Re:Re:Re:It's not just Bowie, or is it?
I don't know if I got Ibrahim's message right, but I think that there is no real idea in continuing this discussion. The original purpose was to highlight some probable causes why there is so much anti-americanism out there, and I think those reasons have been thoroughly clarified (and the Americans on the list have also had the opportunity to defend the ways of their country). So I'm officially off this discussion - meant in no offensive way, it's been good learning. The Brin-part: As stated earlier, I only read the three first books. Still, I find it interesting that Humanity discovers that it is only one insignificant little race in a society of vastly more powerful (and in many cases hostile) races. A few hundred years ago we also gradually started to learn that the Earth wasn't the center of the Universe. In fact Earth is a small planet in a solar system centered on a medium-sized sun located in the outer rim of our galaxy. So what should be so special about Humanity? It also presents Earth with some interesting challenges. And fortunately it had the blind luck to meet the Tymbrimi (wasn't it them?) and not, for example, the Tandu. Med Venlig Hilsen / Sincerely Martin Malmkvist -- Behold the monster with the pointed tail. Who cleaves the hills and breaketh walls and weapons. Behold Him who infecteth all the World. - Dante: The Inferno, verse 17 --- [Sponsored by:] _ The newest lyrics on the Net! http://lyrics.astraweb.com Click NOW!
Re:Re:Re:It's not just Bowie, or is it?
--- Martin Malmkvist [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I don't know if I got Ibrahim's message right, but I think that there is no real idea in continuing this discussion. The original purpose was to highlight some probable causes why there is so much anti-americanism out there, and I think those reasons have been thoroughly clarified (and the Americans on the list have also had the opportunity to defend the ways of their country). So I'm officially off this discussion - meant in no offensive way, it's been good learning. Why do so many europeans want to leave the discussion just when it get's down to the details? You know? You get over the usual yelling and screeming, down to the point where you are just starting to be able to form some kind of consistent model, and the europeans loose intrest. Could it be that they don't like what is -in- the details? Could it be that they know what you will dind there? Or are they so unmoveable from their opinions that they don't want to focus when it get's to the point that those opinons are chalanged? I was able to form (what I believe to be) a consistent model of the tolerance in europe and the US, and to describe the interaction of components in that model. I also beleive that this model shows the superior effectiveness of tolerance in America. But I have heard no agreement or disagreement. By your silence can I assume that you agree? = _ Jan William Coffey _ __ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com [Sponsored by:] _ The newest lyrics on the Net! http://lyrics.astraweb.com Click NOW!
Re:Re:Re:It's not just Bowie, or is it?
--- Jeroen van Baardwijk [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At Stardate 20030627.1753, Jan Coffey wrote: Does the American public actually have any idea about how we perceive your extreme distrust of government and anything that reeks of government involvement? No please explain. I already explained that in the sentence following the above sentence. Well, I didn'tget it so you need to be more explicit. We distrust governement becouse nearly all of us were, or have ancestors who were burned by one governement or another (even the USA). So I would not say that our distrust is unwarented. I think it's rather odd that you have such mistrust of your government. After all, the people in your government are there because you *elected* them into those positions. Why do you vote for people you don't trust? It's not the ~people~ we don't trust, it's the ~position~. We wouldn't trust anyone with the power, not even ourselves...which is exactly the case since our governemnt is for, by and of us. We fear all governments, yours, ours, all government. We value freedom more than you do obviously. However, I do not beleive that you speak for all netherlanders. Likewise, I don't believe you speak for all Americans. FREX, you have stated earlier that Americans are supertolerant, but I know of a mailing list whose archive is full of examples of Americans being anything but tolerant towards other Americans and to non-Americans. I thought the deal was they leave you alone and you leave them alone? But you know, I don't think they are as intolerant as you think they are. Certain individuals can be very intolerant. -yes on that list-, but it is a matter of averages and means. Your perception is much less than the average perception (in the US), and some of the individuals in question may be slightly less tolerant than the mean. Remember, our notion of tolerance is different. Likewise, you claim that Americans have a great distrust of government, but I know some Americans who unquestioningly support the current Bush regime. Support and trust are two seperate things. Jeroen van Baardwijk _ Wonderful-World-of-Brin-L Website: http://www.Brin-L.com [Sponsored by:] _ The newest lyrics on the Net! http://lyrics.astraweb.com Click NOW! = _ Jan William Coffey _ __ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com [Sponsored by:] _ The newest lyrics on the Net! http://lyrics.astraweb.com Click NOW!
