Steve Gagne

Brant -- What really got my goat was that, had I followed the State Attorney's rule on the previous case, half of the jury's discussions would have been effectively censored by prior restraint, possibly even forcing us to find for the defendant and to cause a loss for the State Attorney's office. And now I was expected to make that type of "commitment" to prior restraint, that is, to stifle the truth, prior to the trial even starting? Nope nope nope ... can't do THAT Ralph ... nope nope nope ... I seem to remember a Supreme Court Case decades ago where prior restraint was ruled unconstitutional, and a presidential administration was stopped from preventing the publishing of The Pentagon Papers ... yes, they went after The New York Times ... The Denver Post ... The Los Angeles Times ... The Washington Post ... The Detroit Free Press ...all courtesy of the antiwar Daniel Ellsberg ... now we have Julian Assange ... will the press support him the same, or as corporatist lapdog thugs, will they smear Assange & attempt to destroy him? But that's for another day. Back on subject, jury duty doesn't get pulled from DMV records around here but from voter id records, which require a physical address. Around here they take the jury calls seriously on the penalty side (bench warrants, followup visits by deputies, etc) but not so much on the notification side -- it's a little informal (1st class mail only / no certified letters, having to call into the court house to see if you are actually scheduled to be there, etc.). They wouldn't take me the first four times they called me either ... they were upset that I used to be a professional safecracker. Bigots. Nothing but pure prejudice. Bunch of haters. Heelots -- a bunch of heels, the whole lot of 'em!

327 for, 98 against, 7 nonvoting. Passed at 75%.

No, it doesn't !

But I already served on the jury a year ago, even ended being the jury foreman. It was a bad case -- domestic altercation between two young divorced kids being treated as criminal assault. The woman got drunk and tried to beat up the guy in front of their kid, and just ended up hurting herself. We the jury all thought it belonged in family court, and even spent the better part of an hour debating the merits of jury nullification on that one. But we all knew people who had dealt with family court, how there are no rights there, double jeopardy is practiced often, and we figured that the little girl would receive more mercy at the hands of a criminal court judge, who is ruled by law and established procedures, than she would at the hands of a family court judge, who is allowed to make up the law and procedures as he goes along. So on the basis of the facts presented to us, and under direction of the judge concerning the law, we DID convict her. But now this state's attorney is demanding we forego the type of discussions we made in the previous case? Unh-unh. But it's all a moot point now. They chose a bunch of airheaded ex-cheerleaders fresh out of highschool, who had zero understanding of the discussion at hand, and told them they HAD to do what the state's attorney told them too. Land of the free ...

I was called for jury duty monday. Court was jammed ... almost 200 people called to be culled, to try 3 different defendants of some nasty stuff. The screening process involved questioning us about backgrounds, beliefs, influences. There was the usual "no speak English", DWI's, some questions about my church's prison visitation ministry & "don't you think you're going to have too much sympathy for the defendant"'; a few raised eyebrows when I questioned any case involving capital punishment. They even excused a Civics teacher, BECAUSE she was a Civics teacher. Sheesh. But the zinger came when that state attorney stated that he wanted everyone to swear that they would automatically find someone guilty if the facts alone supported it, in accordance with the judge's reading of the law. Man, they got me. I launched into a tirade about jury nullification and how it is the citizen's last hope against egregious injustice, and how at no point does a human being EVER give up the right and responsibility of independent judgment, especially on a jury, and that the demand that we do so was fundamentally immoral. I went on for a while, including a few sharp exchanges in which I corrected the Judge Robert Pegg's deliberate misrepresentations of what I was saying; him accusing me of running around willy-nilly disregarding and disobeying the law, and me saying no, I am a LAW-ABIDING citizen, in that I ABIDE WITH, that is, I TOLERATE, the LAW AS AN INSTITUTION, with its inconveniences and petty imperfections, because it is the tool by which we make the social contract work, and we make civil society possible. I doubt anyone else in the room understood a word I said. Not even the Civics teacher. Needless to say, I didn/t get picked, even after 8-1/2 hours of this. What a waste of a day.

