5 ms·

> at least in the US the fact remains that if you're genuinely innocent you can have your day in court Innocent of what? With a complex and convoluted legal st

by maratd 14y ago

> at least in the US the fact remains that if you're genuinely innocent you can have your day in court Innocent of what? With a complex and convoluted legal structure, we are all criminals. You are guilty of something. And guess what? Even if you're not guilty of 99 of the 100 counts they bring against you, you're guilty of that one. Hello jail time! > do we have someone more sympathetic than a guy who looted his own companies and a serial killer to serve as an example of this kind of thing being done to genuinely innocent victims That's the government's take on things. They can describe you that same way tomorrow and you can scream "I'm innocent!" all you want ... everyone will still think you're a piece of garbage who deserves it. > In most other countries if the government hates you that much you'll have much worse to worry about. It is truly a sad day when "other countries" becomes the standard. When the United States of America was born, it was the sole country that elected its leaders and had a constitution that was written specifically to restrict government. Even now, that constitution is in the minority, even though it is the oldest constitution in use to date. Our standard shouldn't be "better than the rest" but rather "better than before". What I want is an America that is better than it ever was, without regard to anything else.

rayiner 14y ago
> Innocent of what? With a complex and convoluted legal structure, we are all criminals. You are guilty of something. And guess what? Even if you're not guilty of 99 of the 100 counts they bring against you, you're guilty of that one. Hello jail time! Drug convictions aside, are people actually going to federal prison for made up things? > That's the government's take on things. They can describe you that same way tomorrow and you can scream "I'm innocent!" all you want ... everyone will still think you're a piece of garbage who deserves it. This is what happens to people accused of blue-collar crimes, not white collar crimes. White collar crimes carry almost no stigma unless a conviction happens. > When the United States of America was born, it was the sole country that elected its leaders and had a constitution that was written specifically to restrict government. What a bunch of historically revisionist bullshit. The Constitution initially restricted the federal government, not the government in general. The states had unlimited power, inherited from the British sovereign, except that which they ceded to the federal government. They could lock you up without trial, take your property, deny you free speech, etc.
- lhnn 14y ago
  To your last point: You might be right, but it doesn't negate the idea of the America he and I wish to see: Something that is trule honest and something to be proud of, regardless of the competition.
  - rayiner 14y ago
    You can't be proud of something that generally works pretty well, but has flaws like any other human institution?
    - nitrogen 14y ago
      Not when those flaws are embraced, justified, and even praised.
- jpatokal 14y ago
  Close enough to it, see eg. the Lacey Act. Here's a link to somebody who got a two-year sentence in the US for importing lobster tails packed in plastic bags from Honduras, because under Honduran law it was illegal to do so -- and she went to jail anyway, even though Honduras pointed out that the law is off the books. http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/rightsandfreedoms/a/alobsterstail.htm http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/rightsandfreedoms/a/alobsterst...
  - rayiner 14y ago
    In this week's edition of "Don't Believe Everything You Read on the Internet": http://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/releases2004/mar04/noaa04-r119.html http://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/releases2004/mar04/noaa04-... These people went to jail because: 1) It's against (American) federal law to import wildlife taken in violation of the laws of another country; 2) The people in question took substantial measures to hide their smuggling activity; 3) The amount of illegal goods in question here was valued at millions of dollars. The fact that it was no longer illegal in Honduras doesn't matter, though the reason why is rather esoteric. In criminal matters, liability requires two concurrent elements: 1) an act; 2) a certain state of mind. You have to have both at the same time--one by itself won't do. E.g. if I'm in the woods hunting and I shoot and kill someone thinking they are a deer, I'm not guilty of murder because while I have engaged in every action required to commit the crime I did not have the requisite state of mind. Here, they imported wildlife, and they did so with the knowledge/belief that the wild life had been taken in violation of Honduran law. They were mistaken about whether the wild life had actually been taken in violation of Honduran law, but as a general rule mistakes do not change the outcome unless the mistake negates the state of mind. In this case, their mistake did not negate their guilty state of mind. The result seems harsh, but it's just the symmetry of the rule. It's no more conceptually unfair than say holding someone guilty of attempted murder.

by maratd 14y ago

rayiner 14y ago

> Innocent of what? With a complex and convoluted legal structure, we are all criminals. You are guilty of something. And guess what? Even if you're not guilty of 99 of the 100 counts they bring against you, you're guilty of that one. Hello jail time! Drug convictions aside, are people actually going to federal prison for made up things? > That's the government's take on things. They can describe you that same way tomorrow and you can scream "I'm innocent!" all you want ... everyone will still think you're a piece of garbage who deserves it. This is what happens to people accused of blue-collar crimes, not white collar crimes. White collar crimes carry almost no stigma unless a conviction happens. > When the United States of America was born, it was the sole country that elected its leaders and had a constitution that was written specifically to restrict government. What a bunch of historically revisionist bullshit. The Constitution initially restricted the federal government, not the government in general. The states had unlimited power, inherited from the British sovereign, except that which they ceded to the federal government. They could lock you up without trial, take your property, deny you free speech, etc.

lhnn 14y ago
To your last point: You might be right, but it doesn't negate the idea of the America he and I wish to see: Something that is trule honest and something to be proud of, regardless of the competition.
- rayiner 14y ago
  You can't be proud of something that generally works pretty well, but has flaws like any other human institution?
  - nitrogen 14y ago
    Not when those flaws are embraced, justified, and even praised.
jpatokal 14y ago
Close enough to it, see eg. the Lacey Act. Here's a link to somebody who got a two-year sentence in the US for importing lobster tails packed in plastic bags from Honduras, because under Honduran law it was illegal to do so -- and she went to jail anyway, even though Honduras pointed out that the law is off the books. http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/rightsandfreedoms/a/alobsterstail.htm http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/rightsandfreedoms/a/alobsterst...
- rayiner 14y ago
  In this week's edition of "Don't Believe Everything You Read on the Internet": http://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/releases2004/mar04/noaa04-r119.html http://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/releases2004/mar04/noaa04-... These people went to jail because: 1) It's against (American) federal law to import wildlife taken in violation of the laws of another country; 2) The people in question took substantial measures to hide their smuggling activity; 3) The amount of illegal goods in question here was valued at millions of dollars. The fact that it was no longer illegal in Honduras doesn't matter, though the reason why is rather esoteric. In criminal matters, liability requires two concurrent elements: 1) an act; 2) a certain state of mind. You have to have both at the same time--one by itself won't do. E.g. if I'm in the woods hunting and I shoot and kill someone thinking they are a deer, I'm not guilty of murder because while I have engaged in every action required to commit the crime I did not have the requisite state of mind. Here, they imported wildlife, and they did so with the knowledge/belief that the wild life had been taken in violation of Honduran law. They were mistaken about whether the wild life had actually been taken in violation of Honduran law, but as a general rule mistakes do not change the outcome unless the mistake negates the state of mind. In this case, their mistake did not negate their guilty state of mind. The result seems harsh, but it's just the symmetry of the rule. It's no more conceptually unfair than say holding someone guilty of attempted murder.