What can you do?

Ah, but your question was very thought provoking, and posed succinctly. In these days of internet articulation abandonment, it's great to see a serious subject brought forth in a serious manner.

Armed revolt is about it at this point. Liberal fucktard judges constitute the majority of our appellate court system, the state courts aren't much better. The US Supreme Court is considered very conservative for a federal court, yet holds three raving lunatics that repeatedly disregard the Constitution in nearly all of their opinions(the only true thing left at this point is the label they've given themselves), one that only disregards it most of the time, two that disregard it anytime a previous judge has disregarded it on the same issue, two that usually follow it, and only one that always does. Until they stop making up the laws as they go, we're pretty much fucked. The unconstitutional instructions the judge gave his jury for instance. The jury is there to decide guilt or innocence, justice and law are not the same thing.

The odds of getting congress to enact legislation to fix the problem are about as good as the odds of a rational tax code. We can't even get them to fix immigration, and even the Hispanic population is in favor of kicking the illegals out.

Um excuse me but my difficulte are from the wonderful conservative judges rules not the liberals. also armed revolt? the threat of armed revolt is what has created this mess.

In my case it was judged on the law, not on justice.. that would be the strict conservative construction.

Well, I'm not entirely sure about what he means with this question. Are you asking if there is anything we can actually do with the prison system . . . ? Or are you asking spacepony what he can actually do now? I seem to think it's the former and if you are asking it, then you are the problem. I hate using that cliche (or any cliche for that matter), but what it comes down to is if you think you have no power, then you don't. This country is supposed to be ours. We are supposed to direct change. But we are constantly told that we don't and that people no longer gather and make change, so we become more complacent, which in turn ends up creating a self fulfilling prophecy. If you believe that things won't change for the better and that you have no power, then that is exactly what is going to happen.

And no, I don't believe positive thoughts and beliefs alone will change things, but actions without some forethought don't usually turn out for the best.

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I actually wanted to respond to the article about the GPS tracking and inmates.

"That capability has some critics questioning whether the technology is too Orwellian."

I for one am pretty paranoid about most things, but I don't see how using GPS tracking on inmates is Orwellian. Is having some technology attached to your leg any different than cameras and a whole slew of guards?

The proposed idea of the GPS attached to your ankle while not in jail seems a bit more Orwellian, but I think I would take that option over jail/prison time. The whole thing about the speaker telling you that you are in a "bad area" is preposterous, but as a tracking device for people who would normally have been in prison seems like a decent alternative. So you know when they leave the state or that they've been visiting a purported drug safehouse seems more viable than just letting convicted people walk.

Who this would apply to and the rule surrounding it seem like a more important question that whether or not Big Brother is an issue. Not all technology equates to Big Brother.

Now when we all are tracked, then I will raise hell.

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I think he means armed revolt against the government. Overthrowing them and starting over again.



And that seems like a complete and total overstatement, but whatever.

I meant what Jobs spacePoney can still do aftear he lost several of his licenses.

Conservative does not equal hard ass. The current set of laws regarding things like use of appropriate force are based on fictional foundation. They aren't part of the law at all. It's like the Miranda rights, you have no actual law saying that. What you have is a ruling by a judge or a panel of judges that says you do. You have the right to remain silent and the right to legal counsel, but there is no legal foundation for making the police inform you of your rights. Stare decisis was not meant to allow judges to create new law for others to follow.

The defense of yourself, others, and your property is inviolate and cannot be infringed upon. All restrictions go against constitutional law by restricting what are considered natural rights and protected by the enumeration clause. Philadelphia self defense laws are founded upon the "retreat to a wall" ruling. This philosophy dictates that you are only allowed to defend yourself when you have no other choice, and propagates to the other defense scenarios. It has no legal foundation and is clearly unconstitutional as states are not allowed to infringe on your natural rights. If you had a true constructionist judge, he would have given no such instructions to your jury. If your appellate courts were constructionist, they would never have made and upheld such a flawed ruling in the first place. Without the liberal judges rewriting the legal foundation of society, you would never have been charged in the first place, and by rights could have killed the guy for attacking your mother.

