes, the scientific inquiry you suggest may be a legitimate one. But what Akin was suggesting was not a scientific inquiry it was a scientific conclusion backed up by no scientific evidence whatsoever motivated only by political expediency. The actual evidence (so much as there is) tends to show just the opposite.
As for what you say about statutory rape, maybe maybe not depending on the case. Part of the point of the law, of course, is that some minors cannot actually meaningfully consent to sexual activity urged by an adult. But then again, plenty can. But we don't need to get bogged down in this. As you acknowledge yourself, there are other categories of rape that are non-forcible such as date rapes, etc.
Oops. Run on sentence ran on. Pretend I wrote this, please:
I still call that flimsy. I think most people vote for a person-hood amendment because they think a fetus is a person and it is always morally wrong to kill a person. This may be dumb for its own reasons but it has nothing necessarily to do with one's views about rape.
I worry that what you say about Ryan may be true. But I think that his voting for the person-hood amendment is pretty weak evidence for that conclusion.
I still call that flimsy just because one can vote for a person-hood amendment just because you think a fetus is a person and it is always morally wrong to kill a person. This may be dumb for its own reasons, but I think it's the major reason why anyone votes for a person-hood amendment, and it has nothing necessarily to do with one's views about rape.
I worry that what you say about Ryan may be true. But I think that his voting for the person-hood amendment is pretty weak evidence for that conclusion.
Indeed. Stupid you. "Involuntary" is not the same as "forcible." But the former is a necessary condition for a rape. The second is not. (Some examples for the especially dense: sex under threat of violence, sex under threat of emotional/financial/social harm, sex with a minor, sex with an unconscious or severely impaired person, etc.)
Or think of it this way: if "rape" == "forcible rape", then why change the law?
I'm reluctant to feed the troll, but it needs doing:
Seconded. While nobody should doubt that women can use sex as a women from time to time, EVERYBODY should doubt, for lack of evidence, that this phenomenon is discursively significant when set beside the shockingly common, underprosecuted, and yet extremely serious crime of rape.
Meanwhile, there is an embarrassment of evidence about the prevalence of rape and the ways in which our criminal justice system and society at large do not take the problem seriously enough. This social problem is caused, in very large part, by efforts to discredit and embarrass victims with much the same rhetoric as the GP's. So if, when confronted about a story about someone not taking rape seriously enough, your response is something like the GP's, you are either ignorant of the very well known facts, a cretin, or have your head way up your ass. Probably all three.
A lot of people in the press have been playing fast and loose with Paul Ryan's connection to all this (largely for the flimsy reason that they were both cosponsors of the person-hood amendment), so I don't know what GP had in mind. But this much is worth reflecting on: Paul Ryan and Todd Akin also cosponsored a bill that would allow medicaid only to spend money for abortion services for women who were victims of "forcible rape" (instead of just "rape," which is how the law reads now). We might well have wondered why in the world Ryan and Akin thought that distinction was important. We still don't know about Ryan, but the evidence now seems to indicate that, for Akin, the answer may be that only "forcible" rapes are "legitimate." This, IMHO, is a repugnant view and we should be probably inquire to make sure that the GOPs VP nominee doesn't believe it too.
I've run two small corporations in my life. I'd say, at most, government forms (etc.) consumed no more than 20 hours per year -- and that's only because one of them had multiple classes of stock. The quantity of paperwork has never been a factor in any of my business decisions. Things might be harder if I were operating a nuclear reactor, manufacturing pharmaceuticals, or sending things into space. But other than that, peoples' complaints about "red tape" are badly exaggerated. Someone who doesn't have the energy to spend a few afternoons per year doing paperwork probably wouldn't have been much of a businessman anyway.
But CBS wasn't liable because they were the exclusive license holder, CBS was liable because they broadcasted it. They would have been equally liable if the footage were in the public domain or if they had no license at all (though obviously in the latter case they would also have been liable for copyright infringement).
It may be funny, but it is also true. People only think differently because they usually only hear half the story (at best). Of course, GP said "very often" not "always"...
Lawyer here. GP seems correct to me (though this is largely outside my area of expertise) -- being the license holder of content (for copyright purposes) is simply an entirely different concept from having liability deriving from the creation or publication of the content. I don't know of a statute or case to cite for this proposition, but I wouldn't expect there to be any, just like I don't expect there to be case law explaining the difference between murder and kidnapping.
The reason is that either liability will have come from having posted the materials (for example, because making the post will itself be a material step in the commission of a crime), or being a publisher of the materials (this is true in traditional libel law, though websites like craigslist are usually protected by statutory safe harbors). In the former cases, Craigslist would not be liable regardless of who had what license to publish the material. In the latter case they would always have been liable. In either case, the terms of the copyright license change nothing. I am aware of no species of liability that attaches to becoming the exclusive licensee of copyrighted materials (someone may be able to come up with something, but it would have to be pretty obscure).
