The link between feminist causes in the US and the Israel-Palestine conflict in the minds of omnicause activists is that real progress (as defined by the activist left) on both can only be made if the lump is defeated, and military defeat of Israel by Hamas would take a lump out of the lump. This is as stupid as it sounds, which is why I subscribe to the mistake theory on this point.
I would not underestimate this. There is a perfectly valid theory from liberation standpoint; that nobody is truly free unless the least free is liberated. If it produces seeming logical contradiction, then this is perfect as it means we need to do more Marxist work to align Marxist Theory and Praxis. Being able to hold contradictory opinions is a feature of Marxism, this is how you perform dialectic - you resolve the contradiction by abolishing the concepts and create something new and better. It is akin to dissolving the question. We may not see how such a reconciliation can look like now, but we have faith that such a solution exists if we try hard enough.
You for instance see it with feminists vs trans issues exemplified with simple "what is a woman" question. The true liberation will happen only if we abolish the gender binary completely. We did not manage it yet, but we are getting there. It is very similar to how the old school Marxists thought that capitalism and its opposite the socialism will eventually transform into true communism. The same for lets say how dictatorship of proletariat is only transitional period before bourgeoisie and proletariat will be "reconciled" by completely abolishing class as a concept and entering classless society. Again, nobody knows precisely how to do it, you need to do the work, that is the point.
It may all seem stupid and contradictory and all that. But for some reason these conspiracy theories are very resilient and they lived 150+ years already. They are internally coherent and people can believe them. You just need to understand the idea behind these concepts including the "lump theory" you describe, the crux of the leftist conspiracy theory that explains everything. I many times argued that leftism is where true conspiracy theories live, where "serious" people and respected academics can believe in conspiracies that deliberately oppress victims and create oppressive "systems" of - capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, heteronormativity, colonialism etc. James Lindsay was more eloquent in his speech in EU parliament about it.
In fact with colonialism it is straightforward as it uses the same word. Colonizers are oppressors, colonized are the oppressed the evil system that colonizers create and perpetuate to keep their privilege is called colonialism, and the solution is to decolonize everything until we reach "Equity" - the ultimate "Social Justice" akin to communism. The same goes for leftist feminist theory where men oppress women via patriarchy and we need to dismantle the patriarchy to achieve social justice etc. It is all the same omnicause but in a more metalevel of intersectionality. So yes, decolonization and dismantling of patriarchy are related concepts, they both must proceed in order to establish true Equity and Social Justice. Don't know how, but we must believe such a progress is possible through proper work. And if it fails, it just means that true Social Justice was never tried.
I don’t really think that Finns are actually so much happier than Greeks. In fact, I often think they’re less happy. So what really explains the difference? Social pressure. Finns read every day about how rich and happy they’re supposed to be, how low their unemployment is, how their social fabric is the envy of the world, how un-corrupt they are, how lucky they are to have been born Finns.
While there may be something to your theory, this is old news. Finland now experiences double digit unemployment of 10,9% with youth unemployment approaching 25%. They are now worst in EU, worse than Spain. The same for GDP per capita which stagnated basically since 2008. Their famous education and good results in PISA tests is also history as it plummeted from first place in 2006 to out of top 10 today. There is something rotten in state of Finland.
The latter is especially helpful at something like a T intersection when the sightlines are blocked and someone could come zooming along with very little advance warning.
I hate this for many reasons. First, just relax and sit back instead of blocking my view with your ugly head. Second, you do not know what I want to do, if I want to move slowly to let some pedestrian pass or start quickly to move before he reaches the crossing etc. Also, I am the one driving - your unhelpful and inconsistent advice is worth shit when of course sometimes you sleep or play with your cell phone etc.
I deliberately also do not do it when my wife is driving even if she sometimes asks for advice for exactly the same reason. She is the one 100% concentrated on driving. I cannot evaluate the situation in a second she gives me when she asks. I'd rather nap or think about Roman Empire or something instead of being useless backseat driver. We are not in a race where you need a navigator. If you cannot process the information, then slow down. If you are too tired to do even basics such as turning left, then let's switch and let me drive.