To everyone except the Old-Calendrists, Happy Easter!

But it really happened ...

Were we dealing with a court system that was even remotely rational, I would see it as Brant does, i.e., SCOTUS would lop off the single most egregious constitutional faux pas (the individual mandate), but then the justices would leave the rest of the law intact, refusing to act as an activist court by fully overriding the other two branches of government. This would probably be the full extent of cooperation that the Roberts/Alito/Scalia/Thomas/ axis could expect from the Breyer/Ginzberg/Sotomayor/Kagan axis if they were to try to make a rational decision. But of course they won't do that. Remember, you're dealing with nothing but lawyers here. What SCOTUS will do is find at least three (count'em: 3 !!!) obscure passages in the statute that in and of themselves are fairly innocuous, and blow them all out of proportion. They will then create out of whole cloth a "constitutional test" for each of these items, that consists of deliberately contradicting the explicit wording of both the statute and the Constitution. Compliance with these "tests" will become synonymous with compliance under the statute, and will define the only safety from the self-defined statutory fines, as well as the only protection from deprivation of 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th & 8th amendment rights under this statute, the NDAA, and the Protected Areas Act. Further, it will not even be a close decision, rather 7-2 in favor of the above. Of course at the base of it there will be the Breyer/Ginzberg/Sotomayor/Kagan decision, which will be joined by Kennedy (of course) and surprisingly, Thomas. Roberts will write a different but concurring decision, bringing it to seven (7). The two (2) dissenting opinions will be written by Scalia and Alito, and will be, at best, dry, technical, and disappointing, nothing on which to base a future reversal of decision. Anybody else need some cheering up ?

http://www.baynews9....ed_by_religiou/

Been following this for years. Depends on if it's petrofracking (ok) or water fracking (not so much). More info : http://email.angelnexus.com/ct/7269850:10557585243:m:1:176305702:5DF2B0E36C1B5AE65F9C06EA032AE5E0:r

I think we are all amused at stories about superstition, and "how could he possibly believe THAT????" As far any "doctrine" about atheists roasting in hell goes, some big mouth cardinal shooting from the lip does not constitute doctrine, and his proclamations are probably indicative of where he expects to end up himself. The fullness of Catholic doctrine is found in the Catholic Catechism. Could you, in your righteous erudition, possibly spare a mere uneducated mortal like me the time to find where it states that in the Catechism?

