On 20-12-2010 23:17, Stephen wrote:
> On 20/12/2010 8:31 PM, andrel wrote:
>>
>> (So the British are just as bad in understanding what goes on in another
>> country. Interesting.)
>
> What! Have you no sense of history, Andrel? ;-)

I am Dutch, we have no sense of history. We are famous for it actually.

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On 20/12/2010 10:27 PM, andrel wrote:
> On 20-12-2010 23:17, Stephen wrote:
>> On 20/12/2010 8:31 PM, andrel wrote:
>>>
>>> (So the British are just as bad in understanding what goes on in another
>>> country. Interesting.)
>>
>> What! Have you no sense of history, Andrel? ;-)
>
> I am Dutch, we have no sense of history. We are famous for it actually.
>
>

Pardon me for contradicting you, but the Dutch are famous for being 
“plain spoken”. Maybe it is just Hollanders that do not have a sense of 
history. ;-)

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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On 20-12-2010 23:56, Stephen wrote:
> On 20/12/2010 10:27 PM, andrel wrote:
>> On 20-12-2010 23:17, Stephen wrote:
>>> On 20/12/2010 8:31 PM, andrel wrote:
>>>>
>>>> (So the British are just as bad in understanding what goes on in
>>>> another
>>>> country. Interesting.)
>>>
>>> What! Have you no sense of history, Andrel? ;-)
>>
>> I am Dutch, we have no sense of history. We are famous for it actually.
>>
>>
>
> Pardon me for contradicting you, but the Dutch are famous for being
> “plain spoken”.

That too. I try to live up to that here in this group.

> Maybe it is just Hollanders that do not have a sense of
> history. ;-)
>

I think it is much broader them just the main cities in the west. Ask a 
Dutchman to cite a bit of Joost van den Vondel and you probably have to 
explain that he is for Dutch literature what Shakespeare is for the 
English. Ask to name the Dutch Nobel prize winner at the beginning of 
the 20th century 'were there any?'.
In short: I am Dutch, I can't cite any Dutch poems or other literature, 
I don't know any influential Dutch people from before I was born outside 
my own field, I assume that the industrial revolution started in 
England, I cannot date when William of Orange lived to within one or two 
centuries, Napoleon wasn't that a French general? etc.

In my experience English people often know more from Dutch history than 
we do. I know other countries are also in the process of loosing 
historical knowledge in the young generation. Yet I think are still 
better than the others because we have a much longer experience with it. 
(Or have we?)

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andrel wrote:
> Napoleon wasn't that a French general? etc.

I think you just proved your point. ;-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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andrel <byt### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> On 20-12-2010 21:48, Warp wrote:
> > andrel<byt### [at] gmailcom>  wrote:
> >> He was consistently trying to provoke violence towards groups of
> >> people by selective portrayal of individual actions as that of a whole
> >> group (while trying to keep within the boundaries of what is just not
> >> racism). He was also trying to anger a lot of Dutch people that happened
> >> to have immigrant forefathers, apparently hoping that one of them would
> >> be so angry that he would misbehave. Or so at least is one view on what
> >> he does.
> >> The case against him was therefore on provoking violence and not on
> >> freedom of speech, just as Assange's case is on rape and not freedom of
> >> speech.
> >
> >    Good to see you are not prejudiced in the least.

> I try not to be, indeed. (unless you meant it cynical, in which case I 
> would be interested to know on which side my prejudices are)

  I was referring to your *assertion* that he was "trying to provoke
violence" etc, as if it was a given and something clear to everybody, in
the same vein as if someone had broken a window with twenty eyewitnesses
and five security cameras clearly testifying about it without any possible
doubt. It sounded like you were saying "he did that, and the only remaining
question is if he should be punished and how much".

  There are many other reasons why someone would publish a critique of
a phenomenon (regardless of whether that critique is accurate or not, or
whether it's presented in a misleading way or not, either intentionally
or not). Outright claiming "it was made to provoke violence" is prejudice.

> In general the majority in a country has to be able to get more 
> criticism than a minority.

  That's an interesting assertion, and something I don't necessarily fully
agree with. The main reason why I don't fully agree with it is because it
is contradictory with the basic tenet of equal rights: Everybody should have
the same rights and duties regardless of background, ethnicity, sexual
orientation, and so on. Everybody should be judged equally before the law.
This is one of the fundamental principles of human rights and constitutional
freedom and equality.

  A country which claims in its constitution (or otherwise) that everybody
is equal before the law, but at the same time applies law differently on
different groups of people based eg. on background, has a double standard.

  Being more lenient of criticism of the "majority" and stricter of criticism
of a "minority" is a double standard and, as said, contradictory with the
fundamental principle of equality.

> If that minority is more vulnerable.

  More vulnerable to what? To getting offended?

  Why is it more permissible to offend the majority but less permissible
to offend a minority? What difference does it make? How is offending a
minority a worse crime than offending the majority? That *is* a double
standard.

  (How do you even *define* the "majority" that needs less protection?
There was once an article, I think it was on a major British newspaper
website, that over 50% of the population of the UK belongs to a protected
minority. Ironically this means that less than 50% of the population
belongs to the sector that gets no special protection from the law,
making them effectively a minority themselves.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 20/12/2010 11:22 PM, andrel wrote:
>
>> Maybe it is just Hollanders that do not have a sense of
>> history. ;-)
>>
>
> I think it is much broader them just the main cities in the west. Ask a
> Dutchman to cite a bit of Joost van den Vondel and you probably have to
> explain that he is for Dutch literature what Shakespeare is for the
> English. Ask to name the Dutch Nobel prize winner at the beginning of
> the 20th century 'were there any?'.

I'm sure that the same goes, here.

> In short: I am Dutch, I can't cite any Dutch poems or other literature,
> I don't know any influential Dutch people from before I was born outside
> my own field, I assume that the industrial revolution started in
> England,

We think so but prefer to say it started in Britian. :-P

> I cannot date when William of Orange lived to within one or two
> centuries, Napoleon wasn't that a French general? etc.
>

They both had a profound influence on British culture and history so we 
know a bit about them.

> In my experience English people often know more from Dutch history than
> we do.

That could be that the Brits you have met took the trouble to find out 
about the country they were visiting. I did when I worked for Philips in 
Eindhoven and did the same in other countries. The only exception was 
when I was working in Zagreb, I thought it best not to know :-)

> I know other countries are also in the process of loosing
> historical knowledge in the young generation.

True. :-(

> Yet I think are still
> better than the others because we have a much longer experience with it.
> (Or have we?)

Do you?

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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On 21-12-2010 11:07, Warp wrote:
> andrel<byt### [at] gmailcom>  wrote:
>> On 20-12-2010 21:48, Warp wrote:
>>> andrel<byt### [at] gmailcom>   wrote:
>>>> He was consistently trying to provoke violence towards groups of
>>>> people by selective portrayal of individual actions as that of a whole
>>>> group (while trying to keep within the boundaries of what is just not
>>>> racism). He was also trying to anger a lot of Dutch people that happened
>>>> to have immigrant forefathers, apparently hoping that one of them would
>>>> be so angry that he would misbehave. Or so at least is one view on what
>>>> he does.
>>>> The case against him was therefore on provoking violence and not on
>>>> freedom of speech, just as Assange's case is on rape and not freedom of
>>>> speech.
>>>
>>>     Good to see you are not prejudiced in the least.
>
>> I try not to be, indeed. (unless you meant it cynical, in which case I
>> would be interested to know on which side my prejudices are)
>
>    I was referring to your *assertion* that he was "trying to provoke
> violence" etc, as if it was a given and something clear to everybody, in
> the same vein as if someone had broken a window with twenty eyewitnesses
> and five security cameras clearly testifying about it without any possible
> doubt. It sounded like you were saying "he did that, and the only remaining
> question is if he should be punished and how much".
>
>    There are many other reasons why someone would publish a critique of
> a phenomenon (regardless of whether that critique is accurate or not, or
> whether it's presented in a misleading way or not, either intentionally
> or not). Outright claiming "it was made to provoke violence" is prejudice.

When I read your remark I realized that I did something that I should 
not do in a conversation with you. I deliberately overstated and added 
'just as Assange's case is on rape and not freedom of speech'. Which was 
intended as a signal that I also don't believe what I wrote in the 
preceding paragraph. From previous experience I should have known that 
you are likely to miss that, so I should not have done that, my 
apologies for that.

To be clear: what I wrote is what some people believe, e.g. the ones 
that wanted to prosecute Wilders. It does not reflect what I think.

>> In general the majority in a country has to be able to get more
>> criticism than a minority.
>
>    That's an interesting assertion, and something I don't necessarily fully
> agree with. The main reason why I don't fully agree with it is because it
> is contradictory with the basic tenet of equal rights: Everybody should have
> the same rights and duties regardless of background, ethnicity, sexual
> orientation, and so on. Everybody should be judged equally before the law.
> This is one of the fundamental principles of human rights and constitutional
> freedom and equality.
>
>    A country which claims in its constitution (or otherwise) that everybody
> is equal before the law, but at the same time applies law differently on
> different groups of people based eg. on background, has a double standard.
>
>    Being more lenient of criticism of the "majority" and stricter of criticism
> of a "minority" is a double standard and, as said, contradictory with the
> fundamental principle of equality.