I actually think it is the only logical thinking they perform. If you truly believe in white privilege and that misogyny and patriarchy is ever-present and powerful, then of course you will make those associations on personal level, and you should date white privileged boys to eke out a little bit of that power for yourself. You would be stupid if you go for oppressed black handicapped weakling.
It is self-defeating nature of these movements, the same by the way goes for the other side of the spectrum, where some parts of the manosphere give advice to have many sexual partners. They at the same time resent women as hoes, but then they cannot help themselves and validate their own masculinity by sleeping with dozens or even hundreds of them - thus actually giving them value.
There is a saying that you are what you worship. If you worship power, this is how it logically ends.
You will still end up with a co-op President or maybe some circle of powerful union leaders sitting in cozy office deciding what to do with capital worth billions of dollars, while the rest of the schmucks would still need to punch their card and make steel, or whatever the anointed kings and counts of the factory decided to do.
I really do not understand why are people so enamored with politics as deciding mechanism for economic power. People are raging against the 1,000 billionaires in USA, but they think 1,000 top elected government bureaucrats are better deciding what to do with $4,9 trillion of tax revenue every year - we are talking potential net worth of $100 trillion plus? And that is the best case scenario - worst case you get some petty dictator who actually decides everything personally, effectively becoming as far from your cookie cutter billionaire as they are from homeless addicts on the street. There is not one billionaire now that could even lick a boot of people like Joseph Stalin, who could just say a word and the whole country of 100 million people and its whole capital stock would make his wish happen. But he was just an appointed leader of co-op labor councils - or soviets in Russian. What a bunch of nonsense.
In general geographical names are extremely common in Hungary. Not only countries, but also regions like Alföldi, but also cities such as Kecskeméty and of course rivers such as Tisza. It is just the way it is.
Locke commits the very thing I described as secular view of rights. He flipped the Thomist definition of natural laws on their head, he individualized and privatized the law. Instead of liberty being a positive effect of virtuous and God-fearing community, it is suddenly an entitlement by individual. The community is there to provide the service that the individual is entitled to, if the service is bad, the individual has to file the complaint. It is completely different framing.
In Thomist way of thinking, you yourself were born fallen due to original sin, you are prone to sin and debasement of your dignity. You are free only if you live in a virtuous community as part of the Church. In Lockean view this is subverted. You are entitled to freedom and all your rights from birth, you own it, it is your entitlement bestowed onto you by God or some such. Community can only deprive you of your entitlements, they literally stole what was given to you by God. In fact you as individual are in contract with community, you can judge if the community is worthy of you and renege on that contract if you think that your "rights" - your entitlements are not met. That is what I mean by "absent duty" - you can theoretically start judging the community as soon as you come out from the birth canal and immediately shake your little fists in indignant rage of how bad the community you were born into is. You can do that without lifting a finger or performing any duty.
Of course this does not surprise me, Locke was a protestant. So of course he would turn away from communal to individual - it is for everybody to become their own little god, pronounce ownership/stewardship of their very own god given rights, performing their very own exegesis of what it actually means and then judge the community for not subscribing to their view of morality and everything. In fact Locke encourages this as "right" to revolution - by the way this supposed "right" automatically shows how insufficient his logic is. Right to revolution sounds different from let's say right to property, especially when judging from the lense of duty - so now what, you have duty to accept other people revolting against percieved tyranny? So you will end up in the same fragmentation that you see with protestant church now. Again, it is dangerous change of view from sinful human achieving liberty only if existing as part of virtuous community providing just laws, to individual who is somehow capable of analyzing his God given rights without sin of pride or greed, judging society as sinful and unable to meet his individual yardstick of justice - up until violent revolution for this perceived sin of tyranny.
