Re:Justice in the US vs Europe
--- Martin Malmkvist [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hey Jan Just a humble note to your dialogue about justice in our most esteemed nations. By the way: Congratulations on creating the most successful headline on this list yet :) I changed mine for the sake of variation. The law-stuff: 1. - It is a fact that no innocent person has recieved capital punishment in Denmark (or the Netherlands I believe to be able to guarantee) for at least the last 100 years. - However as the below source suggests, the same cannot be said about the US: ... Opponents of capital punishment also argue that the finality of capital punishment does not allow for the correction of error should a person be falsely convicted. In In Spite of Innocence: Erroneous Convictions in Capital Cases, Michael Radelet, Hugo Adam Bedau, and Constance Putnam studied hundreds of cases where there is some indication of an erroneous conviction. They found evidence that at least 400 persons have been falsely convicted of murder (Radelet 271). Of these cases, 23 were executed (Radelet 272-3), and another 27 were saved at the last moment, sometimes minutes before the scheduled execution (Radelet 275-6). ... Note that no time-frame has been stated on this homepage (this problem may be remedied by looking up the homepage's source). Its interesting to notice that although many more innocents may have been falsely convicted in DK or NL, none have had to die for the court's mistake. The same does not apply for at least 23 US-citizens. Which of the two cases are worse? Source: http://www.globaldialog.com/~theoacme/cappun2.html We have an extensivly exaustive appeals process when it comes to the ultimate punishment. I don't beleive that these are representative of the recent past. That siad, capital punishment is not done in every state. That is part of the whole federal thing. Some states have it, others do not. Opinons about capital punnishment vary, but if you are that much against it you can either vote that way, or move to a state that doesn't do it. 2. The fact that there is actually a prize awarded in the US for the most rediculous lawsuit (and ensuing conviction - if that's the proper word here) I think that is generaly civil suits. And YES our CIVIL system is WHACK! so I won't defend it at all. That said, I know of no civil system that isn't (IMO). - which was actually highlighted on this list about a month ago, serves to seriously undermine the statement that a jury of 12 unqualified people are more likely to reach the right conclusion in a case. I realise, though, that this argument may be countered since similar cases may be found in either of the two european countries. Its just that over here such cases are more of exceptions to the norm, whereas it seems to have become a bit of a phenomenon in the US. Please correct me on this if I'm wrong :) My primary way of learning of the US is TV (and this list). Things on TV are nothing like reality. Even when they are reality. They are of course exceptions to the norm. Only here for some reason we make a big deal out of exceptions to the norm. Gerneraly this leads to changes and so it's a good thing, but it also makes it look like it is all that happens to those who don't live here and experience normal reality enough to recognize these things as an anomoly. Gernealy, there would not be as much intertainment value to it if it were not, so it wouldn't end up on TV. No one would watch -normal-. Now, this may say something about Americans, and it -is- a common complaint many of us have about our own country. 3. Jan (I think) stated at one time that the European model might suffer from the fact that judges and lawyers have seen it all. I must admit that this sometimes seems to be true (and this is where I'll veer from objectivity and provide an example from my experience). In one case a person I know had her door kicked in by her ex-boyfriend, who, in front of numerous witnesses, dragged her outside by her hair and smashed her face completely up. I went to see the trial to satisfy my need for justice and found that it was actually three trials compiled into one. For forcing his way into the victims apartment, assaulting her, drunk driving, fleeing the scene after ramming another car under the influence of alcohol, beating up three guys who decided to follow him and attacking a police officer and his dog, this guy was sentenced to four (4!) months of prison and has his driver's license removed for 10 years (an extension of a similiar 3-year sentence, he already had). Now, that's rediculous. It wasn't even the first time he was in court. I was outraged. He should have been put away for at least four years. We have simmilar issues of course. A Jurry may be made up of mostly a homogeneous group and the person on trial may not fit that mold. Therefore they may be found guilty when they are not, or found guilty when they are, but the law does
Re:ICC was Re:It's not just Bowie, or is it?
