Man 'too fat' to live in New Zealand

[Seth]

Comment to Seth about his libertarian approach to lawsuits.

As I understand it, you are suggesting that the person bringing suit could end up punished if that law suit is seen as trivial, or self serving rather than genuine?

Yup. Loser pays, in spades. You have to make the risk of bringing a frivolous or vexatious suit far, far exceed the benefit of bringing the suit and LOSING it.

If so, I really do not think the system could work, or even get passed into law. It could not work for the reason that proving beyond reasonable doubt that a law suit is inappropriate would be next to impossible, and it would never get passed into law because there are too damn many lawyers in government, and they always look after their own profession.

Improbability fallacy.

First, the burden in civil court is "by a preponderance of the evidence," second, my plan vests sole and absolute judgment in the hands of the jury, with no appeal. And their judgment applies to EVERYONE involved in the case, from the plaintiff to the defendant to the attorneys, judges, witnesses and anyone else who has any power or control over bringing suit. Complicity in the initiation of force or fraud, regardless of the circumstances or motivation, is the same in Libertarian philosophy as the act of initiating force or fraud itself.

The goal is justice, not technical adherence to statutes. And justice is meeted out by a jury of one's peers, to each and every person who is party or participant to the dispute. This dissuades lawyers and judges from allowing frivolous or vexatious cases from moving forward, and it dissuades plaintiffs from making specious or weak claims against others.

Either way, your suggestion is kinda pointless.

It's a philosophical discussion by way of demonstrating that Libertarian principles are strong enough and flexible enough to deal with any of the problems that face a society which are now dealt with by bloated government and over-regulation.

[Seth]

Libertarianism is much harder because it requires actual intelligence, a mature, healthy adult personality and a set of ethics that doesn't include stealing from and enslaving others. That doesn't make it an unworkable system, it just makes it difficult to achieve. The first step is to let the dependent class exterminate itself by cutting off their goodies.

You sound remarkably like Hitler when you get going.

But I don't think you've got any of his charisma.

You know that he was mad, don't you?

Non-responsive ad hom. I declare a Godwin victory over you.

[mistermack]

Libertarianism is much harder because it requires actual intelligence, a mature, healthy adult personality and a set of ethics that doesn't include stealing from and enslaving others. That doesn't make it an unworkable system, it just makes it difficult to achieve. The first step is to let the dependent class exterminate itself by cutting off their goodies.

You sound remarkably like Hitler when you get going.

But I don't think you've got any of his charisma.

You know that he was mad, don't you?

Non-responsive ad hom. I declare a Godwin victory over you.

Declaring victory, that's another favourite trick of Hitler's.
Are you sure you're not doing it on purpose?

[Seth]

Libertarianism is much harder because it requires actual intelligence, a mature, healthy adult personality and a set of ethics that doesn't include stealing from and enslaving others. That doesn't make it an unworkable system, it just makes it difficult to achieve. The first step is to let the dependent class exterminate itself by cutting off their goodies.

You sound remarkably like Hitler when you get going.

But I don't think you've got any of his charisma.

You know that he was mad, don't you?

Non-responsive ad hom. I declare a Godwin victory over you.

Declaring victory, that's another favourite trick of Hitler's.
Are you sure you're not doing it on purpose?

Whoa! Two Godwin victories in a row! What's the record for consecutive Godwin fails anyway?

[Blind groper]

Seth

Not meaning to be offensive, but I cannot but see your libertarian approach to law suits as being quite unrealistic.

If you are going to make everyone vulnerable to punishment if a law suit is found by a jury to be trivial or self serving, then no one will ever agree to use a law suit in the first place. All judges, lawyers etc would refuse to get involved.

In addition, I have no faith in juries. I have served on a jury twice, and seen the nonsense that goes on inside a jury room. When you pick "12 good men and true" or the equivalent from a random assortment of ordinary people, none of whom have any significant training or experience relevant to the task, you end up with monkeys.

Also, you did not answer my point about 222 lawyers in congress never permitting laws to be passed that will disadvantage their profession.

[Seth]

Seth

Not meaning to be offensive, but I cannot but see your libertarian approach to law suits as being quite unrealistic.

It does require a fundamental transformation of society it's true.

If you are going to make everyone vulnerable to punishment if a law suit is found by a jury to be trivial or self serving, then no one will ever agree to use a law suit in the first place. All judges, lawyers etc would refuse to get involved.