Which again ties to the original thing: yes, rights exist only as a fiction and they matter only as far as they are enforced. This is doubly so for Lockean rights, where everybody can have their own exegesis of what rights were given to them by god. If they judge the community as morally insufficient, they also have right to revolt or to view other people revolt as infringement on their own rights. This all only proves that even Lockean rights are made up by all individuals, and then only those versions that can be enforced at the point of the gun of revolutionaries matter. Especially if rights are stripped of the whole "given by god" veneer invented by Locke. For secularists, rights are just strongly worded made up laws, or maybe some supposed facts of biology (e.g. it is really "bad" if people suffer, therefore people have right to avoid suffering). This secular transformation of Christian natural law or Lockean fiction is even more obviously made up.
Wouldn't the Lockean Liberal view be something more like: mankind is created in the image and likeness of God. Yes, man is sinful, and fallen, but as a result of being made in the image of God, mankind is endowed with dignity which it is sinful to violate.
The set of principles surrounding this inviolable dignity, we call "rights" and it is the duty of us as individuals and as a society to set up governments which do not violate these rights.
This is a secular view of rights which is actually not in line with at least traditional teaching of Catholic Church. Yes, you are created in image of God and you have dignity, however you diminish your dignity every time you even sin yourself. You are not entitled to absolute dignity, e.g. you do not have absolute entitlement to get free food whenever you are hungry and thus turn this situation on its head by blaming the society for its inability to feed you. Even in Catholic church where they sometimes strategically adopt the language of rights, they are curtailed by additional concepts such as subsidiarity, where the duty starts with yourself. Which then conflicts with the basic definition of rights as entitlement without duty - you are the first to have duty to for instance feed yourself. That is the main difference between catholic social teaching and modern rights-based system.
In fact you can get to completely different conclusions. For instance if somebody who is able bodied and just lazy turns to get food from soup kitchen, it is that person who is committing the sin of sloth diminishing his own dignity. On top, he also steals from patrimony of the poor.
The liberal/libertarian simply believes that the best way to set up society is to let everyone pursue the proper management and development of their God-given talents by protecting a handful of core principles: life, liberty and property (or the pursuit of happiness.)
Absolutely not. The fundamental basis of libertarian view of right is that of self-ownership, the Catholic teaching is all about your life belonging to God. In libertarian view state cannot impose duties on you by virtue of self-ownership, exactly opposite is the case from Catholic teachings. And there are no few flaring points, we are talking about things like euthanasia, prostitution, drug sales and many other things.
As for liberal or secular view of rights, we talked about it before. And again, it is complete subversion of social teaching of the Church where individual is entitled to ever expanding set of rights and if not provided, it is society to blame for absence. Again, it is entitlement absent duty.
Don't most rights imply a corresponding duty?
Not really, at least not in the modern sense of what rights mean. Christians talked about duties all the time of course even in language of commandments etc. However there is understanding that people are sinful. It does not make sense to talk about "right", as it would entail basically living in an utopian society without sin.
Plus it creates quite a conundrum for libertarians who love to talk about intrinsic rights as property of individuals. If we are talking about duties, we now have collectivist category sometimes encompassing the whole humanity. For libertarian right to life to fully exist, everybody on Earth has to acknowledge and follow up on 6th commandment and duty not to murder.
Again, this is not equivalent position. Christians pray to god every day for miracle of life, that they were gifted by god fearing neighbors who follow the law and they understand that this is by no means given, that people are sinful. They understand how fragile things are. Human right activists approach the topic from entitlement to their rights and they are shocked and indignant if something happens. It is quite a different approach.
It actually leads to quite a different view of society. The original Christian view is that society (or Church if you wish) is generally good, but individual is sinful. The liberal or libertarian view seems to be that the individual is always correct and entitled to rights, but society is oppressive and sinful not to provide for such enlightened individual to exist.
Rights might be legal fictions in some sense, but so is money, or the concept of the United States, or the position of President of the United States.
Sure, that is all the OP wanted to say. Rights are fictional and subject to whims of people and governments. In a sense right is just a more fancy word for law. We can talk about various types of law from law from Hammurabi law to Universal Declaration of Human rights. All of them are of the same cloth, just a fiction in certain place and time subject to enforcement of some kind. There is nothing intrinsic to them.
