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What do you think the punishment for protection racket and extortion should be? Patent trolling is exactly that, except masking under the legal system.

by shmerl 3y ago

javajosh 3y ago
It's worse because it's coming from a particularly trusted position, an officer of the court. In the same way it is particularly heinous when a doctor physically harms someone for profit, it is particularly heinous when a lawyer legally harms someone for profit. In both cases they've taken specific oaths and have special duties above-and-beyond regular people to avoid doing such harm. In some sense the question of whether or not these bodies (doctors, lawyers, police officers) actually have higher standards or not is answered by what they do when they find a clear breach of conduct. If they do nothing, or rarely do anything to punish bad behavior, then they don't deserve their reputation for high standards and are, in fact, just a partisan group merely profiting off of a reputation of self-restraint.
- 20after4 3y ago
  I don't think lawyers have a reputation for holding themselves to a high standard. There is a reason that an entire genre of insulting jokes exist targeting lawyers integrity, or rather their general lack of integrity.
alistairSH 3y ago
Prison costs us a massive amount of money. For that reason alone, I’d be fine with many non-violent criminals being sentenced to monetary punishment and community service or something else that might add value back to society.
- westhanover 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - Brian_K_White 3y ago
    Spoken like someone who didn't lose a chance at a house or a college program or a kid or medical treatment or a job due to a thing like this. Fine, how about we give him a pony, it will be nicer. Hey this is cool, hyperbole is the best. So much easier than trying to actually figure anything out. Thanks for the tip. Were his actions accidents? Mistakes? Understandable human foibles we all might make? Is it physically possible for him to make all his victims whole by paying back money and un-fucking all the countless missed opportunities and plans etc? The answer to both of those questions is no. So what then? Prison already is the tempered response.

What do you think the punishment for protection racket and extortion should be? Patent trolling is exactly that, except masking under the legal system.

by shmerl 3y ago

What do you think the punishment for protection racket and extortion should be? Patent trolling is exactly that, except masking under the legal system.

javajosh 3y ago

It's worse because it's coming from a particularly trusted position, an officer of the court. In the same way it is particularly heinous when a doctor physically harms someone for profit, it is particularly heinous when a lawyer legally harms someone for profit. In both cases they've taken specific oaths and have special duties above-and-beyond regular people to avoid doing such harm. In some sense the question of whether or not these bodies (doctors, lawyers, police officers) actually have higher standards or not is answered by what they do when they find a clear breach of conduct. If they do nothing, or rarely do anything to punish bad behavior, then they don't deserve their reputation for high standards and are, in fact, just a partisan group merely profiting off of a reputation of self-restraint.

20after4 3y ago
I don't think lawyers have a reputation for holding themselves to a high standard. There is a reason that an entire genre of insulting jokes exist targeting lawyers integrity, or rather their general lack of integrity.

alistairSH 3y ago

Prison costs us a massive amount of money. For that reason alone, I’d be fine with many non-violent criminals being sentenced to monetary punishment and community service or something else that might add value back to society.

westhanover 3y ago
[flagged]
- Brian_K_White 3y ago
  Spoken like someone who didn't lose a chance at a house or a college program or a kid or medical treatment or a job due to a thing like this. Fine, how about we give him a pony, it will be nicer. Hey this is cool, hyperbole is the best. So much easier than trying to actually figure anything out. Thanks for the tip. Were his actions accidents? Mistakes? Understandable human foibles we all might make? Is it physically possible for him to make all his victims whole by paying back money and un-fucking all the countless missed opportunities and plans etc? The answer to both of those questions is no. So what then? Prison already is the tempered response.