I am just describing what happens in practice. If you don't like it for 
philosophical reasons, try to find another planet to live on.

>> If that minority is more vulnerable.
>
>    More vulnerable to what? To getting offended?

physical violence, economic exclusion, that sort of thing.

>    Why is it more permissible to offend the majority but less permissible
> to offend a minority? What difference does it make? How is offending a
> minority a worse crime than offending the majority? That *is* a double
> standard.
>
>    (How do you even *define* the "majority" that needs less protection?

In a democracy a majority needs no special protection, a minority does. 
Only if there is no democracy and the ruling class is a minority a 
majority needs protection. A situation that happens in various places in 
this world an in such a context people might refer to the larger group 
as a minority, which would confuse nobody except the nerd.

> There was once an article, I think it was on a major British newspaper
> website, that over 50% of the population of the UK belongs to a protected
> minority. Ironically this means that less than 50% of the population
> belongs to the sector that gets no special protection from the law,
> making them effectively a minority themselves.)

Women as a group have less access to resources than men. That is why 
they are generally considered a 'minority' that might need special 
protection. So even without immigrants and homosexuals, and with no 
other religion than the state religion, male chauvinist pigs are always 
a numerical minority even though they are the sociological majority.

I think you are also assuming that being a minority is a property of a 
person and not of the context.

If you read something like what you refer to from that paper, be 
careful. It might be a convert attempt to justify current discriminatory 
practices.

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On 21-12-2010 14:47, Stephen wrote:
> On 20/12/2010 11:22 PM, andrel wrote:
>>
>>> Maybe it is just Hollanders that do not have a sense of
>>> history. ;-)
>>>
>>
>> I think it is much broader them just the main cities in the west. Ask a
>> Dutchman to cite a bit of Joost van den Vondel and you probably have to
>> explain that he is for Dutch literature what Shakespeare is for the
>> English. Ask to name the Dutch Nobel prize winner at the beginning of
>> the 20th century 'were there any?'.
>
> I'm sure that the same goes, here.
>
>> In short: I am Dutch, I can't cite any Dutch poems or other literature,
>> I don't know any influential Dutch people from before I was born outside
>> my own field, I assume that the industrial revolution started in
>> England,
>
> We think so but prefer to say it started in Britian. :-P

Actually it didn't. It started with windmills in the area that I live in ;)

>> I cannot date when William of Orange lived to within one or two
>> centuries, Napoleon wasn't that a French general? etc.
>>
>
> They both had a profound influence on British culture and history so we
> know a bit about them.

See, precisely my point. (only I meant the first one, the founder of our 
dynasty, so it might not be my point. But I do not know which William is 
the one that you probably mean, so I win in the end)

>> In my experience English people often know more from Dutch history than
>> we do.
>
> That could be that the Brits you have met took the trouble to find out
> about the country they were visiting. I did when I worked for Philips in
> Eindhoven and did the same in other countries. The only exception was
> when I was working in Zagreb, I thought it best not to know :-)
>
>> I know other countries are also in the process of loosing
>> historical knowledge in the young generation.
>
> True. :-(
>
>> Yet I think are still
>> better than the others because we have a much longer experience with it.
>> (Or have we?)
>
> Do you?

how can I know? I know nothing about what happened in the past. [go back 
to 20/12/2010 23:27 and repeat].

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On 21/12/2010 3:22 PM, andrel wrote:
> On 21-12-2010 14:47, Stephen wrote:
>> On 20/12/2010 11:22 PM, andrel wrote:
>>>

>>
>> We think so but prefer to say it started in Britian. :-P
>
> Actually it didn't. It started with windmills in the area that I live in ;)


That’s a moot point as windmills were used in Europe in the 12th century 
long before the industrial revolution. And to add insult to injury, the 
fantail which turns the windmill into the wind was invented by an 
Englishman in 1745.

>
>>> I cannot date when William of Orange lived to within one or two
>>> centuries, Napoleon wasn't that a French general? etc.
>>>
>>
>> They both had a profound influence on British culture and history so we
>> know a bit about them.
>
> See, precisely my point. (only I meant the first one, the founder of our
> dynasty, so it might not be my point. But I do not know which William is
> the one that you probably mean, so I win in the end)

I meant William III or King Billy not William the silent. And if you 
know which one I meant then you refute your point hence I win.

>>
>>> Yet I think are still
>>> better than the others because we have a much longer experience with it.
>>> (Or have we?)
>>
>> Do you?
>
> how can I know? I know nothing about what happened in the past. [go back
> to 20/12/2010 23:27 and repeat].
>

I must admit to making an assumption with what you wrote as it did not 
make complete sense. I assumed that you meant “Yet I think [we, the 
Dutch]  are still better than the others because we have a much longer 
experience with it [history]. (Or have we?)”

Or you might have meant "we", older people.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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Warp wrote:
>   Being more lenient of criticism of the "majority" and stricter of criticism
> of a "minority" is a double standard 

Not necessarily. If the minority of 10 people say something that offends 
10,000 people, should they be punished 1000 times as much as if the 10,000 
people say something that offends the 10 people?

In other words, it doesn't come down to "lenient" or "strict" unless someone 
gets offended. If I criticize you in a way that doesn't upset you, we don't 
have this sort of conversation.

But if I issue criticism that offends some people, I'm much more likely to 
offend someone in a "majority" than a "minority."  I might say something 
that offends some minority of which there are 5000 who might hear it, take 
offense, and complain about it. Or I might say something equally offensive 
that any of 100million people might hear, take offense, and complain about. 
If there's a 0.001% chance of anyone being sufficiently offended as to take 
it to court, then guess which criticism is treated more strictly?

So, basically, I think you have to count the number of people who might be 
offended in with the severity of the offense to make any sense out of 
"strict" or "lenient".

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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andrel <byt### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> I am just describing what happens in practice. If you don't like it for 
> philosophical reasons, try to find another planet to live on.

  Why? The whole idea with democracy is that the people can affect the
politics of their society. If you perceive something as being wrong with
society, you don't fix it by conforming and just accepting it as something
inevitable. You fix it by voting. (Of course there has to be a few other
people who also vote like that, but that's the basic principle in democracy.)

  Your expression sounds like "this is how things are, and there's nothing
you can do to change it, so learn to live with it". No, that's not how
democracy works. We are lucky enough to live in democratic countries, and
we should use the possibilities that brings us to better the society.

  The moment when people start believing that they cannot affect their
society is the moment when the whole idea of democracy has been destroyed.
(Unfortunately this is a way too common belief.)

> >> If that minority is more vulnerable.
> >
> >    More vulnerable to what? To getting offended?

> physical violence, economic exclusion, that sort of thing.

  Basically what you are suggesting is that the solution to violence and
discrimination is censorship: Limiting people's freedom of speech when
it happens to be criticism of a minority.

  Well. I don't believe that the ultimate solution to violence and
discrimination is censorship. Double standards are not the answer. That
only fights the symptoms, not the core problem. In fact, oftentimes it
*aggravates* the symptoms rather than removing them.

> >    Why is it more permissible to offend the majority but less permissible
> > to offend a minority? What difference does it make? How is offending a
> > minority a worse crime than offending the majority? That *is* a double
> > standard.
> >
> >    (How do you even *define* the "majority" that needs less protection?

> In a democracy a majority needs no special protection, a minority does. 

  *Why* does the minority need special protection? Why are double standards
necessary?

  As I said, double standards, besides being hypocrisy, are only fighting
symptoms (sometimes even just perceived symptoms), not the core problems.
A working society should need any double standards.

  (And here when I'm talking about "a minority that requires special
protection" I'm referring to otherwise completely normal and abled
people whose only difference to the "majority" is inconsequential with
respect to their role in society, such as eg. ethnicity, background or
sexual orientation. Of course there are people who need special treatment
because of practical reasons, eg. because of being handicapped. I'm not
talking about those.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> >   Being more lenient of criticism of the "majority" and stricter of criticism
> > of a "minority" is a double standard 

> Not necessarily. If the minority of 10 people say something that offends 
> 10,000 people, should they be punished 1000 times as much as if the 10,000 
> people say something that offends the 10 people?

  No. The severity of "hate speech" (however you want to define it) and the
punishment imposed should be completely independent of the size of the
group of people being targeted.

  There's not only a logical reason for that, but also a practical one.
The practical reason is that if some group is an "acceptable target" for
heavy criticism while other groups get special protection, that will only
cause resentment and animosity, aggravating the underlying problem.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
>> In a democracy a majority needs no special protection, a minority does. 
> 
>   *Why* does the minority need special protection? Why are double standards
> necessary?

I would think this is obvious. If you have a pure democracy, you have two 
wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.