Freedom of movement in article 13, freedom of assembly and association under article 20, freedom of religion under article 18 - all related to lockdowns for starters.
Rooted in natural law, it is objectively the case that different beings carry with them different moral duties and obligations.
Original natural law theory is Catholic doctrine stemming from objective morality and God, it was also more about natural law and less about natural rights, especially in the modern sense that right is personal and individual property. Additionally, modern rights do not have much with duties and obligations. Or to be more precise rights are entitlements absent duty or obligation. You are entitled to your right, you do not have any obligation toward that right.
It an aspiration - the universal declaration of human rights, say, is a declaration that we as a community have decided that human beings must be treated in this way.
If that is so, then some other community or even the same community but in different time can aspire to different set of rights which they will declare as universal. Just remember COVID when suddenly all those "universal human rights" stopped working for a prolonged time. Quite a fickle things these rights, they can change their way of existence quite a lot, can they not?
Materialists do not believe that nothing that isn't a physical object exists.
This is sophism. You absolutely understand what he wanted to say. He said that human rights exist as a fiction created by state as opposed to their existence as that of the sun or the moon. It is perfectly fine distinction to make even for materialists. Even materialists understand that let's say Francis Underwood exists as a fictional character and POTUS in famous Netflix TV show as opposed to let's say Donald Trump existing as a real person and POTUS. In similar fashion rights exist as a fiction enforced by power of government, that is all that the OP said and it is perfectly in line with materialism. Without government they still exist as a fiction, but nobody cares in the same way nobody cares for my version of fictional president of USA named Chad Norris or my version of universal human rights, that in my fictional world prevented government spying on email correspondence or property theft over prolonged period named as property tax. I hope now it is clear.
Over time, I've lost faith in religion. I no longer believe in deontology.
I am not sure what is this about. If one evaluates Christianity, it is at worst a mix of deontology and virtue ethics.
I doubt objectivism. I don't think consequentialism produces meaningfully outcomes. I find modernism passe. The rationalists seem kinda irrational. I've done the calculations: utilitarianism doesn't math out.
I wholeheartedly agree
I think I'll have to RTVRN to tradition: I think Plato might have had it. Maybe Aesthetics as Virtue was the true path all along.
Again, it seems that you discovered virtue ethics. Christianity - or at least Catholicism - specifically talks about transcendentals of Good, Truth and Beauty. This is basic Thomas Aquinas, he talks about concepts related to beauty such as Claritas, Integritas, Consonantia, Honestas and their relation to the other transcendentals and also toward deontological concepts such as duty. For example if you act in accordance to your duty (of let's say POTUS) you radiate Claritas. It is often cited concept where duty formed by reason forms something beautiful when in action - e.g. when a worker honestly and dutifully pursues his craft, he creates beauty. One can also say the same about politics as a craft.
There is also great deal of wisdom in Catholic teaching when it comes to aesthetic morality. While sin is ugly, it can also lead to a dangerous sin of pride. Sometimes seeing ugly things all around you means something lacking on your part, inability of you as an observer to honestly judge correct aesthetics. In a sense it is lack of your inner beauty, replacing it with ugly sin of pride, which prevents you to see the harmony even in supposedly ugly things.
I don't think this is necessarily the case. You may signal your sophistication by other means as well. For instance you can talk how you enjoyed Antigone or The Orphan of Zhao for classics and something actually readable by Roberto Bolaño - for instance By Night in Chile, which is just 150 pages as opposed to 2666 slog. You can pick any other "ethnic" author and you can be golden. I just randomly searched for some Indonesian author and apparently Man Tiger by Eka Kurniawan seems to be a good read and also just 150 pages. You cannot get more sophisticated for cheaper, you just have to say that an actually readable story is an allegory for colonialism or that is shows the world through other ways of knowing or some such.
You can also show sophistication by reading something else and readable from famous authors. For instance I really liked Down and Out in Paris and London by Orwell. It is not as edgy and plebeian as 1984, and it shows how you went deeper into famous authors.