Unless they are good and honest people who speak the truth and do justice. All a judge is supposed to do is ensure that the process proceeds in an orderly and fair manner. If he does so the jury will have no reason to sanction him. Likewise, all the lawyers have to do is a) only take strong cases that cannot be resolved by other means; and b) do their jobs honestly and fairly with their eyes firmly fixed on justice, not winning.

In addition, I have no faith in juries. I have served on a jury twice, and seen the nonsense that goes on inside a jury room. When you pick "12 good men and true" or the equivalent from a random assortment of ordinary people, none of whom have any significant training or experience relevant to the task, you end up with monkeys.

That's true. Usually juries are selected in a way that removes from the panel anyone with a strong sense of justice or indeed any strong opinion at all. Attorneys want mindless and malleable jurors they can hornswoggle and persuade.

My system calls for juries to be selected at random, with no voir dire or other questioning or qualifying of the jury. Just the first 12 people called by random computer lot from among registered voters in that community. A random jury of one's peers.

And it's good and right that you have no faith in juries. This acts as a substantial bar to improper conduct on your part and it also dissuades you from burdening the courts with frivolous things that can and should be resolved between individuals using Libertarian principles. It's an encouragement to only bring to court the most serious of disputes that are of such importance, and which cannot be otherwise resolved, that it becomes worth the risk of being sanctioned for participating in the trial.

The purpose of the system is to keep people OUT of the courts as much as possible by making it risky and expensive to go to court in the first place.

If you can't argue your own case and convince 12 people of the rightness and justice of your claim you shouldn't be suing someone to begin with.

Back in the good old days of ye merry olde England you had to petition the King for redress, and if he thought you were wasting his time he could do as he pleased to you.

Scandinavian medieval practice was likewise open-ended and decided strictly by a jury.

Also, you did not answer my point about 222 lawyers in congress never permitting laws to be passed that will disadvantage their profession.

I've long said that the practice of law for pecuniary benefit should be a felony and that no person admitted to the bar anywhere in the world should be allowed to be a judge. I'll expand that to say that no person admitted to the bar anywhere should be permitted to run for or hold public office or make or interpret law.

[Blind groper]

Actually, Seth, I have come to an opposite conclusion to you about juries. I regard the office of juror to be too damn important to be entrusted to amateurs.

I would like to see juror becoming a profession. We select tertiary graduates, using test procedures which already exist to eliminate those who cannot recognise bullshit.

We then put them through a full year of training in which they learn everything they need to know, such as DNA evidence, basic law, forensics, psychology of witnesses etc. Those that pass get a diploma and offered a job as professional juror.

We could cut costs by trimming the jury to 6 instead of 12, because with more competent decision makers, fewer are needed. Those trained jurors would not be easily hornswoggled, and should be able to see through lawyer bullshit. They should be able to further cut the cost to the taxpayer by making quicker decisions, and telling lawyers to 'cut the crap' when appropriate. A shorter trial is a cheaper trial.

It would also be a good career path for people who end up with a degree but no idea what to do with it, as long as they could pass the bullshit recognition tests.

[Seth]

Actually, Seth, I have come to an opposite conclusion to you about juries. I regard the office of juror to be too damn important to be entrusted to amateurs.

I would like to see juror becoming a profession. We select tertiary graduates, using test procedures which already exist to eliminate those who cannot recognise bullshit.

We then put them through a full year of training in which they learn everything they need to know, such as DNA evidence, basic law, forensics, psychology of witnesses etc. Those that pass get a diploma and offered a job as professional juror.

We could cut costs by trimming the jury to 6 instead of 12, because with more competent decision makers, fewer are needed. Those trained jurors would not be easily hornswoggled, and should be able to see through lawyer bullshit. They should be able to further cut the cost to the taxpayer by making quicker decisions, and telling lawyers to 'cut the crap' when appropriate. A shorter trial is a cheaper trial.

It would also be a good career path for people who end up with a degree but no idea what to do with it, as long as they could pass the bullshit recognition tests.

There is some merit to this, but I suspect it will end up as it has before, with jurors becoming nothing more than functionaries in the prosecutorial system, much like public defenders are today.

The reason I think for a "jury of one's peers" is to reduce as much as possible the influence of the government on the decisions of juries. With paid jurors, the risk is that they are, as most government employees do, going to bias on the side of whomever issues their paychecks.

