Re: Jack Thompson attacking Wendy's now

Zaghadka wrote:
Hmm. Look harder. Use something other than your five senses. You may be
pleasantly, or unpleasantly as the case may be, surprised. ;^)

Oh, come on. I'm really bad at channeling my chakra, can't we all just skip to the end? :D

Why? Because it's old and it only works about as well as it did back then?

Because it's old and it carries less and less applicability as time goes on.

Take an example (which I don't want to criticize, as I too enjoy the fruits of its labor): kosher laws. Back in Ye Olden Dayes (aka A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away), kosher laws were established through religious decree not because they were particularly good or holy, but to protect people from the effects of salmonella and trichinosis, and other sundry evils of the digestive tract. Today, we know what causes these diseases, and how to prevent them without all of the protections required by the kosher laws. You will note that the majority of the world eats non-kosher food, and yet does not die. Can we say then that the applicability of those laws to our modern society is diminished somewhat given our knowledge and capabilities today? Such is the case with many of our legal and moral precepts here in the US today. We simply carry them forward because it's what has always been done, not because they benefit us in any particular fashion.

We need a better alternative to put in it's place before we turn the law on its
ear as you suggest.

The law of self?

I wax a bit Kantian, even though I detest the rest of his ideas, in that most people can inherently understand a basic sense of morality, eg "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" and such. History is now filled with enough examples I think that even if such morality isn't /a priori/, we can still say that we have sufficient exposure to warrant that classification. The problem comes in the system when you have to develop a central body that can both administrate the 'others unto you' without becoming powerful in its own right, nor from impeding the general free practice of being human.

I know you don't have anything *that* good, because by now you'd either be
dead, at the hands of those who stand to lose, or running a government, either
anonymously or in person. ;^)

;)

I think what you mean to say is "every revolutionary."

We (the U.S.) managed to put our unravelling off until the mid-nineteenth
century, but we still had to burn a bunch of people's houses down in an
arbitrary slaughter when the "Union" could no longer bear the ongoing
tyrranies. We just put off the purges. We then burned a bunch more houses in
the 60's because we never *actually* settled what we *thought* we had settled
all those years ago.

I will point out here that it was in truth the southern states that could not bear the tyrranies being imposed by what they saw as a northern conspiracy. They were more than willing to simply let the status quo continue (in point of fact, they were defending that very notion). The actions of the Union were those of revolutionaries, imposing a new way of thinking upon the nation. It took the realization of those in command of the senselessness of it all to drop the conflict, not necessarily the ideas presented. That conflict was given another hundred years to simmer before it boiled over again, and it still wasn't ever resolved. More law, more imposition, just a little less bloodshed (but not by much), but still no resolution, and worst yet, those impositions now affect portions of society far outside of their original scope; this is the fallacy of using government proscriptively.

So I think that revolution is one of the worst ideas ever, which means we have
to accept what we have to work with, contemptible though it may be, and attempt
enlightened *reform*, which is much, much harder.

Defend the status quo? Never! A driveshaft, once broken, cannot be mended. You cannot simply weld it back together, smooth it over, give it a fresh coat of paint and think it to work just as well as it did. It must be discarded, or else melted down and recast, with new material if necessary. In this I see our opportunity to change, to make better systems which are protected by their impenetrable walls of precedent, that no one serving such short-lived and capricious terms of office would dare tackle, in that recasting.

We see the effects of the status quo every day and we are unhappy with it, what incentive does it carry to maintain its aging momentum?

Well, there are child psychology studies now that seem to indicate that
"sharing" is a natural instinct and that "selfishness" must be taught through
injury, but since everyone gets hurt at some point, it's a wash.

So much the better then, a world where one is injured only through one's own process, eh?


Suffice it to say, Msr. Voltaire, that I'm more of a Dr. Pangloss. <G>

Then I shall be your Martin!

You don't consider "fuzzy laws" to be inferior? Puzzling.

It's difficult to ascertain, partly because no previous moral framework has ever attempted to deal with children or youth, even (the best I can think of is Plato's flat-out denial of youth in any position of political girth), and partly because children are themselves so impossibly fickle.