samr -- Michael questions your presumptions regarding the etiology of what you both consider a known hatred. I question whether you are identifying the entity "religious hatred" correctly. I am a theist, a convert to Roman Catholocism, and I bear no ill will toward atheists. In fact, I prefer dealing with an open-minded, honest atheist, over a closed-minded, dishonest believer. So there is no "religious hatred" here. [Please understand that if I plagiarize from the Bible below, I am not trying to browbeat you with some stupid argument from authority. The language of Christianity is that: a language, as well as a collected mythos which carries layers of meaning as an entity. Just as you cannot drive a car if you have deconstructed the tires or engine into their component parts, neither can you understand a mythos by deconstructing it. So if I do copy from the Bible, it is only because it says better, in a recognizable form, what I am already trying to say myself.] According to the Bible *I* read, although it does not preclude the existence or the plenipotentiality of the supernatural, it states that all that can be known about nature and the natural world, including the realm of morality, is open to be discovered in the natural realm, by our natural senses, without the necessity of supernatural interference. Thus I cannot consider verified science and logic as my enemies. But rather I consider the unnatural faith in the second-hand science and logic of others, and its deliberate misapplication to morality, known as scientism, to be anathema. The distinction is not well-understood in popular culture, nor amongst apologists of any persuasion. So there is no reason for a believer to "hate" anyone that states that morality is an objective necessity of survival, and is discoverable in reality, nor for the believer to call such a person a "moral monster". But there are those who deny even those objectivist tenets, and choose to use atheism as a smoke screen, to deflect from and to hide their own narcissism and solipsism. The fact is that these latter people are not true atheists, for they do have a God -- themselves -- which they erroneously believe to be both omniscient and omnipotent. Their self-made Gods are usually created in reaction to some untenable experience, entailing an abandonment by, or a violation of trust by, some authority figure earlier in their lives. These are the "moral monsters" who choose to make others live for them, but this is a psychological problem which does not admit of serious philosophical treatment. The reaction to these people by the believer is not hatred, but extreme pity bordering on disgust. Their hell may not be "chosen" in any popular sense of the word, but it is self-imposed. As far as the honest atheists go, their lack of "faith" for want of a better word, comes down to lack of evidence. I have no need to treat of this here, as when I received the evidence I needed in order to believe, I asked for it for me, not for you. I can't be convinced for you, nor you for me. You can't count on anyone else to figure out for you what and who you believe. Your own personal spiritual journey is your own, it's your own responsibility, and as a wise woman once wrote, "In the Temple of the Spirit, each man stands alone." But of course, you, being honest, had no intent in confounding the interactions of famous talking heads of the last several hundred years, be they religionists or anti-religionists, with the actions of assorted groups through history. That may be addressed as a question of scale. The standing-on-one-foot explanation of history: In at least 5 of the last 6 thousand-odd years of written human history, there has been a global climate shift roughly every 650 years (+/-), resulting in changes of agriculture, food, and wealth-building for various populations. These have resulted in various migrations, both big & small, resulting in conflicts between established populations and new arrivals in assorted areas. Of course these are battles over resources, over who has a stronger population, and who can take what they want. The victors are the ones who write the historical accounts, therefore the vanquished are generally portrayed as having "deserved" what they got, including what Michael identified as "scapegoating" (which, by the way, is a Biblical term). The labels are unimportant; what is important is whatever population (or gang) is ascendent at that time and place. This doesn't matter if we're talkins Rome and Carthage, Moors and Christians, Yorubans and Ibos, Scots and Irish, Serbs and Croats, Russian pograms, or whatever, they ALL follow the same motif: "GIMME !!!" "NO, YOU LEAVE ME & MY STUFF ALONE" And then the biggest badass wins. THE END. IOW, there's no such thing as religious hatred per se, just variants in gang warfare. The labels don't matter, except to gossips not interested in the truth. Positing a "religious hatred" toward atheists is an unnecessary construct. steve p.s. The word is "denunciations". No "o" in it.

These are not the questions you're looking for.

Yup. Thank you, Bob.

So maybe the future world currency will be the U.S.Dollar? In line with "The Money Masters", take a look at the candidacy of Warren Mosler, independent running for the U.S.Senate from CT. Mosler for Senate Required Reading A Platform?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2RAzjZ3zzY

Chris -- While I agree with you, you should check into the history of Shays' Rebellion, as well as of the resulting Alien & Sedition Acts. The power elites pre-existed & co-opted the revolution. The farmers of New England believed they were promised a Jubilee Year (legal cancellation of all debts -- biblical reference) as a reward for their supporting the Revolution. Without their involvement, the Revolution never would have gotten off the ground. This had been started with the American Continental Congress' "Tory Act" of January 2, 1776 (pre-dating the Declaration of Independence), requiring "education" of the people to support the Revolution, and imprisonment or expulsion of those who did not or would not support it (especially famous people). Following the war, this was reinforced by a popular interpretation of the act of the Continental Congress' "Grand Committee" of February 28, 1783, in which the United States government agreed to accept all the states' costs born of the revolutionary period, especially those of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. But once the Revolution was complete, the lawyers, banksters, mercantile interests, and their bought-and-paid-for governmental officials barred any such Jubilee event from occurring, confiscating hundreds of farms and homesteads from the debt-stricken farmers, under force of arms. When the farmers objected, and attempted to seek redress of their grievances, they were jailed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. They, of course, responded by forcing closure of the debrtor's courts, which resulted in their being attacked, killed, or driven out of the state. These farmers were then depicted as having committed sedition -- rebellion against "rightful" authority -- which resulted in the "Alien and Sedition Acts," the equivalent of our first "Patriot Act," with all its anti-liberty implications. Wiki page about it Page selling a DVD about it Another View steve p.s. Michael -- I had a bear of a time getting to see the video you posted. The link does not show as being embedded, just a plaintext rendition of all the html. Everyone else'e embedded youtube media links are ok though. Also, as another technical issue, the edit function on here requires me to select it twice before letting me actually edit the first time, i.e., I click on "edit", the screen says "Loading" at the top, then nothing happens. Then I click "edit" a second time, and THEN the edit screen comes up. It's been like this for a while.