Even in the USA's limited democracy (i.e., constitutional republic sort of 
democracy), it took a war to get the voting majority to let the minority 
have their say.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> Warp wrote:
>>>   Being more lenient of criticism of the "majority" and stricter of criticism
>>> of a "minority" is a double standard 
> 
>> Not necessarily. If the minority of 10 people say something that offends 
>> 10,000 people, should they be punished 1000 times as much as if the 10,000 
>> people say something that offends the 10 people?
> 
>   No. The severity of "hate speech" (however you want to define it) and the
> punishment imposed should be completely independent of the size of the
> group of people being targeted.
> 
>   There's not only a logical reason for that, but also a practical one.
> The practical reason is that if some group is an "acceptable target" for
> heavy criticism while other groups get special protection, that will only
> cause resentment and animosity, aggravating the underlying problem.
> 

I feel you've missed the point I was making, which is that if your hate 
speech targets a sufficiently powerful majority, you're going to get slapped 
around for much milder hate speech than if your hate speech targets a much 
smaller weaker minority.

Put it this way: if your hate speech targets only people too poor to afford 
lawyers, how likely are you to be forced to stop?

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> >> In a democracy a majority needs no special protection, a minority does. 
> > 
> >   *Why* does the minority need special protection? Why are double standards
> > necessary?

> I would think this is obvious. If you have a pure democracy, you have two 
> wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.

  Bad example. You seem to be arguing that a wolf eating the other wolf
is ok, only a wolf eating the sheep is bad, and hence the sheep requires
special protection.

  The law should be the same for everybody. Subject A eating subject B is
illegal, regardless of who A and B are. In fact, having a double standard
here would be the horrendously bad thing.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Put it this way: if your hate speech targets only people too poor to afford 
> lawyers, how likely are you to be forced to stop?

  That's a question of economy, not a question of human rights.

  I thought even in the US all people are entitled to legal counsel
regardless of income. (Also, I don't know how it's there, but here if
you win you don't pay anything. The loser pays the winner's lawyer fees.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 21-12-2010 19:34, Warp wrote:
> andrel<byt### [at] gmailcom>  wrote:
>> I am just describing what happens in practice. If you don't like it for
>> philosophical reasons, try to find another planet to live on.
>
>    Why? The whole idea with democracy is that the people can affect the
> politics of their society. If you perceive something as being wrong with
> society, you don't fix it by conforming and just accepting it as something
> inevitable. You fix it by voting. (Of course there has to be a few other
> people who also vote like that, but that's the basic principle in democracy.)

I think it is a common concept that a democracy has to do what the 
majority wants while at the same time protecting the rights of minorities.

>    Your expression sounds like "this is how things are, and there's nothing
> you can do to change it, so learn to live with it". No, that's not how
> democracy works. We are lucky enough to live in democratic countries, and
> we should use the possibilities that brings us to better the society.
>
>    The moment when people start believing that they cannot affect their
> society is the moment when the whole idea of democracy has been destroyed.
> (Unfortunately this is a way too common belief.)

It is not that I think I cannot change it, I don't *want* to change it.

>>>> If that minority is more vulnerable.
>>>
>>>     More vulnerable to what? To getting offended?
>
>> physical violence, economic exclusion, that sort of thing.
>
>    Basically what you are suggesting is that the solution to violence and
> discrimination is censorship: Limiting people's freedom of speech when
> it happens to be criticism of a minority.

Not even close. So much off that I even hesitate to respond.
But let me put it this way: when I say that all christians are 
pedophiles everybody knows that is not true and it won't affect their 
attitude against any christian that they meet. When I say that all 
muslims are thieves and potential terrorists then that is just as much 
nonsense but it might affect people. Simply because of the fact that 
most people mainly meet people that are alike. So most people from the 
majority know almost exclusively people from that majority. The only way 
they 'meet' minorities is in the papers when someone from that minority 
commits a crime. Hence it is too easy to believe my bogus claim. 
Therefore you have to be more careful when speaking about a minority 
that about a majority. You can of course say what is true, but you 
should avoid half truths cherry picking and white lies to make a point, 
if that point is negative for the whole group. (You should never treat a 
person as just a representative of a group in stead of as an individual, 
but that is obvious).
If you ever wondered why even the most die hard xenophobes say of people 
from abroad that they know personally: sure all ... are ..., but not 
this one. This is why.
People from a minority in general know relatively more from the 
majority, so there the problem is not so great. Though there are closely 
knit minorities with all sorts of strange ideas about how the majority 
thinks. It is from these groups that sometimes things are said and 
written that also leads to prosecution for hate mongering. (which is a 
limitation to free speech here).

I have in this discussion never used the words 'censorship' or 
'criticism' and would prefer it if you also don't use them, especially 
when explaining what you think I have said. I don't want another endless 
discussion about straw man arguments.

>    Well. I don't believe that the ultimate solution to violence and
> discrimination is censorship. Double standards are not the answer. That
> only fights the symptoms, not the core problem. In fact, oftentimes it
> *aggravates* the symptoms rather than removing them.
>
>>>     Why is it more permissible to offend the majority but less permissible
>>> to offend a minority? What difference does it make? How is offending a
>>> minority a worse crime than offending the majority? That *is* a double
>>> standard.
>>>
>>>     (How do you even *define* the "majority" that needs less protection?
>
>> In a democracy a majority needs no special protection, a minority does.
>
>    *Why* does the minority need special protection?

because it is a minority and can be outvoted in a 'democracy'. Simple as 
that.

> Why are double standards necessary?

I would not call them 'double standards', you do. That is probably a 
reflection of our different understanding of how a society works. Let's 
leave it at that.

>    As I said, double standards, besides being hypocrisy, are only fighting
> symptoms (sometimes even just perceived symptoms), not the core problems.
> A working society should need any double standards.
>
>    (And here when I'm talking about "a minority that requires special
> protection" I'm referring to otherwise completely normal and abled
> people whose only difference to the "majority" is inconsequential with
> respect to their role in society, such as eg. ethnicity, background or
> sexual orientation. Of course there are people who need special treatment
> because of practical reasons, eg. because of being handicapped. I'm not
> talking about those.)
>

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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> Warp wrote:
>>>> In a democracy a majority needs no special protection, a minority does. 
>>>   *Why* does the minority need special protection? Why are double standards
>>> necessary?
> 
>> I would think this is obvious. If you have a pure democracy, you have two 
>> wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
> 
>   Bad example. You seem to be arguing that a wolf eating the other wolf
> is ok, only a wolf eating the sheep is bad, and hence the sheep requires
> special protection.

No, I'm arguing that the majority will vote to take advantage of the 
minority without additional protections the majority can't overrule.

>   The law should be the same for everybody. 

Sure. Let's make it the law that you can't criticize islam, and the penalty 
is death. Fair, right? Very democratic. The law is the same for everyone, 
muslims and christians and atheists alike.

Again, the point I'm trying to make is that a minority with less power needs 
more ability to defend itself than a majority with a great amount of power 
needs to defend itself against a small minority.

Now, you may simply disagree with that, but I haven't seen you give any good 
arguments beyond assertions, and I'm not sure that you're disagreeing as 
opposed to misunderstanding me.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> Put it this way: if your hate speech targets only people too poor to afford 
>> lawyers, how likely are you to be forced to stop?
> 
>   That's a question of economy, not a question of human rights.

You're missing the point I'm trying to make. You're talking about abstract 
rights, in which case yes I agree. I'm talking about the reality of the 
situation in which there's often a lack of justice due to the way the system 
works.

It would be nice if the legal system were set up in such a way that everyone 
is equally protected. But it's not. Hell, our previous president has 
confessed in writing to committing war crimes and knowingly violating the 
constitution, and nobody is even going to look into it, let alone punish him 
for it.

>   I thought even in the US all people are entitled to legal counsel
> regardless of income. 

Only for crimes. Which is to say, only when you're accused by the government 
itself of breaking some law for which the punishment might be jail time.

If you get sued by some company for copyright infringement (to pull an 
example out of the air), you have to pay for your own lawyer.

 > (Also, I don't know how it's there, but here if
> you win you don't pay anything. The loser pays the winner's lawyer fees.)

It depends on the details of the case and what you're accused of and etc. 
Basically, there has to be something in the law books that say you get 
lawyer fees, and it's not a global kind of default that you do.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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On 21-12-2010 21:12, andrel wrote:
[snip]
> People from a minority in general know relatively more from the
> majority, so there the problem is not so great. Though there are closely
> knit minorities with all sorts of strange ideas about how the majority
> thinks. It is from these groups that sometimes things are said and
> written that also leads to prosecution for hate mongering. (which is a
> limitation to free speech here).

I might have explained that better perhaps. The idea is that everyone 
knows people from various groups. Starting from the center, there is 
family, relatives, neighbours, sport and schoolmates, coworkers etc.
When the circle is expanding the composition will more and more be like 
the average of the entire population. Hence people from the majority 
will mainly meet people from the majority in every circle whereas 
minorities meet more and more people from the majority. Alienation from 
other groups is therefore in general more a problem of the majority than 
of the minority.