Re:Re:Re:It's not just Bowie, or is it?
At Stardate 200326.0034, Bryon Daly wrote: When someone allegedly broke a law, do you really believe that uneducated Joe Average is more qualified to determine whether a law really was broken than someone who has actually *studied* the laws? I think that a large part of the judgement of a case is not in how to interpret the laws themselves, but in how to judge the facts and evidence of the case: Things like is that witness credible?, was that testimony truthful?, is the evidence presented convincing enough?, does the degree of the crime match the charges?, were the defendant's actions reasonable?, etc. Certainly, expert knowledge of the law can be helpful in regards to these questions, but it isn't really necessary. I think it *is* necessary. In the end, the jury must not decide if the defendant has committed a certain act, but if the defendant *broke a law* when he committed that act. And to be able to make that decision, they must *know* the law -- and that's what separates the judge from Joe Average. The judge has actually *studied* the law, Joe Average has not. Where more technical points of law are involved, the judge is involved, and he/she can dismiss the case, declare a mistrial, exclude evidence, instruct the jury on the points of law, order the jury not to consider certain information while making its decision But how can a judge know if the jury did in fact not consider certain information? After all, whatever happens in the jury room is secret. A judge's motives for a decision are public. The benefits I see of trial by jury are: - There are 13 people who must be convinced of your guilt. Even one dissent vote will void the trial. That's not necessarily a benefit. If a defendant is guilty but one member votes not guilty for whatever reason (like, FREX, he shares the defendant's radical political views) then the criminal will walk out of the courtroom a free man. Having a larger voting group helps eliminate some hidden biases that might otherwise influence the decision unfairly. I'm curious, is there more than one judge deciding the guilty/innocent verdict in non-jury systems? Yes. I can't speak for other countries of course, but in The Netherlands only the lowest court has only one judge, higher courts have more judges. - I'm guessing most judges belong to the upper class or close to it. (Law school isn't cheap, and judges get paid fairly well.) A poor defendant might have a better chance of understanding from a mixed jury of common people than from a weathy judge. And a rich defendant might have less chance of getting away with it for the same reason. That is in fact an argument *against* trial by jury. A jury is supposed to only consider the *facts* of the committed crime, it's not supposed to be influenced by the economic standing of the defendant. - There is less chance that a jury would become jaded (and hence biased) because, unlike a judge, they haven't seen/heard it all before. Jurors won't have the extensive previous experience of other cases that might color their perception of the current one. (This can be a mixed blessing, I think). Yet another argument against trial by jury. Just like with a physician, experience is of *benefit* to the judge. A jury doesn't have that experience. The downsides I see of a jury trial are: - It's possible to get some very _un_intelligent people on the jury. (See the OJ trial) There is not much protection against juror incompetency. There is however ample protection against incompetence of a judge: an incompetent judge will lose his job, and the cases he handled will be appealed. In fact, given that you can't exactly become a judge right out of Law School, it's highly unlikely that an incompetent person will be given that job in the first place. Jeroen van Baardwijk _ Wonderful-World-of-Brin-L Website: http://www.Brin-L.com [Sponsored by:] _ The newest lyrics on the Net! http://lyrics.astraweb.com Click NOW!
Re:Re:Re:It's not just Bowie, or is it?