--- Jeroen van Baardwijk [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At Stardate 20030626.2044, Jan Coffey wrote: Exactly! What you propose for the ICC is representative governance, but you don't use that same system for your own country. What do you mean? We DO use representative governance!!! You are going to have to clarify your point here becouse it looks to me like you are calling white black and black white. Prime example is that of your presidential elections. I got the following from http://www.fec.gov/pages/ecworks.htm. On the Tuesday following the first Monday of November in years divisible by four, the people in each State cast their ballots for the party slate of Electors representing their choice for president and vice president. Whichever party slate wins the most popular votes in the State becomes that State's Electors-so that, in effect, whichever presidential ticket gets the most popular votes in a State wins all the Electors of that State. The above means that all votes for the other candidates in a state are essentially lost. In a true representative system (as we have in The Netherlands) you would simply tally all the votes (nationwide) for each candidate and declare winner the candidate who got the most votes. Over here we feel that this is far more democratic and far more resembles representative governance than your electoral college. (And it also costs a lot less time and money, and is a lot more efficient.) Of course, you could bring this up on That Other List; no doubt JDG will then explain to you that the US doesn't use the democratic principle of representative government because the US isn't a democracy... Whatever about the other list and JDG..whatever.. But the point is that in elections within a state it is democratic. Think of it as a buch of countries each signing a treaty of federal governance. Each state elects an electorate to vote for them the way they request. That electorate is reponsible for the treaty of election for a president. Governers and the like are elected by popular vote. If Europe feeralized do you think the smallest of states with the lowest population would allow a simple -per vote- election. Probably not, becouse this small country would constatnly get shafted. The United -States- we could have called ourselves the United Countries of American UCA. Each state has autonomy, (although less than they use to.) The electoral collage exists to ~normalize~ the process so that the little states are not -as- uninportant. That said, many americans, especialy the ones that live in big states, don't much care for the electoral collage. = _ 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:Re:It's not just Bowie, or is it?
Regardless of their political views, our elected leaders to be reasonable and intelligent people. They know very well that if they screw up, they'll pay the price for that at the next election. 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. Besides as someoen who has a website and list dedicated to DB, and knowing DBs opinons on Otherness and a healthy distrust of governement I would liek to hear your opinons. 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. Why should we care what your perception of our governemtnal distrust is? Didn't this whole thread start out as an attempt to better understand why Americans sometimes regard themselves as being mistreated in foreign countries? Could this not be a matter of the perception of this governmental mistrust? -J [Sponsored by:] _ The newest lyrics on the Net! http://lyrics.astraweb.com Click NOW!
Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:It's not just Bowie, or is it?
Regardless of their political views, our elected leaders to be reasonable and intelligent people. They know very well that if they screw up, they'll pay the price for that at the next election. 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. Besides as someoen who has a website and list dedicated to DB, and knowing DBs opinons on Otherness and a healthy distrust of governement I would liek to hear your opinons. 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. Why should we care what your perception of our governemtnal distrust is? Didn't this whole thread start out as an attempt to better understand why Americans sometimes regard themselves as being mistreated in foreign countries? Could this not be a matter of the perception of this governmental mistrust? Something of that sort. It was more, what do Europeans have against us. This thread was an attempt for each side to better understand eachother. But in any event, you are correct. It could make a difference in this reguard. But once again. it comes back to an inherent ownes of acceptance. A Eropean may say you should change your method of interacting with us becouse we see you as being paranoid becouse you don't trust governemnts. Or some such thing -please correct this statment if you feel the need-. But the point is this may sound like the appropriate and correct thing for someoen outside (like an alien or something) who shares the ethical model of Europe. I would say that the situation is not so simplistic. If Americans do not trust governments in general, then when in a foreign country, they would be mistrusting of the duly elected representatives of the people who they put their trust in. By extension, they would be saying that these people do not know how to govern themselves, which can be quite insulting. This goes beyond mere cultural understanding, I'd say. But that's just my view. It still seems to me that the level of violence in the United States is not something that one would expect from a supposedly tolerant country. And need I mention freedom fries? Put quite clearly we are not paranoid. We have a very recent example which we can reference. The UN had 3 resolutions (the numbers escape me at the moment, two in the 600 range and, I beleive, 1441) in any even we made strategic decisions based on these resolutions as if they were international -law-. We were willing to, once again, be the inforcement of this law. But when that time came, we were put in a precarious position by several countries renigging on that law. It would seem then that our distrust of athority is once again supported. So you're not paranoid; you just mistrust all governments? -J [Sponsored by:] _ The newest lyrics on the Net! http://lyrics.astraweb.com Click NOW!