Is that more clear? rereading, I doubt it...

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> >   The law should be the same for everybody. 

> Sure. Let's make it the law that you can't criticize islam, and the penalty 
> is death. Fair, right? Very democratic. The law is the same for everyone, 
> muslims and christians and atheists alike.

  No, because because of several reasons:

- It obviously is against basic human and constitutional rights.
- It's contradictory with freedom of speech.
- It puts one religion in a special position over all others.

  "The law should be the same for everybody" does not equal "any arbitrary
law is ok, as long as it's applied equally to everybody". That's a rather
cheap argument.

  A law must follow basic human rights, constitutional principles *and*
be applied to everybody equally.

> Again, the point I'm trying to make is that a minority with less power needs 
> more ability to defend itself than a majority with a great amount of power 
> needs to defend itself against a small minority.

  I disagree. A minority needs the *same* ability to defend itself as the
majority. Different rules and double standards are discrimination.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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andrel <byt### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> On 21-12-2010 19:34, Warp wrote:
> > andrel<byt### [at] gmailcom>  wrote:
> >> I am just describing what happens in practice. If you don't like it for
> >> philosophical reasons, try to find another planet to live on.
> >
> >    Why? The whole idea with democracy is that the people can affect the
> > politics of their society. If you perceive something as being wrong with
> > society, you don't fix it by conforming and just accepting it as something
> > inevitable. You fix it by voting. (Of course there has to be a few other
> > people who also vote like that, but that's the basic principle in democracy.)

> I think it is a common concept that a democracy has to do what the 
> majority wants while at the same time protecting the rights of minorities.

  While protecting the rights of *everybody* equally.

> >    Your expression sounds like "this is how things are, and there's nothing
> > you can do to change it, so learn to live with it". No, that's not how
> > democracy works. We are lucky enough to live in democratic countries, and
> > we should use the possibilities that brings us to better the society.
> >
> >    The moment when people start believing that they cannot affect their
> > society is the moment when the whole idea of democracy has been destroyed.
> > (Unfortunately this is a way too common belief.)

> It is not that I think I cannot change it, I don't *want* to change it.

  Then we disagree. As long as there is preferential treatment, double
standards and discrimination (there's no such a thing as "positive
discrimination", that's a ridiculous oxymoron), no society can be truly
free and equal.

> >    *Why* does the minority need special protection?

> because it is a minority and can be outvoted in a 'democracy'. Simple as 
> that.

  Minorities require extra protection and preferential treatment because
they can be outvoted in a democracy? And exactly how does that solve
anything? And how does that argument make any sense? By the same reasoning
advocates of a minority political party should get special protection and
preferential treatment because they are outvoted by the advocates of the
larger parties. You don't see that happening, and for good reason.

  I also like how you quote 'democracy', as to imply that there's something
wrong with the whole concept.

> > Why are double standards necessary?

> I would not call them 'double standards', you do.

  Maybe you don't, but that doesn't change the fact.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>>>   The law should be the same for everybody. 
> 
>> Sure. Let's make it the law that you can't criticize islam, and the penalty 
>> is death. Fair, right? Very democratic. The law is the same for everyone, 
>> muslims and christians and atheists alike.
> 
>   No, because because of several reasons:
> 
> - It obviously is against basic human and constitutional rights.

Constitutional rights are exactly what prevent *democracy* from doing this. 
That's precisely my point.

> - It's contradictory with freedom of speech.

Again, freedom of speech (at least here) is a constitutional right, not 
something decided by the democracy.

> - It puts one religion in a special position over all others.

But only because that's what the majority wants.

>   "The law should be the same for everybody" does not equal "any arbitrary
> law is ok, as long as it's applied equally to everybody". That's a rather
> cheap argument.

Then you have an odd view of democracy.

You asked why the minority needs special protection. Then you go to argue 
that my example is bad *because* the minority already has special 
protection, in the form of ...

>   A law must follow basic human rights, constitutional principles *and*
> be applied to everybody equally.

So if the majority votes for something that would take these rights and 
principles away from the minority, shouldn't the minority be more protected 
than the majority? The majority isn't going to take the rights away from the 
majority, so the protection really only applies to the minority.

In other words, if 90% of the country is muslim, you don't need protection 
against passing a law that says you're not allowed to be muslim. You need 
protection against passing a law that says you're not allowed to be christian.

In a country where 90% of the people are christian, you need to give more 
credence of the jewish man claiming discrimination than of the christians 
complaining about an "attack on christmas".

In the USA, the argument is often made that the anti-gay laws are applied 
equally to all: Neither gay nor straight men are allowed to marry other men. 
Or, as one great historical figure whose name I forget quoted: "The law 
prohibits both the wealthy and the poor from sleeping under bridges."

The whole point of the constitution is to protect the minority from the 
majority. If you assume your democracy already has a constitution that 
prevents that stuff, then you've already conceded my point, because a 
constitution is useless if it's a democratic document.

(Not dissimilar to anti-trust complaints, really.)

If your constitution has in it that the state religion is islam and everyone 
else gets discriminated against in the courts (i.e., Sharia law), then the 
whole "that's not how democracy works" argument falls apart.

>> Again, the point I'm trying to make is that a minority with less power needs 
>> more ability to defend itself than a majority with a great amount of power 
>> needs to defend itself against a small minority.
> 
>   I disagree. A minority needs the *same* ability to defend itself as the
> majority. Different rules and double standards are discrimination.

But each individual member of the minority needs more ability that each 
individual member of the majority in order to enjoy equal protection.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> > Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> >> Put it this way: if your hate speech targets only people too poor to afford 
> >> lawyers, how likely are you to be forced to stop?
> > 
> >   That's a question of economy, not a question of human rights.

> You're missing the point I'm trying to make. You're talking about abstract 
> rights, in which case yes I agree. I'm talking about the reality of the 
> situation in which there's often a lack of justice due to the way the system 
> works.

> It would be nice if the legal system were set up in such a way that everyone 
> is equally protected. But it's not. Hell, our previous president has 
> confessed in writing to committing war crimes and knowingly violating the 
> constitution, and nobody is even going to look into it, let alone punish him 
> for it.

  So exactly what's wrong in promoting equal rights for everybody, and
abolishing special treatment for some groups of people?

  If the current situation is that some minorities are being discriminated
against, the solution is not to give them *more* protection than to the
rest. Two wrongs don't make a right. You don't fight discrimination with
more discrimination. The correct solution is to give them the *same*
protection as everybody else. That, by definition, removes the discrimination.

> >   I thought even in the US all people are entitled to legal counsel
> > regardless of income. 

> Only for crimes. Which is to say, only when you're accused by the government 
> itself of breaking some law for which the punishment might be jail time.

> If you get sued by some company for copyright infringement (to pull an 
> example out of the air), you have to pay for your own lawyer.

  At least here if you actually win the case, the company that accused you
will have to pay for your lawyer fees. (This makes sense because it avoids
people/companies abusing the legal system to cause economic harm to somebody
by forcing them to pay legal fees.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 21/12/2010 9:18 PM, Darren New wrote:

> But

The good thing about banging your head against a brick wall is that when 
you stop so does the pain ;-)


-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> >   A law must follow basic human rights, constitutional principles *and*
> > be applied to everybody equally.

> So if the majority votes for something that would take these rights and 
> principles away from the minority, shouldn't the minority be more protected 
> than the majority?

  But then the law would be discriminatory, would not be equal for
everybody, and thus it would be contradictory with the whole concept
of equality I'm talking about.

  I think that there's a confusion here. When I say "a law should be
applied equally for everybody" that doesn't mean "a discriminating law
is ok as long as it's applied equally to everybody". That's actually
a contradiction, and the exact opposite of what I'm saying.

  Laws should give equal rights to everybody, and be applied equally to
everybody. That's the exact opposite of a law that discriminates against
some group of people.

  The minority should not be "more protected than the majority". The
minority should be exactly as much protected as the majority. No more,
no less. Same rights, same laws. No preferential treatment nor
discrimination.

  How hard can that be to understand?

> In other words, if 90% of the country is muslim, you don't need protection 
> against passing a law that says you're not allowed to be muslim. You need 
> protection against passing a law that says you're not allowed to be christian.

  Actually I disagree. You *also* need protection against passing a law that
says you are not allowed to be muslim, even if at an implied level. The same
principle should apply to everybody.

  This isn't actually any actual problem in any constitution I know of.
It's only a problem in the *application* of the law in some cases in
some countries. It's being applied in a discriminatory way in similar
situations when it really shouldn't.

> In a country where 90% of the people are christian, you need to give more 
> credence of the jewish man claiming discrimination than of the christians 
> complaining about an "attack on christmas".

  Discrimination is a crime. Criticism of a holiday isn't. Of course a crime
should be taken more seriously. I don't understand your argument.

  What *does* happen in the current world is, however, that when a member
of the unprotected majority complains about discrimination, he gets laughed
at. *That* is a double standard that shouldn't exist.