I wrote it elsewhere here, Catch-22 has a lot of postmodern literature signifiers: gallows humor, anti-hero in the story, unreliable narrative also related to uncertainty if protagonist is hero or antihero, absurdity represented by literal Catch-22, non-linear structure, breaking the fourth wall etc. I guess it was considered postmodern due to it being product of 1961 where it went against the grain, it was pre-Vietnam war.
Earlier you said that:
Post-modernist books are generally characterized by being "experimental" and defying the conventions of traditional novels–hence, non-linear storytelling, unreliable narrators, metatextual references, disregard for conventional plot and characterization, etc. But there are always ideas there, and I would argue most of those books do have a cohesive (if meandering and self-indulgent) narrative.
The first half is something you see in every new literally epoch. Modern literature was experimental compared to pre-modern one. People are now also fed-up with postmodern "experimentation" and want to try something else, they talk about post-postmodernism or metamodernism etc. If you go deeper, then no, breaking the 4th wall is not experimental, Shakespeare used it hundreds of years ago when characters addressed audience directly. Brooding antihero is your cookie cutter romantic trope, heck some people say that Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground have postmodern vibes. It is quite a postmodern self-parody, "there is nothing new only recycling of old" is quite self-aware.
I think that the best solution is not to be in awe with postmodernism and categorize it as any other literary epoch. It was product of its age, and it is characterized by usage of specific literary techniques - be it new or old. So yes, Catch-22 was postmodern literature and Notes From Underground was realist or seminal existentialist literature even if you think of it the other way around - is Yossarian not your typical existentialist hero and can there be something more realist than Hellers description of war in visceral detail? Sorry, the timeline does not agree with that.
georgioz
15d ago
Like several other commenters, I would not categorize either Slaughterhouse-Five or Catch-22 as post-modern. Satirical and cynical, certainly, but post-modernism is not just irony and counter-culturalism.
Catch-22 is listed as seminal postmodern book everywhere from wiki to various literally journals. It is a seminal book, so some critics say that it is still a little bit modern - e.g. Yossarian is not completely insane, but they still say it is a postmodern book. It would be like arguing that Hamlet is actually Medieval as opposed to seminal Renaissance/Early modern book. By the way this is quite a postmodern analysis from you.
I loved Catch-22 in high school just because it was actually funny. I was predisposed to it due to experience with socialism, so absurdity of beurocracy and hollow slogans was something I understood quite well mostly from stories, but partially also from personal experience during my childhood. On top, it was part of the package of War Literature and to me it seemed more relatable to a teenager compared to pretending that I understand what happens to young boy in All Quiet on The Western front.
Even now if I read the reasons why the book is postmodern, I do not really get it. Supposedly the signifiers of it as postmodern book is as follows: gallows humor, anti-hero in the story, unreliable narrative also related to uncertainty if protagonist is hero or antihero, absurdity represented by literal Catch-22, non-linear structure, breaking the fourth wall etc. If these are the signifiers of postmodern story then all the stories of my uncles and great uncles especially those during their conscription into Czechoslovak army during communism are postmodern as hell.
georgioz
17d ago
The Sailer line is "progressives don't believe in IQ but know they're smarter than conservatives". And progressives do in fact cite studies that say right wingers have lower IQ (and lower openness), the only time I've seen this allowed.
This is exactly my point, you cannot be racist towards racists. It was seen many times, like when activists called black ICE agent as nigger with hard r, or when they force a closeted conservative homosexual out of the closet with a glee, or when they are openly misogynistic etc.
Intellectuals are arguably the highest status people in progressive spaces, even if we think that the fields they love are not particularly rigorous or g-loaded.
I'd say that intelectuals in general were considered high status historically. I live in post Austrian Empire sphere, where not having masters degree as part of your official ID is seen as shocking and strange - you immediately gain status just by having that. Getting education, parroting correct opinions and then getting cushy government job - or at least something government adjacent is age old tradition for all systems.
