I have not seen so many good points in a long time. Great post!
-Mark
************
{American jurors have complete Constitutional authority to vote
"not guilty" based on nothing more than a disagreement with the
case, no matter the evidence - despite the judge's instructions.
There is absolutely no obligation to vote "guilty" to arrive at a
unanimous verdict. Get on a jury, stand your ground, and fulfill
its other main purpose: to counteract abusive government and
unjust lawsuits.
See www.fija.org
[Please adopt this as your own signature.] }
---------------
I would argue that a just law is one which is enforceable in
every case and
one in which the costs of enforcement do not exceed what is
acceptable, are
not worse than the crime, the cost/benefit argument.
Most Libertarians would say the laws against smoking marijuana
are bad on
both counts. Only a fraction of smokers can be apprehended,
which makes
enforcement arbitrary and capricious. And the cost of
enforcement, home invasions
by SWAT teams, illegal searches, etc., plus maintaining prisons
and breaking
up families and foregoing the productive output of the convicted
person, etc.
etc. exceeds any social benefit from having a smoker use tobacco
instead of
weed.
Something like half, possibly two thirds, of fertilized eggs
(people, to the
pro-lifers) spontaneously abort or fail to implant or die early
in the
gestation. In most cases, the mother doesn't even know.
However, if abortion is
homicide, then every lifeless zygote should be treated as a dead
human.
First, it must be found. All tampons and sanitary napkins must
be turned in to
the county medical examine to determine if a fertilized egg is
present and, if
so, to issue a death certificate. Then the grand jury (a bunch
of ignorant
and bigoted clods who don't have the wit to be excused from jury
duty) must
determine whether the death was "natural" or "murder". (How are
they supposed
to determine that?) Then, of course, there must be a proper
burial or
cremation of the corpse, including, in most states, a coffin and
a designated
cemetery. It the death of the zygote was not "natural", perhaps
a third of the
cases, both the mother and the doctor are guilty of
pre-meditated murder, and
subject, in most states, to the death penalty. Jailing or
executing two
adults is very expensive, and their children become wards of the
state, and their
student loans are defaulted on, and they don't pay taxes, and...
It there
is anything less than 100 per cent prosecution and severe
penalties for
feticide, then we are making a mockery of the law and depriving
other murderers,
like drive-by shooters, of the equal protection (or neglect) of
the law. What
is it about "murder" you don't understand, Ms. Juror?
Additional questions: Suppose a teen age girl has a late period
and doesn't
tell anyone, flushing her tampon down the toilet? Can she be
prosecuted for
abuse of a corpse? Tampering with evidence? Does she have an
excuse of
"accidental death" because she miscounted her birth control
pills, took too few
and then too many, resulting in a accidental conception and an
accidental
abortion? What if she claims it was God's way of giving her a
second chance,
because she was genuinely contrite about letting Johnny do that
thing?
Then there is the Terry Schiavo problem. If two doctors
determine that an
adult has no functioning brain, the adult can be declared "brain
dead" and
deprived of further life support. What if a pregnant woman goes
to two doctors
who pronounce her blastocyst "brainless" (no neural tube formed
yet), can
life support be withdrawn? If not, why the double standard?
Extending the logic of an embryo of a human is a human, then an
embryo of a
pine tree is a pine tree. If I burn a pine cone, I have burned a
whole
forest! that should be good for several years in jail.
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