Chris One wants to say that it was an interesting article, but that would not be true. Please understand that I am not taking a second-hand offense at this as a Randroid. I value objectivity, but I dispute some of Ayn Rand's key premises myself, and as a convert to Roman Catholicism I would hardly call myself an Objectivist. But that does not stop me from recognizing the "article" as a rude, crude, anti-Rand screed, nothing more. The article's author undervalues AR's contributions to the field of philosophy, misunderstands the nature of her philosophy's power, and seems to take great pleasure in dismissing her life's work, with no more basis than his own narcissism to go on. He also ignores the effort that it takes to actually understand what someone else may say; as if to say her philosophy could be absorbed through osmosis, by reading some out-of-context quotes, rather than making the very real effort to think, to abstract, to analyze, to integrate. It reads like it could have been written by Joseph Campbell. It appears there would be more to be gained from a different article in the same place. steve

Oh, stop it. The problem isn't in the FACT of your usage of American English, it's HOW you use it, like an unwelcome pop-up appearing on-screen. At times, it appears as contradictory to the persona you've been trying to project up to that point. It's not what I believe about Muslims, it's what I believe about you, personally. I do not yet trust what you've posted, here, there, or anyplace in-between. Or would you prefer to say now, "well, you wouldn' unnerstand, steve, 'cause it's a Moozlim thang" ?? OK, I consider justice systems that endorse mutilation and murder to be barbaric. I consider non-egalitarian social systems barbaric, no matter their compensatory adjustments. I consider belief systems that limit understanding and interfere with the free flow of information barbaric. I would be glad to elaborate sometime on how those judgements apply to any society (including my own). My criticism toward you was not so much against the recognized barbarity of any particular society, because that has existed before us, and will go on after we're gone, but, for lack of a better phrase, the weakness of your personal manifesto for a libertarian Muslim heaven-on-earth. You want to exclude yourself from barbarity as much as any of us here -- what is your own coherent vision? Do you have one? In page after page after page, I've read your defensive answers, picking the best of nits against any o-ist nitpickers, but (and maybe it is just the medium of a bbs) there is a lack of coherence. You said, "only to clarify what my understanding is of Islam which has been my intention all the while" -- clarify it to whom? Not to me. This is an additional factor in my distrust toward you, which your credentials, as hard-earned as they may be, cannot assuage. Why do you think it took me a month to respond? It took me this long to get past what I thought was an inordinate amount of irrational attacks on you. Now, as far as "inherently libertarian", there are social practices within some Muslim societies that contradict this. If you regard these practices as expendable, and have at least some idea of how to go about it, I have not seen it posted yet. Furthermore, there is consistency, and then there is consistency. Consistency with past practices cannot be equated to consistency with purpose or principle. And sometimes, there is consistency in terminology, which can hide differences in ideas, or confuse them. This is what my last point was speaking to -- that there is a logical paradigm justifying your position, of which the advocates of logic are ignorant, and you have not made plain, choosing to hide inconsistent ideas behind consistent terminology. But why should I have to state it for you? You're a grown man, aren't you?