Very true, this is simply how liberals have painted them because conservatives have painted liberals as hippies lol. It goes back and forth.


That's pretty hard ass man.

beat him up not kill him. From what SpacePoney said is that the guy knocke his mothers phone out of her hand and then push her. Killing him would have him in Huge trouble. Even though a father did kill his son over a crap cake.

My mother was seventy five at the time and had she fallen and broken her hip it could have proven fatal. Thank god my mother is physically fit for a woman her age.

I would like to mention that I am currently filing an appeal on this case and I think I have found a way I am going to win.

Bases is that I was given an illegal sentence. My charge was originally classified as an M2 the district attorney asked to have it raised to an M1. The Judge declined the motion. I was however convicted of an M1 and it is stated on my record as an M1 and I was sentenced based on an M1. The only case law on this is out of Massachusetts and in both cases the convictions were tossed on the bases of an implied right to a speedy sentence




So, that might lead to me obtaining post conviction relief.


Oh, I can do any work that does not require state or federal licensing. I can be a ditch digger, waiter, gas station attendant, most anything in the construction industry as a laborer.

I am not in a protected class so I can be fired by any company that decides they don’t want “someone like me” working for them. I was in fact fired from one job that paid me $750.00 per week for part time work (twenty hours a week) for that very reason back in October.

One occuppation that is open to me and I am not kidding, Law enforcement either as a cop, prison guard or even as a lawyer... I could still even be a judge or a politition.. but not a real etate agent!

"My mother was seventy five at the time and had she fallen and broken her hip it could have proven fatal."

Context is everything, I doubt I'd kill someone for such, but in the hospital they would go for sure. My personal reaction is not the issue though, it's what reciprocation is in your rights. When you assault a person in a manner that could end in their death, you should expect a retaliation on the same level. An attempt to relieve you or someone else of life, liberty or property can be met with a removal of their own life, as simple as that. That the guy almost surely wasn't attempting to kill his mother is why he'd probably live in my case, but it was no less a lethal attack than if he'd shot at her and missed. You don't fuck with old people.

Edit: Good luck on getting your conviction thrown out. If that avenue doesn't work, you might try appealing the after effects as well. It is also unlawful to restrict access based on prior convictions, the government is not allowed to discriminate against an individual based on prior conduct. I expect you wouldn't have much luck with it, but the law would definitely be on your side, voting rights are the only thing they have the power to abridge for criminal conviction. The ownership and use of firearms is explicitly guaranteed and has no such provision, they're flat corrupt to let that one slide.

Mine being a misdomeanor I can own a gun as soon as my parole / probation is over.

as far as me beating him up what I ddi wrong was I stopped and made a phone call. I did not call 911 I called my lawyer. It was concluded that I had him subdued and at the point the "coming to the aid of another" exemption to the law was no longer present.

It was stated that because I stopped, saught legal consul and then beat him up that no imminint danger existed or could I resonably assert that I thought one did.. How could there be an imminint danger if I can stop doing it, call someone and then begin again?

That is what got me screwed, that and my dragging him by his balls out the door! I really don't think he will be fathering any kids... ever!

You deserved the jail time.

There's a fine line between giving aid and handing out revenge, and from the description you gave, you crossed it. Grabbing him and holding him was fine, but there is zero reason for you to beat him up. It's up to the judge to hand out punishments - it's not up to you, nor should it be.



It wasn't saving her that landed you in jail. It was going beyond saving her and performing extra, totally unnecessary violence.



He just stole a cell phone. You beat him up. Yeah, you should've handled the situation differently. It's not your right to teach people lessons. You're not supposed to be judge, jury, and executioner. That's the job of the legal system.