Why, exactly, do you think it wouldn't have passed "legal muster"?
I sympathize, though I think you may underestimate the number of meritless lawsuits brought against federal officials. I happen to be a federal official with absolute immunity and I can tell you that, even though I know a great deal about the law and I have sworn an oath (which I take very seriously) to uphold the constitution, I would have serious reservations about doing this job if I were not immune from suit for damages. And my job is probably much more appealing than a lot of other government positions out there, like U.S. Marshall, customs agent, etc.
A little more information might help too: very high government officials (like the president, judges, etc.) get total immunity for acts they perform within the scope of their duties. Presidents also get immunity from suit while they are in the office to prevent the endless political disruptions it would cause.
More run of the mill federal officials (including law enforcement officers) get a much more limited immunity. They can still be sued for constitutional violations but only if they were personally involved in the violation and the conduct was such that a reasonable person would have known it was illegal. So, for example, if a cop shows up at your house, breaks down the door, and beats you for no reason, you should have no problem suing her for damages. If the situation is more ambiguous, like the NYPD's stop and frisk program (which, for the record, I think is illegal, just not unambiguously so), then the officers cannot be sued for damages. But there is still nothing stopping you from going to court to get an injunction to put a stop to the program -- and if they violate the injunction then they're exposed to all the usual penalties for contempt.
(By the way, since this is starting to get a bit specific, a reminder: I am definitely not your lawyer, I am almost certainly not admitted to the bar in your jurisdiction, and you should not rely on anything I say as legal advice. It may well be incorrect, or otherwise unwise to take seriously. It this were actual legal advice, I would research all of this to make sure it was absolutely correct, and not just write what I vaguely remember from law school. But this is just a post on slashdot.)
Funny, I would have thought that the worse offense would be correcting a pointless detail, while adding nothing else to the conversation other than ad hominem attacks. I of course know there were no B-52s in the 1940s. It was a typo. B-52, B-25...see the similarity?
Lawyer here. There is nothing at all new about the doctrine of sovereign immunity. It goes back hundreds and hundreds of years. As a U.S.-trained lawyer, there is nothing at all surprising about any of this. It may be that we should abandon the doctrine -- I've never heard anyone give a very satisfactory explanation for it -- but it is probably unfair to blame the 9th circuit for not doing so. It would have been a very major break with hundreds (thousands, really) of years of legal tradition and almost certainly would have been reversed summarily by the Supreme Court.
It can get a little bit complicated but basically, you can't sue the government FOR DAMAGES unless the government has consented. For some reason, the government has actually consented to suit in a number of situations in the Federal Tort Claims Act (fun fact: passed after a B-52 crashed into the Empire State Building in the 1940s). This typically extends to suits against government themselves and suits against officials in their so-called official capacity.
But there are two other possibilities: you can still sue the government for non-damages remedies like (typically) an injunction. You can also sue government officials in their individual capacities, but they typically enjoy some degree of immunity themselves (if they didn't, all the law suits would dissuade anyone from working as a federal official).
I believe you're confusing patent and copyright. Prior art is a concept relevant to patent law, but not copyright (which is the sort of claim EA is bringing). In essence, a copyright claim requires an infringing work to be substantially similar to an original.
Or, if you happen to be a New Yorker, Times Square!
A representative is a type of congressman; a congressman can be either a representative (i.e., a congressman sitting in the House of Representatives) or a senator (a congressman who sits in the Senate).
Yeah, this law is bad. In the U.S., at least, there are pretty well-defined (and very small) legal categories that this sort of language could match up with and, thus, restrain it's application more than one might expect. So, it's possible that this law isn't the carte blanche it seems to be, but even if not it is never a good thing to (in the best case scenario) make citizens feel more oppressed than they actually are or (in the worst case scenario) encourage overzealous prosecutions that the courts will later have to reverse (hopefully...). (In reality a law like this invites a little of both.)
It does seem, though, like it makes a huge difference in this case which tweet Daley was arrested for making. Was it the merely critical one or was it the threatening one? This makes the difference between a silly sounding law, rendered mostly harmless by responsible prosecution, or a tyrannical law both in word and effect.
It is also possible for a manufacturer to be liable for injuries arising out of "foreseeable misuse." Though I don't have an opinion on whether this would be appropriate here. As you can probably tell, I was just assuming it for the sake of argument.
Sure, you can get fired from a job over it, and they probably have difficulty finding another soon thereafter. But life ruined? Sounds like hyperbole to me. Got any evidence?