They can, throughout their childhood, make quantum leaps of self-realization and actualization, great bounds of intelligence and problem solving, and many, many other structures to which any morality must cling in grown men are shapeless enigmas in the mind of a child. Even comparing, say, the thought processes of a 16 year old and an 18 year old is staggering; the methods each will take, and their reaction to an identical situation is completely different. Since it is by nature's definition their parents that bring them into the world, it is most logical to defer to their judgement in establishing those moral structures, even in some cases wherein the basic dictum may be violated in spirit (as such why it should carry the second quantifier).

I think that the "fuzziness" you seek, in American jurisprudence, has always
lain with the concept of a responsible, accomplished, and wise judge and, in
any severe case where one man's opinion will not do, a representative jury.

Ah, I always found it funny that the founding fathers were willing to entrust the life of a man to the common rabble through a jury, but not to trust it in establishing governmental rule.

The jury system works only when its participants are naturally insulated or isolated, and are themselves inherently wise, responsible and sensible people. The average human is anything but. I'll not go into a very long anecdote here, but suffice it to say I have nearly direct experience with the way in which the jury system fails a man utterly, and how even the moral precepts that society imposes upon us influence what should be an objective decision among peers.

Making the laws fuzzy will not help with the more obvious problems of the
system. The law should be *flexible*, so that the juries and judges may do
their jobs, but not ambiguous.

But that leaves moral power in the hands of those not equipped to exercise it. That means crime is only an arbitrary construction of the mind, not a definable thing. The law should be absolute, but minimal in its approach, such that definition and application are efficient and objective.

The laws remain fuzzy only for a small fraction of the population, they are resolute for the majority.

Another thing that does not recommend this idea to law. ;^)

No more so, I should think, than the laughable prognostications about "intent" in our current judiciary system.

Gee. Constant radio and electronics thefts. Stoned out of their minds *kids*
riding their bikes down the middle of busy streets at all hours of the night,
ruined lives, ruined livelihoods, disturbance of the peace?

All violations of the freedom of wills, and all punishable.

And your theory doesn't fix a damned thing in that case because the people
being punished for those crimes were the VICTIMS. The real criminals, the only
ones that mattered, were the dealers.
So you could argue that addiction was the enemy, but you can't argue that your
theory would have worked, because it was all voluntary, and the rights
infringements were all being carried out by the spidery consequential
surrogates of the real criminals.

But whom placed themselves to be the surrogates? I take precisely that stance, that lest the crack was forced down their throats, the addicts made the initial choice of free will to subsume themselves to that world, to accept the consequences of their actions now and in the future, and to rebuke any help or assistance I'm sure were available to them.

The way to prevent such things from happening is not to punish the suppliers. I think the US' war on drugs is sufficient example of the useless thrashing that happens when you try to stem the tide of substance abuse by restricting the substance. Millions upon millions of dollars down a rat hole for, oh yes, no benefit.

Education, information, and elucidation are the keys. Engendering positive capabilities and projects for the children, giving them the intellectual tools to know to just stay away from the stuff, to know what it does to your body and mind, to know that the high it gives is a falsehood, and that honest work is the best feel-good drug out there. It's not about stopping the supply, because you never can. It's about stopping the stupidity that leads to the use in the first place. If no one uses, no one buys, suppliers dry up because there's simply no market for crack. QED.

Our jails are filled to the rafters with people who don't belong there, who
instead need treatment and release, or are outright innocent. Good luck
figuring out which ones, but this is a rather basic fact of any criminal
justice system.

Yes, and I recognize it as an unfinished conclusion of both our current system and my own. That's part of the reason why I don't define the punishment delivered, because it might as well be forced internment at a detox center or community service or other such positive measures. I think it's plainly obvious that the threat of jail time is now insufficient condition to prevent crime in the US.

Exactly. The law, without societal participation, integrity on the part of
plaintiffs and discretion on the part of those filing charges, is an unholy
monster suitable for slaying by a nearby Paladin (appeasing some Usenet gods
there).