The lesson is to be given by the legal system, not by you. Sorry, but when people give out their own "justice," we end up with a lot of people going overboard and handing out punishments far beyond what the other person really deserves. Anger and revenge often make crimes a lot worse than they really are, and blow up situations beyond control. A third party to make judgments and hand out sentences is the accepted way of doing things, because a third party is a lot more level headed and reasonable than somebody burning with anger and a desire for revenge. Sorry, but I really don't have much sympathy for somebody who beats up another person, even if the other person wronged them. Two wrongs do not equal a right, and revenge is not a healthy way of handling a crime.

Haha. Nice. That's what happens when I let someone else's post influence me. I completely thought this is what you meant when I first read it. Sorry, I should just go with my gut reaction.

The legal system run by lawyers that gives child molesters less jail time than drug dealers is better than personal justice eh?

The law does not define justice, the law is supposed to be defined by it. Which is sadly not the case.

That he knew he was going to get it for his reasonable retaliation and had the forethought to call his lawyer is a sign of intelligence, if not enough to realize that calling his lawyer was going to cause him more trouble in the end. Assuming I was thinking clearly, not a guaranteed thing, I would avoid any actions which could be construed as an admission of guilt. That necessarily excludes preparation for the actions of our unjust legal system.

Two wrongs do not make a right, but two wrongs do require two wrongs. If someone attacks someone without cause and you put them in the hospital, there was only one wrong. If you educate yourself on the meaning of justice instead of listening to modern drivel, you'll find that by definition, he dispensed justice.

There is no justice in sending someone to prison for dispensing justice, thus it was the legal system that caused an injustice.

If you're interested, read up on natural law, it is the foundation of our legal system. The current perversion comes from the ass backward idea that justice is the promotion of harmony. There was great promotion of harmony in Germany through the final solution, there sure as hell wasn't justice.

We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal."

--Martin Luther King, Jr.

Thats o.k I should have made more clear to avoid confusion.

This seems to be getting intresting. But the thing is for a legal system to work you need to rely on the people how are in charge. And people are going to need to rely on there gut and their brains and that is going to mean that there is going to difrent court orders for a case becaue a judge has a diffrent view on the situtaion. The thing is that you really cant change that. But you can remove gray areas in the law. Watching Law and order I see lawyers going back and forth debating what something means so it can suite there case. These grey areas should be removead so someone can say this is what this supreme cour order means so here it goes. I dont think I made that really clear so if you dont now what I am saying I can try to refrase it.

You have it correct.. 100%

Three kinds of people really get my vote in a big way:

1. Those who stand up to be counted for what they believe in irrespective of the Popularity Vote - given a Logical stance on the topic in question, lunatics need not apply.

2. Those who are loyal to their friends and colleagues - in both good times and bad

3. Those who are prepared to either acknowledge they were wrong, or will unreservedly take a Hit, knowing they were wrong, when doing the two above activities.

From where I sit SpacePony scores on all three - despite my own feelings against vigilante activities.

Regards
Zy

Nor do I.

I do have sympathy with consequences being out of all proportion to the offense.

I spent 25 years in the military, my respect for, and adherence to, the Rule of Law is absolute. I also acknowledge that The Law cannot prescribe for all scenarios, we would never stop writing the case law. The Law has to be as clear cut and unambiguous as possible. The latter will never be perfect, human beings are complex beasts.

The provision for that is in sentencing and giving Judges the latitude to take into account circumstances. Many individuals are placed under suspended sentence for blowing away an unarmed intruder with the legal shotgun they had in the house. A direct parallel? Of course not, only an illustration of the principle of latitude, not insane strict adherence to the Rule of Law.

The Law in of itself is not there to dispense "justice", facilitate it for sure, but its not the principle methodology of dispensing Justice - Judges and Juries are. "Justice" is a subjective entity that depends on the moral code in vogue at the time in terms of right and wrong. The Rule of Law lays down "the rules of the game", Justice is the execution of the Rule of Law. Only Judges and Juries can do that.