--- Jeroen van Baardwijk [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At Stardate 20030626.0018, Jan Coffey wrote: I trust an average person taken from the street far more than I would trust someone who does it for a living. So, when you feel ill, you ask a not-medically-trained average person from the street for a diagnosis, rather than go see a physician (a trained professional who does this for a living)? That is a big differnce! I trust 12 of my peers to say whether or not I am guilty than 1 man or woman who has all of that power. Okay, then let's not ask *one* Joe Average to diagnose your illness, let's ask twelve Joe's. You don't feel well. You drag twelve people in from the street, and they all say that you're having a case of the common cold. Nothing to worry about, keep warm, take in plenty of vitamin C, and you'll be feeling a lot better in a few days. You have been diagnosed by twelve of your peers. Good for you. However, if you had consulted a *professional* (your physician) you would now have been in hospital because you actually have pneumonia. Unfortunately you didn't go see your physician, so rather than feeling a lot better in a few days, you'll be dead in a few days... So much for trust in a dozen untrained amateurs... That is rediculous! The differnce in doctors and judges is that a doctor is one you choose. He has a reputation to keep based on keeping you well. You can see 12 doctors if you want to. (it's called alternative opinions and if your really sick you definalty should do this). With crime, you don't get to pick your judge (if you could you could pick one that you knew or was your friend). Not all cases are cut and dry. A jury is more likely to err on the side of inocent than on the side of guilty in such cases. It takes such ultimate power to take someone elses life or freedom away from one person. The PEOPLE are making the dicision not THE GOVERNMENT! In the US we trust PEOPLE more than we trust GOVERNMENT. It is part of the reason we allways claim to be more free. You may not agree with this, but you are not going to convince us otherwise. Our nation is founded on such consepts. When someone allegedly broke a law, do you really believe that uneducated Joe Average is more qualified to determine whether a law really was broken than someone who has actually *studied* the laws? Yes absolutly! and not just one someone, 12 someones who have to agree! But why would those twelve be more qualified? You expect them to be able to tell if you broke a law, but they have never even studied law! It's like having your house built by someone who has never done construction work in his life! They may not be more qualified in determining that some intricate law (which they do not understand) was broken. But that is a good thing. If the law is so intricate that 12 average people can not understand whether or not it was broken then they must find the suspect inocent. becouse if they can not understand the law then they certinaly could not say -without a shadow of a doubt- that the law was broken. And yes we do trust our PEOPLE to be smart enough to understand this, and to make the right decision in this case. What it means is that the law itself is broken and needs to be fixed. We don't put up with intricat laws which require profesionals to understand whether or not we have broken them. So yes, 12 average people are more qualified. In fact much more qualified than anyone who has studied law. Someone who has studied law is in fact much ~less~ qualified in this respect. Remember we are not tring to make sure that all the real criminals are punnished, but that no inocents are. That is too much power, and IMO Judges already have too much power. The only real power they have is to declare someone guilty and determine appropriate punishment -- but then, that's what they are trained for and get paid for! And if they screw up, their decision can be overturned by a higher court. When religion and polotics come into play, that can become very shady buisness. I prefer 12 other reasonable people just like me, than one guy who might think that I need to be locked up becouse of my religions of political beliefs. Same thing can happen with a jury. If you have killed someone, and only one jury member votes not guilty because he happens to be the only one who shares your (rather radical) political views, you'll walk -- despite the fact that you were caught with the still smoking gun in your hand. That wouldn't exactly be fair, now would it? But we in the US prefer that posibility. It isn't fair, but it is much less fair for an inocent person to be commited for a crime they did not commit. Specificaly beouce the later can be used by one group to control others. Thuse ~~ taking away their freedom ~~. Besides both the prosecution and defence get to veto jury members they do not thing will be
Re:Re:Re:It's not just Bowie, or is it?