And don't get me wrong. I think men get confined to a tighter box in terms of acceptable behavior than women, even as that box often comes with higher social standing. Sometimes, I feel really sad for boys that have to grow up in this mess. But also, how hard is it to just learn to be yourself without all the weird, gendered expectations? I'm really very baffled by it all.
Ah, the classic bait-and-switch.
- We have the freedom to explore the full gamut of human experience and become whoever we want. Just be yourself!
- Okay, I choose to be stoic, gun loving conservative who likes male role models.
- Oh, not that! You have to choose what I told you to choose.
georgioz
17d ago
In a world where moral status (or, as you will soon see, we could call it moral stature) is defined by a person's height, what might we expect? Well one thing is it would be very rude to point out that people have different heights.
As other pointed out, this is flawed. In today's world it is not intellect, but other signifiers that are seen by large part of society as moral as opposed to immoral. People do not consider it rude to tell to other people that they are sexist, ableist, homophobic, transphobic, anti-vaxxers, fascist and many other things despite their intellect. Talking about intelligence points toward your racism, and it does not matter if you are an academic or construction worker on his break.
You seem to be misunderstanding what I am comparing. I am not comparing common law and Roman law. I am comparing America to the rest of the world.
You were arguing for "jury trials", not that USA is best, but fair enough.
I'm just saying that America is better when it comes to being able to criticize whatever, whoever, and whenever you want,
I'm just saying that America is better when it comes to being able to criticize whatever, whoever, and whenever you want, especially when that criticism is directed towards the government, and especially when the government has unambiguously wronged you.
I think this may be the case, it seems that US system as with many systems with jury are uniquely tribal. Jury can be played emotionally and it of course favors citizen vs government as well as poor guy vs rich guy etc. I am not sure if this is justice, but whatever. However I would not be that sure when it comes to free speech. USA also has one thing going against it, which is very workaholic culture. I am EU guy and I worked with and for US corporations and there seems to be unique blending of corporate and private persona, which is not at all usual in Europe.
I participated on harassment training due to working with US colleagues, and the level of outright threats and requirements on the workforce down to details of what can constitute as harassment was shocking not only to me, but also to my colleagues - including our very own HR. BTW many of those things required could be outright illegal in my jurisdiction, like for instance complete ban on any jokes related to protected characteristics - this would be against Freedom of Speech in Germany. The most shocking thing for me was that manager is obliged to report all potentially illegal things happening - the US law turns every manager into little commie spy telling to HR what kind of jokes about age or gender were told - even between two friends in breakroom, otherwise he may be held liable if they "fail to act". In true US fashion many of the most shocking breaches of rights and freedoms were outsourced to private sector. You have a right to tell a joke, but be prepared to get sued and fired.
It definitely is a multiplier on altruism, plus this ship already sailed. EA calls this incest with public money as policy enterpreneurship. There are other projects that require cooperation and schmoozing with governments, be it AI safety or many medical programs. Heck even the famous malaria nets are distributed in cooperation with African governments. We cannot have simple things like a little schmoozing with local politicians preventing us from saving of millions of lives, can we?
georgioz
25d ago
Many effective altruists have also specifically been wary of political giving (like Scott's article Beware Systemic Change), especially when it takes the form of picking a side in a mainstream left-vs-right tug-of-war rather than finding niche "pulling the rope sideways" issues that are disproportionately important compared to how much the public cares about them. Yes the controversial issues also matter, but they believe those are generally not where you can most effectively spend a marginal dollar (or even a marginal 250 million dollars).
See, this is when the altruism is not effective. The issue is that politics controls vast amount of money. Soros and his organizations are famously very effective in leveraging their money to 10x or more: build basic system and organizations and then use public money to push your projects. Imagine it as having a think-tank that will help towns and villages across EU write projects that can tap into structural EU funds to improve temperature in chicken farm or any other pet EA project, pun intended. Imagine what you can do if you can actually influence politicians to provide subsidies for that, and include a specific fee for animal welfare in each meat purchase, something like renewable surcharge to electricity. All you need is to just make sure to promote some friendly technocrats who can influence some of the byzantine EU regulation creation process. Amazing ROI.
georgioz
25d ago
I know that in most of them, you would easily lose any case that anyone (and especially the government) brings against you for your speech. I never claimed that you couldn't sue the government in other countries. I just said that in most of them, you wouldn't be able to win if they sued you (or charged you) for speech.