> In the USA, the argument is often made that the anti-gay laws are applied 
> equally to all: Neither gay nor straight men are allowed to marry other men. 

  One could make that argument, but it's obviously ridiculous.
*Claiming* that a law is equal and fair to everybody doesn't
automatically make it so.

> The whole point of the constitution is to protect the minority from the 
> majority.

  I thought that the point was to give equal rights to everybody.

> If you assume your democracy already has a constitution that 
> prevents that stuff, then you've already conceded my point, because a 
> constitution is useless if it's a democratic document.

  But the problem I'm complaining about is that constitutional principles
*are* being violated with discriminatory laws which give preferential
treatment to some groups of people.

  No constitution I know of says that some groups of people must be
protected more than others. All constitutions I know of talk only about
equal rights and no preferential treatment.

  I do know, however, of some laws that are being applied in contradiction
with this principle.

> If your constitution has in it that the state religion is islam and everyone 
> else gets discriminated against in the courts (i.e., Sharia law), then the 
> whole "that's not how democracy works" argument falls apart.

  I never said that democracy should override basic human rights and
the principles of equality and freedom.

> >   I disagree. A minority needs the *same* ability to defend itself as the
> > majority. Different rules and double standards are discrimination.

> But each individual member of the minority needs more ability that each 
> individual member of the majority in order to enjoy equal protection.

  I don't understand. A person is a person. Each person should be entitled
to the same rights and protection as any other person. Why should one
person get more protection than another? That would be discrimination.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
>   Laws should give equal rights to everybody, and be applied equally to
> everybody. That's the exact opposite of a law that discriminates against
> some group of people.

The problem is in interpreting those rights. There's always a trade-off.

>   The minority should not be "more protected than the majority". The
> minority should be exactly as much protected as the majority. No more,
> no less. Same rights, same laws. No preferential treatment nor
> discrimination.

Except if you give them exactly the same laws and rights, then you *do* 
protect the minority more than the majority, in practice, precisely because 
the majority isn't going to pass a law against the majority's interests.

>   How hard can that be to understand?
> 
>> In other words, if 90% of the country is muslim, you don't need protection 
>> against passing a law that says you're not allowed to be muslim. You need 
>> protection against passing a law that says you're not allowed to be christian.
> 
>   Actually I disagree. You *also* need protection against passing a law that
> says you are not allowed to be muslim, even if at an implied level. The same
> principle should apply to everybody.
> 
>   This isn't actually any actual problem in any constitution I know of.

That of course was an exaggeration. But there are certainly similar laws in 
countries with a Sharia basis in law, where it is (for example) obvious that 
muslims are much more trustworthy in their testimony than non-muslims.

>   What *does* happen in the current world is, however, that when a member
> of the unprotected majority complains about discrimination, he gets laughed
> at. *That* is a double standard that shouldn't exist.

Not usually, in my experience.

>> In the USA, the argument is often made that the anti-gay laws are applied 
>> equally to all: Neither gay nor straight men are allowed to marry other men. 
> 
>   One could make that argument, but it's obviously ridiculous.

Not ridiculous enough to keep the law from being passed in spite of 
discrimination.

> *Claiming* that a law is equal and fair to everybody doesn't
> automatically make it so.

Somehow, you seem to think that your reasoning is common. It's not, really.

>> The whole point of the constitution is to protect the minority from the 
>> majority.
> 
>   I thought that the point was to give equal rights to everybody.

Yes. Both. You give equal rights to everyone by protecting the minority from 
the wishes of the majority.

>> If you assume your democracy already has a constitution that 
>> prevents that stuff, then you've already conceded my point, because a 
>> constitution is useless if it's a democratic document.
> 
>   But the problem I'm complaining about is that constitutional principles
> *are* being violated with discriminatory laws which give preferential
> treatment to some groups of people.

Then you're not talking about democracy any more, or why a minority should 
have more protection than a majority. What laws do you think are giving 
preferential treatment to minorities, and how did they get on the books?

>   No constitution I know of says that some groups of people must be
> protected more than others. All constitutions I know of talk only about
> equal rights and no preferential treatment.

See above.

>   I do know, however, of some laws that are being applied in contradiction
> with this principle.
> 
>> If your constitution has in it that the state religion is islam and everyone 
>> else gets discriminated against in the courts (i.e., Sharia law), then the 
>> whole "that's not how democracy works" argument falls apart.
> 
>   I never said that democracy should override basic human rights and
> the principles of equality and freedom.

And that's why minorities need more protection - because they're more prone 
to having their basic rights overrun by the majority.

>> But each individual member of the minority needs more ability that each 
>> individual member of the majority in order to enjoy equal protection.
> 
>   I don't understand. A person is a person. Each person should be entitled
> to the same rights and protection as any other person. Why should one
> person get more protection than another? That would be discrimination.

For the same reason we don't have straight pride marches, that rich people 
don't need permission to sleep under bridges, that we never had a white 
landowner suffrage movement, etc.   Maybe you just grew up in a place where 
the *actual* abuses of the system are minute compared to other places.

In other words, being in the minority, the deck is already stacked against 
you. So in the *enforcement* of the laws, one might give greater credence to 
the claims that a minority was targeted by a majority than vice versa.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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Warp wrote:
>   So exactly what's wrong in promoting equal rights for everybody, and
> abolishing special treatment for some groups of people?

I didn't say it was wrong.

>   If the current situation is that some minorities are being discriminated
> against, the solution is not to give them *more* protection than to the
> rest.

Are you saying that the current levels of protection are adequate?

> Two wrongs don't make a right. You don't fight discrimination with
> more discrimination. The correct solution is to give them the *same*
> protection as everybody else. That, by definition, removes the discrimination.

Yep. And this is exactly the sort of thing affirmative action is supposed to 
address.

And, again, "the same protection" prevents both rich and poor from sleeping 
under the bridge, and prevents both gay and straight men from marrying other 
men. That's what you get in a democracy, sometimes even in a constitutional 
democracy.

I'm not saying that affirmative action is the right solution to problems 
like this. I'm saying that this sort of balance doesn't naturally arise from 
democracy, and that obtaining this sort of balance is therefore 
non-democratic and implicitly supports those statistically discriminated 
against more than it supports those statistically doing the discrimination.

>   At least here if you actually win the case, the company that accused you
> will have to pay for your lawyer fees. (This makes sense because it avoids
> people/companies abusing the legal system to cause economic harm to somebody
> by forcing them to pay legal fees.)

As I say, it depends on the case. Here if the reason you sue is to make them 
pay legal fees, then it's a frivolous case and you can get lawyer fees. 
Sometimes you have to sue them back (which is called a counter suit) to get 
your costs back. There's a strong sense that "justice should be served", but 
it doesn't always cover lawyer fees; it is often up to the judge or the jury 
as I understand it. When it does, you then have to go collect the lawyer 
fees after the fact, so if you go broke before you win, you're screwed, and 
if the other side goes broke before you collect, you're screwed.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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On 21-12-2010 22:14, Warp wrote:
> andrel<byt### [at] gmailcom>  wrote:
>> On 21-12-2010 19:34, Warp wrote:
>>> andrel<byt### [at] gmailcom>   wrote:
>>>> I am just describing what happens in practice. If you don't like it for
>>>> philosophical reasons, try to find another planet to live on.
>>>
>>>     Why? The whole idea with democracy is that the people can affect the
>>> politics of their society. If you perceive something as being wrong with
>>> society, you don't fix it by conforming and just accepting it as something
>>> inevitable. You fix it by voting. (Of course there has to be a few other
>>> people who also vote like that, but that's the basic principle in democracy.)
>
>> I think it is a common concept that a democracy has to do what the
>> majority wants while at the same time protecting the rights of minorities.
>
>    While protecting the rights of *everybody* equally.

Yes, that is what that means. Many people find it useful to stress it 
this way to make clear that even in a democracy there are bounds to what 
is acceptable to put into laws even if you have 50%+1 of the votes.

>>>     Your expression sounds like "this is how things are, and there's nothing
>>> you can do to change it, so learn to live with it". No, that's not how
>>> democracy works. We are lucky enough to live in democratic countries, and
>>> we should use the possibilities that brings us to better the society.
>>>
>>>     The moment when people start believing that they cannot affect their
>>> society is the moment when the whole idea of democracy has been destroyed.
>>> (Unfortunately this is a way too common belief.)
>
>> It is not that I think I cannot change it, I don't *want* to change it.
>
>    Then we disagree. As long as there is preferential treatment, double
> standards and discrimination (there's no such a thing as "positive
> discrimination", that's a ridiculous oxymoron), no society can be truly
> free and equal.

It is not preferential treatment, it is not double standards, it simply 
is the way in which we make sure that your *everybody* from above gets 
his rights protected.