--- Jeroen van Baardwijk [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: See other post about law complexity. Where more technical points of law are involved, the judge is involved, and he/she can dismiss the case, declare a mistrial, exclude evidence, instruct the jury on the points of law, order the jury not to consider certain information while making its decision But how can a judge know if the jury did in fact not consider certain information? After all, whatever happens in the jury room is secret. A judge's motives for a decision are public. Once again you seem to be concerned more with a criminal getting away than an inocent being punished. The Judge will know, becouse it is obvious when there wasn't reasonable proof without somthing the judge told them to dismiss. Remember we are not as concerned (in the way you are) about the other case. when the Jury finds inocent, but the judge believes that the crime was commited. Well, we are concerned. - \\Highly important We are concerned that in such cases the person would be found inocent. You are concerned in such cases that the person would be found guilty. ///Highly important\\ Wheather or not we can convince eachother of the correctness or betterness of one system or another, does this not iluminate why the US might not want agree to the ICC? It is not becouse we think we should be above some international law, but becouse we do not agree with the system of that law. The benefits I see of trial by jury are: - There are 13 people who must be convinced of your guilt. Even one dissent vote will void the trial. That's not necessarily a benefit. If a defendant is guilty but one member votes not guilty for whatever reason (like, FREX, he shares the defendant's radical political views) then the criminal will walk out of the courtroom a free man. Yes we believe that this is better 100s of times over, than one inocent man not leving the courtroom free. Having a larger voting group helps eliminate some hidden biases that might otherwise influence the decision unfairly. I'm curious, is there more than one judge deciding the guilty/innocent verdict in non-jury systems? Yes. I can't speak for other countries of course, but in The Netherlands only the lowest court has only one judge, higher courts have more judges. We want as little effect to the acused as possible. Otherwise those inforcing the law could use it to harase people. It would take a long time (in comparison) to reach a high enough level that would get enough people judging to be fair. - I'm guessing most judges belong to the upper class or close to it. (Law school isn't cheap, and judges get paid fairly well.) A poor defendant might have a better chance of understanding from a mixed jury of common people than from a weathy judge. And a rich defendant might have less chance of getting away with it for the same reason. That is in fact an argument *against* trial by jury. A jury is supposed to only consider the *facts* of the committed crime, it's not supposed to be influenced by the economic standing of the defendant. See highly important above. - There is less chance that a jury would become jaded (and hence biased) because, unlike a judge, they haven't seen/heard it all before. Jurors won't have the extensive previous experience of other cases that might color their perception of the current one. (This can be a mixed blessing, I think). Yet another argument against trial by jury. Just like with a physician, experience is of *benefit* to the judge. A jury doesn't have that experience. See highly important above. The downsides I see of a jury trial are: - It's possible to get some very _un_intelligent people on the jury. (See the OJ trial) There is not much protection against juror incompetency. There is however ample protection against incompetence of a judge: an incompetent judge will lose his job, and the cases he handled will be appealed. In fact, given that you can't exactly become a judge right out of Law School, it's highly unlikely that an incompetent person will be given that job in the first place. We in the US do not believe that the truism you present in the 2 paragraphs above is actualy true. We don't trust that, and we don't trust that the person will not change once they recieve such power. = _ Jan William Coffey _ __ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com [Sponsored by:] _ The newest lyrics on the Net! http://lyrics.astraweb.com Click NOW!
Re:Re:Re:It's not just Bowie, or is it?
--- Jorpho [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: But the way the ICC is set up, they would not recieve a trial by their peers. Without that we do not beleive that IUPG works. Then you really need to study how things are done in other countries. I'll use The Netherlands as an example: we don't have trial by jury here, but people are still considered innocent until proven guilty. In every civilised country in the world, people are considered innocent until proven guilty -- and I bet that most of those countries don't have trial by jury. The difference is that over here we leave decisions about guilty/not-guilty to people who have actually been trained to do this (the judges), not to a small group of people who usually have never even seen the inside of a Law School, let alone graduated from one. Really, I don't understand why anyone would want to leave such decisions to a bunch of untrained amateurs. After all, when you're feeling sick, who would you turn to for the diagnosis: a trained professional (a physician) or a small group of peers who haven't had extensive medical training? Indeed. I have read some criticism that trial by jury is not that it's all cracked up to be. For instance, there was once court case where the baliff happened to cough before delivering a guilty verdict to the judge, who interpreted his statement as not guilty. There was a lengthy, costly tangle in the legal system before the mistake could be righted. It has been said that there is a certain dramatic allure to the whole secret process of sending the jury off to deliberate before unveiling with a flourish what they agreed on, without any consderation given to how they arrived at this conclusion. But it might also be said that it would be too costly to train large numbers of people in the minutae of the law. -J I trust an average person taken from the street far more than I would trust someone who does it for a living. That is too much power, and IMO Judges already have too much power. = _ Jan William Coffey _ __ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com [Sponsored by:] _ The newest lyrics on the Net! http://lyrics.astraweb.com Click NOW!