This may be the case, however it is not specific to common vs roman law. You have common law countries like UK or Australia which are significantly easier to misuse. For instance in case of defamation the US has apparently strict standard of proof of malice where burden of proof is on plaintiff. In Australia the burden of proof is on defendant who must prove that what he said was true and they are much more tyrannical when it comes to government officials successfully suing private citizens despite having common law and jury system.
JNOV is a bit limited; in a criminal trial it can only be used to overturn a guilty verdict, and even then the prosecution can appeal it.
You maybe know, that appeal is an institution also in EU, with extra layer of EU courts, especially European Court of Human Rights. The problem of course is if the whole system is corrupt especially in some highly politicized context. So yeah, the appeals are good way to disrupt local incest where police, prosecutor, judge and even attorneys are in kahoots in some scheme of smalltown mafia. However sometimes this mafia system is too powerful and they basically get protection. For some examples in US just look at "learing center" fraud in Minnesota or well known system of let's say Eastern District of Texas, which is hotbed of what is basically patent troll homebase where they freely extort rest of the world probably in exchange to some kickbacks. Jury does not care if they decide on some shit related to distant corporations, they know that if they rule in favor of patent troll they will get money for school or something.
Or it's because most of those people have a really bad case and the plea deal is genuinely better than going to trial?
Okay, so US federal government probably employs some CIA precrime unit akin to Minority Report if only one out of 200 prosecuted people is actually innocent. Amazing investigative competence. And now some other bedtime story.
My point is that both systems have pros and cons and they are much more complex. There is not single "EU law" as there is not single common law - see the difference between US or Australia. As people say, shit is complicated.
georgioz
25d ago
Second, this verdict could have only happened in America, where there is a strong legal tradition of freedom of speech. If it had taken place in a European country like Germany, where calling the government "parasites" gets your house raided, he would have lost.
What do you actually know about countries based around roman law legal system? I have attorneys in my family and they routinely sue government for this or that overreach or damages or bad tax ruling etc.
Having a jury trial was also very important in this case, because the judge was almost blatantly biased in favor of the plaintiffs.
It can also be very important the other way such as with O.J. Simpson and many other cases.
Turns out, jury trials are there to protect the people from corrupt judges.
Again, judges have quite different powers also in other countries. Plus there is plenty that corrupt judge can do - for instance he could have used JNOV and to overturn jury. Which can in fact be then used as a defense from corrupt or biased jury - e.g. such as when jury full of some tribe makes mockery of justice.
The point is that though Americans may be stereotyped as being irrationally fearful of a tyrannical government, this fear is entirely justified, and this case is a good example of it and this case is a good example of it. Or at least a good example of how small town cops abuse their power, which seems to happen an awful lot in small towns across America.
Yeah, it seems so on paper. But despite that, staggering 99.6% of federal criminal cases end up in conviction, mostly because 97% of people rather plead guilty. In true Kafkaesque manner, the process is the punishment. Once people see what their tyrannical government prepared for them, they rather plead guilty even if innocent. So much freedom.
Not necessarily. I can see it for instance in a context where somebody moves into a high trust society let's say from Russia, and all he sees is quokkas waiting to be slaughtered and harvested. It is just pure mercenary outlook - I came here to exploit your weakness you morons before it all burns down. While your country turns to shit for you wimps, I can still return to my homeland with my riches if necessary. I guess Somali fraudsters in Michigan or any other tribal society members have this outlook.
By the way it is not as if they can do anything about it even if they wanted, they often cannot even vote. It is what it is and they are just navigating the waters they were given access to. Plus their children are often thought that their host countries are shit, so why not embrace that?
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