>>>     *Why* does the minority need special protection?
>
>> because it is a minority and can be outvoted in a 'democracy'. Simple as
>> that.
>
>    Minorities require extra protection and preferential treatment because
> they can be outvoted in a democracy? And exactly how does that solve
> anything? And how does that argument make any sense? By the same reasoning
> advocates of a minority political party should get special protection and
> preferential treatment because they are outvoted by the advocates of the
> larger parties. You don't see that happening, and for good reason.
>
>    I also like how you quote 'democracy', as to imply that there's something
> wrong with the whole concept.

?? No, I did that here because if that happened it would IMO cease to be 
a democracy. Nothing wrong with it in the usual circumstances AFAIC.

>>> Why are double standards necessary?
>
>> I would not call them 'double standards', you do.
>
>    Maybe you don't, but that doesn't change the fact.

or you have your facts wrong

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On 12/21/2010 12:13 PM, Warp wrote:
> Darren New<dne### [at] sanrrcom>  wrote:
>> Put it this way: if your hate speech targets only people too poor to afford
>> lawyers, how likely are you to be forced to stop?
>
>    That's a question of economy, not a question of human rights.
>
>    I thought even in the US all people are entitled to legal counsel
> regardless of income. (Also, I don't know how it's there, but here if
> you win you don't pay anything. The loser pays the winner's lawyer fees.)
>
Entitled, yes. Best, effective, or even timely, not so much. A lot of 
them won't work probono, and the ones that do often have *massive* case 
loads, or work for organizations that are pretty much constantly 
vilified for being too liberal, activist, or not on the side of the 
assholes and ethically defective (i.e., the ones with money, power, and 
therefor, on the "right side", in the minds of those with similar money 
and power).

It doesn't do you a lot of good if you have to wait 3 years for a trial, 
because Snoop Dog's appointment to argue whether or not his latest Ho 
get the TV or not is ***so much more*** important than a civil rights 
case, or the injury done to someone living in subsisted housing.

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models, 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> That of course was an exaggeration. But there are certainly similar laws in 
> countries with a Sharia basis in law, where it is (for example) obvious that 
> muslims are much more trustworthy in their testimony than non-muslims.

  And? What does that have to do with anything? I'm advocating equal rights,
and "muslims are much more trustworthy in their testimony" isn't.

> >> In the USA, the argument is often made that the anti-gay laws are applied 
> >> equally to all: Neither gay nor straight men are allowed to marry other men. 
> > 
> >   One could make that argument, but it's obviously ridiculous.

> Not ridiculous enough to keep the law from being passed in spite of 
> discrimination.

  And? Does the fact that in some countries discriminatory laws are being
passed somehow nullify my proposal of equal rights?

  I'm a proponent of equal rights precisely *because* in many countries
there aren't, even in many constitutional democratic ones.

> > *Claiming* that a law is equal and fair to everybody doesn't
> > automatically make it so.

> Somehow, you seem to think that your reasoning is common. It's not, really.

  I don't understand.

> >> The whole point of the constitution is to protect the minority from the 
> >> majority.
> > 
> >   I thought that the point was to give equal rights to everybody.

> Yes. Both. You give equal rights to everyone by protecting the minority from 
> the wishes of the majority.

  No, you give equal rights to everyone by protecting everyone equally.
If you give preferential treatment to some people, that's discrimination
and not equal rights.

> >> If you assume your democracy already has a constitution that 
> >> prevents that stuff, then you've already conceded my point, because a 
> >> constitution is useless if it's a democratic document.
> > 
> >   But the problem I'm complaining about is that constitutional principles
> > *are* being violated with discriminatory laws which give preferential
> > treatment to some groups of people.

> Then you're not talking about democracy any more, or why a minority should 
> have more protection than a majority. What laws do you think are giving 
> preferential treatment to minorities, and how did they get on the books?

  For example, criticism of certain religions is punished more harshly
than criticism of certain other religions. Yes, it does happen here.

  The law doesn't make the distinction explicitly, but it's being
interpreted by judges as such. That's the injustice and discrimination.

> >   I never said that democracy should override basic human rights and
> > the principles of equality and freedom.

> And that's why minorities need more protection - because they're more prone 
> to having their basic rights overrun by the majority.

  No. That's why minorities need the *same* protection as everybody else.
They need to be equal to everybody else, not superior.

> >> But each individual member of the minority needs more ability that each 
> >> individual member of the majority in order to enjoy equal protection.
> > 
> >   I don't understand. A person is a person. Each person should be entitled
> > to the same rights and protection as any other person. Why should one
> > person get more protection than another? That would be discrimination.

> For the same reason we don't have straight pride marches, that rich people 
> don't need permission to sleep under bridges, that we never had a white 
> landowner suffrage movement, etc.   Maybe you just grew up in a place where 
> the *actual* abuses of the system are minute compared to other places.

  I don't understand.

  If there is, for example, a group of citizens with no right to vote,
a situation of unequal rights and discrimination is in place. After a
political campaign these citizens get their right to vote. Now they are
*equal* to everybody else, their right to vote is *equally* protected as
everybody else's. Now they are the same before the law. Exactly where is
the preferential treatment and the "more protection" part? Now every citizen
has the same right. The injustice of some citizens having more rights than
others has been removed.

  Homosexuals want the same right as everybody else to marry other adults.
Again, this is about equality, about getting the same rights, about getting
to the same level as everybody else rather than being discriminated, not
about preferential treatment and special protection. Where does preferential
treatment and "more protection" step in here? It's all about equal rights,
not about giving more rights to some people than others.

  What *would* be preferential treatment is if it was decided that to
"compensate" for the injustice of some group of citizens not having the
right to vote, it was decided that now they can cast two votes, while
everybody else keeps the right for only one vote. This would be "positive
discrimination" and "affirmative action". This would fight an injustice
with another injustice, trying to correct one wrong with another.

  That isn't being done with suffrage, obviously because it would be way
too blatant and ridiculous. However, it *is* being done with other matters,
and *that* is the injustice.

> In other words, being in the minority, the deck is already stacked against 
> you. So in the *enforcement* of the laws, one might give greater credence to 
> the claims that a minority was targeted by a majority than vice versa.

  I don't understand where this "credence" thing is coming from.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

andrel <byt### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> >> I think it is a common concept that a democracy has to do what the
> >> majority wants while at the same time protecting the rights of minorities.
> >
> >    While protecting the rights of *everybody* equally.

> Yes, that is what that means. Many people find it useful to stress it 
> this way to make clear that even in a democracy there are bounds to what 
> is acceptable to put into laws even if you have 50%+1 of the votes.

  The problem is that when some people stress that notion too much,
they start showing preferential treatment for some groups of people,
effectively discriminating others. When this happens to a politician
passing laws or judges passing verdicts, it's a problem.

  And yes, that *is* happening. It's not purely theoretical.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
>   I don't understand.
>   Homosexuals want the same right as everybody else to marry other adults.

I'm not going to be able to explain to you the thoughts I'm trying to express.

> Again, this is about equality, about getting the same rights, 

They *have* the same rights. At least, that's the argument.

You're starting from the presumption that you already know what "equal 
rights" means and that you're correct.

>   I don't understand where this "credence" thing is coming from.

I'm clearly not going to be able to explain it to you.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

Post a reply to this message

Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> >   If the current situation is that some minorities are being discriminated
> > against, the solution is not to give them *more* protection than to the
> > rest.

> Are you saying that the current levels of protection are adequate?

  Why would I be ranting if I thought so? Some groups of people *are* being
protected more than others, and that's discrimination.

> > Two wrongs don't make a right. You don't fight discrimination with
> > more discrimination. The correct solution is to give them the *same*
> > protection as everybody else. That, by definition, removes the discrimination.

> Yep. And this is exactly the sort of thing affirmative action is supposed to 
> address.

  "Affirmative action" is just a buzzword meaning "discrimination".
Trying to counter-act discrimination (real or perceived) with even more
discrimination. That's not the way to go.

> And, again, "the same protection" prevents both rich and poor from sleeping 
> under the bridge, and prevents both gay and straight men from marrying other 
> men.

  I don't understand how you equal limiting people's freedom as "protection"
and equal rights.

  If a law does not apply equally to all people, then it's discriminatory.
"Apply" here meaning "has the same effect on", rather than "is being
equally imposed on".

> That's what you get in a democracy, sometimes even in a constitutional 
> democracy.

  Fortunately in a democracy the citizens have a way of correcting the
wrongs.

> I'm not saying that affirmative action is the right solution to problems 
> like this. I'm saying that this sort of balance doesn't naturally arise from 
> democracy, and that obtaining this sort of balance is therefore 
> non-democratic and implicitly supports those statistically discriminated 
> against more than it supports those statistically doing the discrimination.

  I get the feeling that somewhere along the line in this thread you misread
some post of mine where I mentioned "democracy". As if I had said something
along the lines of "democracy is a good thing because it automatically
removes all injustice and discrimination".

  I have nowhere said that. All I said was "democracy is a good thing
because it allows you to try to correct the wrongs you are seeing in your
society" (as opposed to some other more totalitarian forms of government).

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> I'm not going to be able to explain to you the thoughts I'm trying to express.