Judges and Jurys are appointed by us to oversea what we consider to be morally correct, The Law cannot do that, our moral code and our sense of "Justice" is far too subjective and a moveable beast. In any case, as a crude illustration how do you describe the taste of Strawberries? You cant! In the same way, many aspects of our moral code are hard if not impossible to lay down in writing - back to the bureaucrats again..

The Law does not drive Justice, and god forbid it ever should. The Law would end up a never ending stream of bureaucratic self interest driven emotional guff. The Law is the bedrock for all decisions, not the decision itself - only a Judge and Jury can make decisions, and only a Judge and Jury can dispense Justice. It is a seemingly small but Hugely important principle, its not playing on words.

In SpacePony's case that principle is central to what happened to him. He broke the Law - as to his undying credit he has never denied - and there is no doubt some kind of sentencing for it was definitely appropriate (in my view a suspended sentence). In my view Justice was not served in his case, the consequences to him, with the sentence handed out in those particular unique circumstances, were far too high for the offense committed, and the Judge should have taken that into account. In that sense Justice was not served, and the System failed.

I hope his appeal succeeds, and sentencing changed to a reduced level. Not Guilty is not appropriate, a much reduced sentence due to the circumstances surrounding this particular case very definitely is, and should have been applied in the original Trial.

Regards
Zy

"The provision for that is in sentencing and giving Judges the latitude to take into account circumstances. Many individuals are placed under suspended sentence for blowing away an unarmed intruder with the legal shotgun they had in the house. A direct parallel? Of course not, only an illustration of the principle of latitude, not insane strict adherence to the Rule of Law."

One could also ask why such an insane case ever happened in the first place. Killing an intruder of any type should be the default action. You cannot put the onus of restraint on the victim, your nightmare scenario is already the case.

You can and must. Where does it stop? Blow someone away just because they upset your way of thinking? Blow his head off because he was drunk at the time and happened to be coming in a window because his key didnt fit the door - ie bye bye neighbor? Exterminate the latest proponent of road rage as he thumped the car door?

Extremes of course, but so is killing someone who is unarmed and provides no threat to physical life or well being. Precisely why we need Judges to give a sense of balance to the whole thing, else we would all be dealing out retribution just because we think its right. That road is the road to mayhem and anarchy, and why so many people fought for decades - centuries - to win basic freedoms.

Clearly it can be the case that an intruder raises the whole situation to a point where the occupant does genuinely feel threatened, in those cases thats where the Judge should step in, and very often do - unconditional discharge from the Case is common if the Victim can demonstrate reasons why they felt threatened, as clearly in many such cases they will.

Nonetheless, what cannot happen is for people to take the Law into their own hands without some kind of external review/judgement afterwards on their justification for such actions at the time of the event. It never works whatever emotion drives it. It just leads to individuals taking the law into their own hands whatever the law says - and the latter really is a nightmare.

Regards
Zy

I'm not certain I believe that. The only philosophy I know of that establishes that is the philosophy of revenge, not the philosophy of justice.



The reason for "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" philosophy found in many religions is to establish that the punishment should fit the crime. A punishment should not exceed the crime. This is far older than the "modern drivel" you accuse me of using.



That is the modern drivel, if there is any. The idea that there is some sort of "natural law," and that this "natural law" is more desirable than other philosophies of justice is far younger than most other philosophies of justice I am aware of.



I believe that "natural law" is perverse and ass backwards. Promotion of harmony is good, but it's not the philosophy of justice I follow either. I can guarantee I would not be harmonious in that situation either. I would be very rough in restraining the criminal and ensuring the criminal is not able to continue freely in his actions. I might even attempt to knock out the criminal if the criminal proves to be uncooperative. I would not, however, attempt vigilante justice.

No, I wouldn't be nice or harmonious to the criminal, don't get me wrong there. I'd be as brutal as necessary to restrain the criminal. But I would certainly not attempt further violence if the criminal is under control. That is not justice; that is revenge.