In my view, if a prosecutor cannot convince a jury of "amateurs" of the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, then the case is too weak to justify convicting the defendant.

And yes, it happens that juries are biased. Blatant bias was commonplace in trials involving blacks for a very long time, and in some places it's still a problem. But mostly that's because at that time, and these days where it happens the jury selection process practically ensures that the jury will NOT be made up of one's peers. Blacks were explicitly and covertly excluded from juries for a very long time, and still are in some places when the authorities think they can get away with it.

That's why I favor completely random juror selection and no challenges.

No trial is perfect, nor is anyone guaranteed a perfect trial by the Constitution, they are only guaranteed a FAIR trial by a jury of their peers. That's because any trial is a crap shoot because you're asking people to make an objective judgment about things that can be highly subjective in nature, and jury trial is the best anyone's come up with so far. It's far from perfect, but it's more perfect than anything else that's been tried. The key is that with a jury of one's peers, if they actually are, the influence of the government, which is always biased towards the prosecution no matter how hard it tries not to be, is minimized by letting non-professional citizens who might just as well be sitting in the dock do the actual deciding.

[Svartalf]

Grouper, your PoV on juries is interesting, but professionalizing the institution defeat its purpose (morons being judged by other morons).

[Blind groper]

My view on juries is based on personal experience.

Basically, if you call on a random selection of people, you end up with idiots, for the simple reason that most people are idiots.

To Seth.
Your idea requires totalitarian dismissal of personal liberty. If a person can opt out of jury service, it is no longer a random selection, since you are left with those who do not opt out, like retired people. If people are not permitted to opt out, then it is totalitarian.

[Svartalf]

What do you expect, that's the basis of the very idea of 'being judged by one's peers' . What kind of people do you think does most of the sitting in front of a jury anyway? Criminal masterminds?

[pErvinalia]

It's not a joke. That's anarcho-capitalism for you. I'm surprised you aren't fully aware that these are the views he holds. It's the same shit he's been sprouting since the rdf days.

Except it's not. You are simply incapable of understanding Libertarian philosophy because you don't want to, so you just disrespect it at every turn while deliberately and maliciously refusing to learn anything about the subject.

In other words, you're just an ignorant troll.

So why don't you just shut the fuck up and go back to swilling the beer the public paid for.

I'm a left libertarian, Seth. I know what libertarianism is. And I know exactly how your version differs from other versions and why it is ultimately fascistic.

You have never, in all the years I've known you, shown any evidence whatsoever of either being a Libertarian of any sort or of being in the least bit interested in having a rational discussion of Libertarianism much less having any accurate understanding of Libertarianism.

Your stock version is a ridiculous Alinsky-style Marxist fraud and you know it.

Therefore I deem it true that you are lying.

Look up my political compass results here (if I've done one here), ratskep and rdf. There's very few people who are more libertarian (and left) than me. If I'm lying, then I've constructed that lie over 6 years or so, just so I could tell you now that I am a left libertarian (of sorts). But you do love a conspiracy theory..

[mistermack]

Whoa! Two Godwin victories in a row! What's the record for consecutive Godwin fails anyway?

You can have as many as you like. When you post about exterminating whole classes of people, you will naturally be compared to Hitler. Godwin victories come free to nazis. Or are you so dumb, you never worked that out?

As they do when you do something stupid, and then declare a glorious victory.

So keep up with the Nazi stuff, and you can claim all the glorious victories you like.
It's only inside your own head, so it really doesn't matter to sane people in the real world.

[Seth]

Whoa! Two Godwin victories in a row! What's the record for consecutive Godwin fails anyway?

You can have as many as you like. When you post about exterminating whole classes of people, you will naturally be compared to Hitler. Godwin victories come free to nazis. Or are you so dumb, you never worked that out?

As they do when you do something stupid, and then declare a glorious victory.

So keep up with the Nazi stuff, and you can claim all the glorious victories you like.
It's only inside your own head, so it really doesn't matter to sane people in the real world.

What part of "exterminate themselves" did you fail to understand?

It's pure evolution. Cut off their goodies and they will either adapt or die. If they adapt, they are no longer part of the dependent class. If they die, well, that's their own fault now isn't it?

That's nothing to do with Hitler.

So you still lose.

[Blind groper]

You may not like the way they adapt. Traditionally, the people in society who cannot hold down a job will collect welfare or turn to crime. Personally, I would prefer my taxes pay welfare. It is a lot cheaper!