  Maybe not. Perhaps you just don't understand what the situation here is,
perhaps because it's different there.

  The fact is that some groups of people are being treated differently
than others, judged differently than others for the same actions. For
example, criticism of one religion might not result in even an investigation,
while similar criticism of another religion can result even in jailtime
(yes, it has happened). Crimes committed by a member of one group of people
against a member of another group are being judged differently (by both
the media and the justice system) depending on the groups in question,
even though the crimes may be completely similar. Preferential treatment
is being applied to some groups of people, often at the cost of
discriminating others.

  The very concept of "freedom" has shifted its meaning in Europe during
the past decade or two. It used to mean that the government has no right
to limit certain basic rights of people. Nowadays "freedom" is more like
concessions and permissions granted by the government to the citizens.
It's not anymore "you are free to do this because the government has no
right to restrict it". It has become "you are free to do this because the
government allows you to". European governments are granting themselves
more and more rights to limit people's freedom at their own whim.

  As far as I understand, this is slightly better in the United States.
For example, the first amendment to the constitution says "Congress shall
make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the
free exercise thereof" and so on. It limits what the government can do.

  Not so here. The Finnish constitution has no such wording. It grants
people freedom of religion, but it imposes no restriction on the
government with respect to preferential treatment towards one religion
or another. In fact, there exists a state church in Finland (namely the
lutheran church), which gets special rights from the government that no
other religions get. It's thus the official state church of Finland.

  It's rather ironic that Finland is mostly a secular country (I think
something like over 85% of Finns are atheists) while the US is mostly
a christian country (with something like 90% of christians), yet the
*government* of Finland is a christian government (because of the
official state church) while the government of the US is a secular one
(because it doesn't have and cannot have an official state church).

  The freedom in the US goes even beyond that. If you, for example, burn
a Koran and a Bible in the US as a form of protest or social commentary,
and post a video of it to YouTube, that's completely legal and protected
by freedom of expression. However, do that here in Finland, and you *will*
get jailtime. This is no exaggeration. You will literally get sentenced
to jailtime.

  Yes, I know that some people will argue that "well, that's proper
because you can't do that". The only thing I can say to that is that
I disagree. Burning a bunch of paper should not be a crime. It's paper.
Last time I checked, burning paper is not illegal.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

On 22-12-2010 8:05, Warp wrote:
> andrel<byt### [at] gmailcom>  wrote:
>>>> I think it is a common concept that a democracy has to do what the
>>>> majority wants while at the same time protecting the rights of minorities.
>>>
>>>     While protecting the rights of *everybody* equally.
>
>> Yes, that is what that means. Many people find it useful to stress it
>> this way to make clear that even in a democracy there are bounds to what
>> is acceptable to put into laws even if you have 50%+1 of the votes.
>
>    The problem is that when some people stress that notion too much,
> they start showing preferential treatment for some groups of people,
> effectively discriminating others. When this happens to a politician
> passing laws or judges passing verdicts, it's a problem.
>
>    And yes, that *is* happening. It's not purely theoretical.
>
Indeed preferential treatment (but not discrimination*) is happening and 
that is as it should, reread e.g.Darran's posts to understand why.

Last night I was thinking of starting this thread from scratch, perhaps 
it is more logical do do it here.

-------------------fresh start-----------------
Assume you have a village in a hypothetical country with two 
highschools. A: a general one with 40 student per class in an old 
building in the middle of town. And B: one with one staff member per 10 
students, a sporting facility, a laptop computer for every student etc. 
It turns out that most students from A go and work in a factory or on 
the land, only 10% go to a university and on average perhaps only one of 
them to a high ranking one. From B 60% go to a university half of them 
to a good one.

The yearly fee per student is just the total cost (salaries/maintenance) 
divided by the number of students. It turns out that B is 5 times as 
expensive as A. You, me nor anybody else is surprised that the net 
effect is that only kids from middle and high income parents are going 
to university.

Someone proposes that that is not fair and also intelligent kids from 
poor parents should have a chance to study. That there should be a 
passing exam for school B and that the fees should depend on the income 
of the parents.

Somebody else complains because this is preferential treatment and 
discrimination of the rich as their chances to go to university will be 
lowered.

Moral of the story: In a society with different social groups you can 
either have equal treatment or equal chances.

Observation: most, if not all, civilized countries go, at least 
officially, for equal chances.

------------------------------
*) The goal of a non-discriminatory society is often worded as: treat 
equal cases equal, and non-equal cases non-equal. What you seem to 
advocate is a much more rigid interpretation: treat all cases equal 
regardless of whether they are equal or not.

Post a reply to this message

On 22-12-2010 3:17, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> On 12/21/2010 12:13 PM, Warp wrote:
>> Darren New<dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>>> Put it this way: if your hate speech targets only people too poor to
>>> afford
>>> lawyers, how likely are you to be forced to stop?
>>
>> That's a question of economy, not a question of human rights.
>>
>> I thought even in the US all people are entitled to legal counsel
>> regardless of income. (Also, I don't know how it's there, but here if
>> you win you don't pay anything. The loser pays the winner's lawyer fees.)
>>
> Entitled, yes. Best, effective, or even timely, not so much. A lot of
> them won't work probono, and the ones that do often have *massive* case
> loads, or work for organizations that are pretty much constantly
> vilified for being too liberal, activist, or not on the side of the
> assholes and ethically defective (i.e., the ones with money, power, and
> therefor, on the "right side", in the minds of those with similar money
> and power).

I remember in one of the documentaries of that most objective source 
Michael Moore that there was a county in the US where none of the 
probono case ever went to trial, they were all settled by plea bargaining.

> It doesn't do you a lot of good if you have to wait 3 years for a trial,
> because Snoop Dog's appointment to argue whether or not his latest Ho
> get the TV or not is ***so much more*** important than a civil rights
> case, or the injury done to someone living in subsisted housing.

I know a Yen Ho, Head of the Cardiac Morphology Unit at Imperial College 
London and Royal Brompton Hospital in London, I can only assume you are 
not referring to her.

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> I'm not going to be able to explain to you the thoughts I'm trying to express.
> 
>   Maybe not. Perhaps you just don't understand what the situation here is,
> perhaps because it's different there.

Yes, we have all that stuff here. Indeed, some of it is written into law in 
the form of affirmative action.  Certainly it's almost impossible here to 
get a hate crime by black people against white people prosecuted as such. 
And of course any bashing of gays is not only seldom prosecuted but indeed 
often lauded.

>   The very concept of "freedom" has shifted its meaning in Europe during
> the past decade or two. It used to mean that the government has no right
> to limit certain basic rights of people. Nowadays "freedom" is more like
> concessions and permissions granted by the government to the citizens.

Same here.  "That's a privilege, not a right."

>   As far as I understand, this is slightly better in the United States.
> For example, the first amendment to the constitution says "Congress shall
> make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the
> free exercise thereof" and so on. It limits what the government can do.

Yes, but it's a constant on-going battle. If you wear a T-shirt into a 
government building that implies you're an atheist, you get kicked out. When 
an atheist or muslim puts up a display next to the christmas tree in the 
city hall, it gets broken and stolen and nobody will investigate the crime.

And the first amendment is pretty much the only one that people really pay 
much attention to any more. You can forget the rest of the rights, both 
explicit and implied. And forget anything not specifically written down and 
just listed as "oh, and anything not listed here is also a right."

>   The freedom in the US goes even beyond that. If you, for example, burn
> a Koran and a Bible in the US as a form of protest or social commentary,
> and post a video of it to YouTube, that's completely legal and protected
> by freedom of expression. However, do that here in Finland, and you *will*
> get jailtime. This is no exaggeration. You will literally get sentenced
> to jailtime.

The first amendment is really one of the very few that are well-protected 
here. It's stuff like assault, habeus corpus, the government accusing your 
money of a crime and then taking it because it can't take the stand in its 
own defense, locking up people for no reason, deporting brown people who 
were born here because they don't speak english, etc etc etc.

But sure, you can *complain* about it.

>   Yes, I know that some people will argue that "well, that's proper
> because you can't do that". The only thing I can say to that is that
> I disagree. Burning a bunch of paper should not be a crime. It's paper.
> Last time I checked, burning paper is not illegal.

And this is exactly my point, that I can't seem to explain to you.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>>>   If the current situation is that some minorities are being discriminated
>>> against, the solution is not to give them *more* protection than to the
>>> rest.
> 
>> Are you saying that the current levels of protection are adequate?
> 
>   Why would I be ranting if I thought so? Some groups of people *are* being
> protected more than others, and that's discrimination.

You have missed the irony in my comment.

>>> Two wrongs don't make a right. You don't fight discrimination with
>>> more discrimination. The correct solution is to give them the *same*
>>> protection as everybody else. That, by definition, removes the discrimination.
> 
>> Yep. And this is exactly the sort of thing affirmative action is supposed to 
>> address.
> 
>   "Affirmative action" is just a buzzword meaning "discrimination".
> Trying to counter-act discrimination (real or perceived) with even more
> discrimination. That's not the way to go.

