Re: Do you feel lucky, punk?

[jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>]

At 09:59 PM 3/11/96 -0500, Black Unicorn wrote:
>On Mon, 11 Mar 1996, jim bell wrote:
>
>> At 05:54 PM 3/11/96 -0500, Black Unicorn wrote:

>> >Not only is your law poor and badly reasoned,
>> 
>> Just what George Will said about this recent Bennis SC decision.
>
>My issue was with your application of the cite and decisions to the 
>pending bill.  

You keep saying this kind of thing, repeatedly, but you don't back it up 
with a contrary argument.


>> > your mastery of  the jurisprudence of forfeiture law flawed,
>> 
>> Ditto, and I notice you give no specific examples.  Why is that?
>
>My issue was, again, with regard to your choice of cites, 

Ah!  You simply didn't like me using that particular atrocious SC decision 
to suggest that we can't trust judges and courts in general!  


>the way you 
>chose to apply them to represent a general (and flawed) attitude toward 
>statuatory construction,

"Flawed"?  In what way?  You keep making claims that you don't back up with 
facts.  


> and the manner in which you try to mold all of 
>the above in a way suggesting it has the least bit to do with the bill in 
>question.

You keep making assertions that I'm wrong, but you don't demonstrate the 
"correct" interpretation according to your opinion.  Why is this?


>But, for the sake of equality, let's examine some of your legal assertions.  
>Or, more accurately, legal conclusions.  (BTW, where is your J.D. from?)
>
>1> In fact, I would argue that a remailer operator will actually be 
>considered MORE responsible, legally, than Mrs. Bennis:
>
>2> I argue that a person who runs an anonymous encrypted remailer could be
>clearly claimed to be  "entrusting" that "property" to someone else, under
>the meaning of the above paragraph.
>
>The "above paragaph," incidently, doesn't even rise to the level of court 
>dicta, but is a abstract of dicta by a court commentator.  Using such 
>authority to back a legal conclusion (especially when applied to an 
>entirely seperate legal area) is twisted at best, and dangerous at worst.

Let's suppose we agree that "George Will" is a "court commentator."  Suppose 
further that he, more or less, says "this decision sucks."  Because it DOES 
suck.  To any normal person, the knowledge that a educated, erudite, 
intelligent person who has published a newspaper and magazine column for 
years says "this decision sucks" (although he did it a lot less coarsely 
than I relate) should be of interest.  And most people of ordinary levels of 
intelligence can recognize that yes, the decision DOES suck.  And George 
Will, who has certainly NOT become successful as a commentator by boring the 
reader, understands that this decision is of interest to enough people to 
have it occupy one of his columns for a day.

Remember, one of the basic assumptions that any supporter of the Leahy bill 
could be making is that it will be interpreted INTELLIGENTLY by courts.  If 
it is obvious to most of the rest of us that those lunatics can't even make 
the correct decision about a woman's half-interest in a common automobile, 
then their ability to decide whether an anonymous encrypted remailer is 
somehow breaking the law merely by forwarding unidentified traffic is 
certainly in question.

The fact that you may not _like_ me bringing up a contemporaneous example 
where the SC stuck their collective heads firmly and completely up their 
respective asses is irrelevant.  If anything, it shows that you feel the law 
is and should be above the heads of the average individual, or even the 
UN-average, intelligent individual who regularly reads editorials in their 
local newspaper.

Such elitism is disgusting.

>3> At least, that is the position the prosecutors could surely take, 
>especially given this Supreme Court decision.
>
>Uh huh.  They might also take the position that the defendent is ugly, 
>and should be convicted.  That doesn't make it a legally viable argument.

Unfortunately, the only thing that determines whether, in fact, something is 
a "legally viable argument" is the dishonesty and stupidity and connivance 
of the person or people making the resulting decision, in this case the 
Supreme Court. (Or didn't you know that?)  It is, given the current 
make-up on the Supreme Court today.  Sad but true.  Naturally, this reality 
embarrasses you.  Your Emperor isn't wearing any clothes.


>> > and your rhetoric twisted, 
>> 
>> Again, you give no specific examples.  And what is "twisted rhetoric", at 
>> least as you've used it here?
>
>I'm not going to delve into semantics or be distracted by a war of the 
>dictionaries. 

But you already did.  You called my rhetoric "twisted."  "Twisted" implies 
that there is an "untwisted" version.  I await hearing it.  I'll probably be 
waiting a long time at the current rate you're getting to the point.

> You proport to be knowledgeable in these areas, and yet 
>say nothing of value.


I say nothing you want to hear.  That's precisely why you consider it of no 
value.


>  Your appeal (what of it there is) is based 
>entirely on skewing meanings, using critiques of dicta, and generally 
>applying inflamatory language taken out of context in a manner which suits 
>you.  I don't think I'm off base calling it "twisted."

"Inflammatory language"?  The real "inflammatory language" occurs every time 
a court makes yet another outrageous decision such as the ones you are 
weakly attempting (and miserably failing) to defend.

I notice you don't provide an alternative competing interpretation, either 
of my conclusions or those of George Will.  So how are we to know what 
"twisted" is if  you can't clearly show something which is "untwisted"?


>> Maybe you read that item too rapidly to notice that most of it was George 
>> Will's column, not my wording.  
>
>Again, its application to the bill is what I question.  All of which 
>throws your understanding of law, dicta, holdings, jurisprudence, and 
>rhetoric into question.  What you should have cited was some statuatory 
>construction and legislative history cases, not forfeiture law.  But how 
>could you be expected to know this?

I chose my example to display the foolishness of the Supreme Court, as well 
as each and every one of the courts below it that did not properly dispose 
of that Bennis case.  You find this disturbing.  But it's applicable to ANY 
law that may someday rely upon a SC decision to overturn or uphold.  
Anyone considering supporting the Leahy bill had better understand this.  
Naturally, you want to cover it up.


>> What, then, was the point of sending me the note, as well as wasting 
>> bandwidth on CP to share your unhappiness?
>
>Distribution of reputation capital (or in this case, negative reputation 
>capital).  I believe I also wanted to make a point (in 1,200 bytes) about 
>the utility (or lack thereof) of your article (10,500 bytes) on this list.

I'd glad to see you distributing YOUR "negative reputation capital."  Why 
not do a better job for yourself and make it look like you are actually more 
familiar with the legal system than the rest of us are (which shouldn't be 
hard, if you have the credentials), and challenge us with an alternative 
explanation of the facts I (and George Will) describe?

In other words, stop just saying I'm wrong and start DEMONSTRATING it, if 
you can.  Convince us that you're not just an elitist snob and that we 
should actually have confidence that the scum on the Supreme Court will be 
gone soon and replaced with people who know how to make a correct decision 
reliably.  At that point, the Leahy bill (with substantial modifications) 
will start looking a lot better to all of us.


Jim Bell

jimbell@pacifier.com

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