Re:Re:Re:It's not just Bowie, or is it?
At Stardate 20030625.2043, Jorpho wrote: It has been said that there is a certain dramatic allure to the whole secret process of sending the jury off to deliberate before unveiling with a flourish what they agreed on, without any consderation given to how they arrived at this conclusion. That's one of the things I don't like about the jury system: the lack of transparency. Over here a judge not only decides on whether someone is guilty or innocent, s/he also has to explain how that conclusion was reached. But it might also be said that it would be too costly to train large numbers of people in the minutae of the law. All the more reason not to have a jury system; better spend that money on properly training a limited number of people than leaving guilty/not-guilty decisions to the uneducated masses. BTW, I don't know how this is handled elsewhere, but in The Netherlands going to Law School is just like going to any other school: the government doesn't pay for it, you'll have to pay for it yourself (despite the existence of student loans from the government). Jeroen van Baardwijk _ Wonderful-World-of-Brin-L Website: http://www.Brin-L.com [Sponsored by:] _ The newest lyrics on the Net! http://lyrics.astraweb.com Click NOW!
Re:Re:Re:It's not just Bowie, or is it?
At Stardate 20030625.2102, Jan Coffey wrote: I trust an average person taken from the street far more than I would trust someone who does it for a living. So, when you feel ill, you ask a not-medically-trained average person from the street for a diagnosis, rather than go see a physician (a trained professional who does this for a living)? When someone allegedly broke a law, do you really believe that uneducated Joe Average is more qualified to determine whether a law really was broken than someone who has actually *studied* the laws? That is too much power, and IMO Judges already have too much power. The only real power they have is to declare someone guilty and determine appropriate punishment -- but then, that's what they are trained for and get paid for! And if they screw up, their decision can be overturned by a higher court. Jeroen van Baardwijk _ Wonderful-World-of-Brin-L Website: http://www.Brin-L.com [Sponsored by:] _ The newest lyrics on the Net! http://lyrics.astraweb.com Click NOW!
Re:Re:Re:It's not just Bowie, or is it?
--- Jeroen van Baardwijk [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At Stardate 20030625.2102, Jan Coffey wrote: I trust an average person taken from the street far more than I would trust someone who does it for a living. So, when you feel ill, you ask a not-medically-trained average person from the street for a diagnosis, rather than go see a physician (a trained professional who does this for a living)? That is a big differnce! I trust 12 of my peers to say whether or not I am guilty than 1 man or woman who has all of that power. How is this not obvious to you? When someone allegedly broke a law, do you really believe that uneducated Joe Average is more qualified to determine whether a law really was broken than someone who has actually *studied* the laws? Yes absolutly! and not just one someone, 12 someones who have to agree! That is too much power, and IMO Judges already have too much power. The only real power they have is to declare someone guilty and determine appropriate punishment -- but then, that's what they are trained for and get paid for! And if they screw up, their decision can be overturned by a higher court. When religion and polotics come into play, that can become very shady buisness. I prefer 12 other reasonable people just like me, than one guy who might think that I need to be locked up becouse of my religions of political beliefs. (Remember that's what happened to a lot of our ancestors) = _ Jan William Coffey _ __ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com [Sponsored by:] _ The newest lyrics on the Net! http://lyrics.astraweb.com Click NOW!