Jeffrey I agree with your idea concerning government being "informal" in decentralized societies. Regarding "who guards the guards", this must become the crux of the argument when the anthropological etiology of government is ignored. It is irrelevant, though, when the human purpose of government is studied: All institutions are extensions of the family, and if derived from any other source, are nothing more than a floating abstraction used to justify the actions of "the bullies". And regarding pre-monarchical Israel, please note that I spoke to, not only its existence, but to its rise and fall. During that time, there was a generally-agreed-upon monetary standard, no police, no legislators, no standing army, but generally there was freedom, peace, private property, and prosperity. The problems that ended this era arose when "public opinion polls" revealed that "the people" were not satisfied with the informal, decentralized system that had been in place previously, demanding that the prophet-judge Samuel "make us a king to judge us like all the nations": So that is exactly what Samuel did, but not without warning the people about what the cost of a centralized force would be: Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, "Nay; but we will have a king over us; that we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles." Samuel heard all the words of the people, and he rehearsed them in the ears of the LORD. And the LORD said to Samuel, "Hearken unto their voice, and make them a king." And Samuel said unto the men of Israel, "Go ye every man unto his city." (I Samuel 8:10-22) Conscription, confiscatory taxation, slavery, and no moral sanction to reject it. This, then, is the "promise" of any centralized government, no matter what proposition or pretense is used to justify its formation. steve

Whilst it certainly is a possibility that Judas was crucified instead (and boy would he have deserved it for his betrayal), I don't believe that the Qur'an specifies as much and therefore, I won't say that was the case at all. The Qur'an states: That they said (in boast), "We killed Christ Jesus the son of Mary, the Messenger of Allah";- but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein are full of doubts, with no (certain) knowledge, but only conjecture to follow, for of a surety they killed him not:- Nay, Allah raised him up unto Himself; and Allah is Exalted in Power, Wise;- (Qur'an 4:157-8) Adonis -- I don't believe I have engaged in this discussion up to this point, mostly for lack of time rather than lack of interest. Playing catchup on a backward-dated bbs like solo was bad enough. The thread here bounded forward faster than I could keep up with as well. At first I agreed with Michael, that you sounded much like a Sufi, or least out of the Donmeh. I regarded the name-calling on the part of supposedly rational people to be immature and stupid. But I have revised my understanding. I have a few observations: 1) No matter how learned you make yourself appear concerning Islam, I do not believe you are a Muslim of any stripe. Your command of American idiomatic English, in contradistinction to British or International English, leads me to believe you are an American prankster, just yanking everyone's chain. In internet parlance, a troll. 2) You yourself have been confronted with criticism after criticism of barbarism (entra alia), yet you have never actually repudiated those accusations, nor dissociated yourself from the philosophical movement within Islam that has advocated this barbaric behaviour in the present day. (If you know its name, say so, otherwise I must believe that you are ignorant of it. It has already been discussed here on this board before.) This leads me to believe you are attempting to repudiate Islam through "guilt by association". 3) You have not shown any logical basis why an Islamic -- or any theistic -- worldview would be compatible with the love of personal freedom. There IS a logical paradigm, but I have yet to see you put it forward. Considering the long Islamic tradition of the preservation of world philosophic writings and the love of rational learning, such a presentation in logical terms should have been child's play for you. Your failure to present it can be viewed as a willing ignorance as to either its substance or its necessity; you either have no knowledge of this paradigm, or you disrespect your audience so much in that they do not deserve a straight answer, or you disrespect Islam in that you can not be bothered to communicate it to anyone in rational terms.

Adam Adam - More others' testimony (quoted here 3 years ago) rather than the two experiences I've had with it...but then, no guarantees about THEIR "sanity". BTW...3.27?????? What's wrong with IV?????? steve

Reminds me of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ee3J4fbkxYo

Since I haven't been here as long as J has, his thread had fallen into the back before I ever saw it. Thanks, Michael.

Much better than my own. I hope that the sentiments stated aren't specific to a situation. If so, you're looking for a broken heart.