Ahh! Gnu's Law, Corollary 28: The mention of WoW or paladins approaches one the longer a thread goes on. :D

LOL. You can call it anything you like, but if choose such language, you're a
"Deist" not an "atheist." ;^)

Not that kind of entity. ;)

Ah. Greed is good. Thank you, but Adam Smith was wrong. Cooperation is good as
well, and just as natural. Cooperation plus collective greed is better.

But Adam Smith runs the NYSE, and last I checked that wasn't doing too badly.

Cooperation is great (hello, Communism and Socialism), right up until one person, one single person realizes he doesn't have to work because the system will keep going, that others could take the slack up from him. The veritable instant someone realizes they can shirk the system, cooperation breaks down completely (re: Soviet Union).

Noone's trying to legislate *against* "human nature." They're trying to define
what is intolerable to a given society, and that definition can and must change
with the society as it progresses and grows larger.

Who defines intolerability, then? Can you argue that what you find intolerable is what is against your moral fiber, that I cannot embezzle millions of dollars from a public fund because I want the money, or that I cannot walk into someone's potato fields to steal his potatoes? These are things we say are wrong because they are morally wrong, they dictate what can and cannot be done.

It's often said that locks aren't made to keep thieves out, they're to keep honest men honest. I say that all actions by default are right, that any action a human takes individually is good, so long as he deems it so. This works only up to the point that there exists a single lone human on the earth. In order that others might exist, we establish the idea of wills, and define our boundaries by self-realization, and move that infringing on that will is criminal. This kind of law can both be absolute, and it can ensure both that the freedoms of the individual are absolute, and that power forms of consent and free will, not because it was laid out as a commandment for all to follow, regardless of belief.


Good. We define some things as "destructive," proscribe against them, and
you're right back to the Roman concept.

Except we don't proscribe against them at all, nor do we label them as destructive.

By the way: Drinking is destructive to the whole and the individual,

Drinking is only destructive to the individual, if the whole refuses to support him in those efforts, so much the better.

driving
fast is destructive to the whole

Bah, not if you're good! ;^)

having kids before you're ready is
destructive to the whole of society.

You'd have a hard case to argue there, especially if, again, society doesn't support those kinds of on-going costs.

Be very careful. You're not on good footing, because you haven't defined "the
whole" adequately. It's the "hole" in your reasoning.

Who is this "whole" and how does that differ from a "bunch of selfish human
beings?" ;^)

That's exactly whom the whole is. Everyone, and no one. Your community, and the earth. There are only two possbilities: yourself, and everyone else. Everyone sees the world from this perspective, and chooses of their innate will what to do, such that it does not subtract from the liberty of another (unwilling).

"Moral duty?" A "higher command?"
You're an agnostic, sir. Never an atheist. Certainly a hierarchist and possibly
more authoritarian than you'd like to admit. No offense meant, you're just
speaking *exactly* like the far right at this point.

If we take the individual to be the highest authority, then his moral sense of duty comes from within, his command a product of his will.


"gods?" You're an atheist, right? LOL ;^)

Oh, and I suppose you don't believe in the Magic Blue Smoke Genie that lives in electronics, either? :D


Well consider that if such a punishment is doled out casually, as it is in some
cases, or virtually universally, it is an affront to anyone who loves liberty.


Always the eternal problem in establishing the judiciary.

I think the death penalty cannot be properly administered by mankind or his law
and that there is no such animal as "objective evidence;" it's all subjective,
collected by infinitely corruptable human beings, which is why we have juries.


Built themselves of infinitely corruptible human beings? Que sera, sera.

Deep down? No sir. It is right on my sleeve, but I have learned from various
thrashings and threshings that "the best way to eat an elephant is one bite at
a time." ;^)

I believe the current thinking is "the best way to eat an elephant is to mechanically separate the bugger, dry, form and press him into nuggets, and sell them for a 300% markup". :D


Actually, easier to be the tyrant of a nation when you can't *stomach*
tyranizing your neighbor. It's much easier to be a *** to a horde of
faceless people you don't have to live with, than the nice lady next door.

But isn't that the point? Never concentrate power in the first place, such that bastardization is kept to a minimum.

TheSmokingGnu
.

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