That's what it is. But it's more trying to counter-act the effects of 
earlier discrimination by discriminating in the other direction. It is an 
open argument as to whether this is good or bad.

>   If a law does not apply equally to all people, then it's discriminatory.
> "Apply" here meaning "has the same effect on", rather than "is being
> equally imposed on".

Sure. Except here's the rub. Affirmative action is an attempt to "have the 
same effect on" instead of being "is being equally imposed on."

Take for example forced "desegregation".  For a number of decades, it was 
illegal in the USA for black students to attend the same schools as white 
students. Black people, who were undereducated and thus poor because they 
used to be slaves, were forced to attend the schools that the black 
population could afford to pay for, which were thus of lower quality than 
the white schools.

Then a law is passed saying "black kids get to go to the same schools as 
white kids." OK, all fixed now, right?

No, of course not.  The black kids still can't afford to go to the wealthy 
schools, and racist white town members will reduce the amount of money going 
to schools where the black kids are trying to go and spend it on the white 
kids. Teachers will not pay any attention to the few black kids wealthy 
enough to come to their classes, and flunk them out at every opportunity so 
they don't have to have black kids mixing with the white kids.

But hey, we eliminated the discrimination, right?

>> That's what you get in a democracy, sometimes even in a constitutional 
>> democracy.
> 
>   Fortunately in a democracy the citizens have a way of correcting the
> wrongs.

More often than not, around here, the democracy causes the wrongs rather 
than correcting them. That's my point.

>   I have nowhere said that. All I said was "democracy is a good thing
> because it allows you to try to correct the wrongs you are seeing in your
> society" (as opposed to some other more totalitarian forms of government).

I'm saying that this sort of wrong is caused by unconstrained democracy. 
Problems of inappropriate discrimination are caused, pretty much by 
definition, when a large number of people decide that some small number of 
people shouldn't be judged on their individual merit. It happens when 
there's a majority that's inappropriately asserting their opinions over a 
minority. I think the more democratic your society, the more likely that a 
minority of 10% of the population is going to get shit upon.

Hell, in California, gays used to have the right to get married in the 
constitution, and it was the democracy here that removed that right from the 
constitution.

Indeed, I can't really think of any time when an actual law was passed 
through the democratic process in the USA that significantly reduced the 
effects of prejudice, except maybe women's suffrage. Getting rid of slavery 
took a civil war. Getting rid of other kinds of prejudice is generally done 
by the courts interpreting the constitution, which was created in far from a 
democratic process.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

Post a reply to this message

andrel wrote:
> probono case 

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

Post a reply to this message

On 12/22/2010 11:11 AM, Darren New wrote:
> The first amendment is really one of the very few that are
> well-protected here. It's stuff like assault, habeus corpus, the
> government accusing your money of a crime and then taking it because it
> can't take the stand in its own defense, locking up people for no
> reason, deporting brown people who were born here because they don't
> speak english, etc etc etc.
>
Unless.. You happen to be living in some place where the people running 
the local state, or town, government are serious about their religion, 
and then it is **only** taken seriously if their own supposed rights are 
abused, not taken seriously when determining whether or not the state 
should promote it (like say, giving millions to a supposed "tourist 
attraction", based on it being "Biblical", or opening with a very 
specific sects prayers, and getting damned offended if someone suggests 
a less narrow version, or FSM forbid, actually open without one), and, 
might even be completely ignored, if your position is that they 
shouldn't be allowed to shove it in your face, because you can't be free 
to practice, if everyone else is free to force their own on you.

Oh, yeah, and, its usually, if only indirectly, in some cases, 
religions, some place, behind most of the other stuff you list (in one 
form or another), including attempted to change, remove, distort, or 
ignore other parts of the constitution. The only minor exception to that 
rule might be some political movements, like the libertarians, which 
don't bother shoehorning religion into everything, but flat out reject 
the idea that their circumstances and opportunities have a damn thing to 
do with their current social status, or wealth, as one poster recently 
stated it, "Pissing on my, and their own ancestors, who where just as 
smart, may have actually **had to** worked harder, but didn't have 
anything close to the resources, opportunities, or luck of being born 
with *any* money at all, in some cases, that all these, 'the free market 
is king, and everyone can succeed, if they just work hard like me!', 
bozos all had."

Frankly, imho, its just another damn religion, and maybe even a far 
stupider one than all those other lame ones that include charity, and 
helping people, someplace in them, even if *that* is usually only to 
ingratiate yourself to the churches, or hoping that you do live forever 
after you die, and being scared to death that it will be just as shitty, 
or worse, than life was, if you don't. It still misses the whole point, 
and even, in the case of groups like the Salvation Army, "Heh, we have 
this great sales pitch to give today, so I don't care of you are cold, 
starving and need to use the bathroom, you have to listen before we will 
even give you a glass of water!", actually completely ass backwards from 
their own supposedly belief systems. Somehow, this new "the market will 
solve it all" religion has opted to reject even basic human society, in 
favor of blaming everyone for everything that happens to them. Struck by 
lightning? Its your fault. House burned down? Your fault. Got born poor, 
in a bad neighborhood? Your fault! Oh, and btw, we should repeal a whole 
bunch of laws, and maybe even muck with the constitution, so I don't 
have to pay taxes, sell working/safe products, or, worse, actually pay 
for someone else's *anything*.

The law and constitution may be holding this country together, but... 
there are a whole hell of a lot of rich, powerful, kooks running around, 
all of which have their own insane ideas about just which parts of those 
laws, and the constitution, they would like to repeal, replace, or be 
granted the right to outright ignore, on a state by state basis. If long 
standing legal tradition didn't support telling them to go fuck 
themselves, Europe's problems would look like a bloody paradise. (And, 
from things I have read, and heard about, that may already be true, if 
you are the wrong color, religion, or tax bracket, in some counties, in 
a few of the states. Not that this is a new thing, just.. not reported 
about until one of the slugs crawls out to run for office, from one of 
them.)

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models, 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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On 22-12-2010 19:28, Darren New wrote:
> andrel wrote:
>> probono case
>
> I don't think that word means what you think it means.
>
Could be I am not a lawyer and not living there. I meant a case where 
the defendant is assigned a lawyer that he doesn't have to pay. I though 
that Patrick was referring to that sort of case.
The Dutch term is 'pro deo' (for god).

Post a reply to this message

Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> If you wear a T-shirt into a 
> government building that implies you're an atheist, you get kicked out.

  How can they do that? Isn't it a blatant violation of basic rights?

> And the first amendment is pretty much the only one that people really pay 
> much attention to any more.

  I thought the second amendment was also a big deal there.

> >   Yes, I know that some people will argue that "well, that's proper
> > because you can't do that". The only thing I can say to that is that
> > I disagree. Burning a bunch of paper should not be a crime. It's paper.
> > Last time I checked, burning paper is not illegal.

> And this is exactly my point, that I can't seem to explain to you.

  I don't understand what that has anything to do with the previous
discussion.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> If you wear a T-shirt into a 
>> government building that implies you're an atheist, you get kicked out.
> 
>   How can they do that? Isn't it a blatant violation of basic rights?
> 
>> And the first amendment is pretty much the only one that people really pay 
>> much attention to any more.
> 
>   I thought the second amendment was also a big deal there.

That's more a regional thing as to how respected that is. A great number of 
states have laws enforcing onerous restrictions on firearms. Other states 
say "Hey, he looked at you funny, feel free to shoot him."  Lots of people 
argue about it, but it doesn't wind up getting supported quite as well as 
the whole freedom of speech thing.

Of course, this might change with the wikileaks fiasco also.

>> And this is exactly my point, that I can't seem to explain to you.
> 
>   I don't understand what that has anything to do with the previous
> discussion.

Hence my assertion. :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

Post a reply to this message

andrel wrote:
> On 22-12-2010 19:28, Darren New wrote:
>> andrel wrote:
>>> probono case
>>
>> I don't think that word means what you think it means.
>>
> Could be I am not a lawyer and not living there. I meant a case where 
> the defendant is assigned a lawyer that he doesn't have to pay. I though 
> that Patrick was referring to that sort of case.
> The Dutch term is 'pro deo' (for god).

"pro bono" means "for free". The lawyer does work without getting paid, out 
of the goodness of his heart, or because he feels strongly about the case, 
or he wants to make a name, or whatever. He volunteers his time for his own 
reasons.

The lawyer that gets assigned to your case when you can't afford one is paid 
by the government, and that's often their full-time job. The job is
called "public defender."

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> "pro bono" means "for free". The lawyer does work without getting paid, out 
> of the goodness of his heart, or because he feels strongly about the case, 
> or he wants to make a name, or whatever. He volunteers his time for his own 
> reasons.

  I thought that the American Bar Association (that name still confuses me)
stipulates that all lawyers should dedicate a certain amount of time to
pro bono work.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> "pro bono" means "for free". The lawyer does work without getting paid, out 
>> of the goodness of his heart, or because he feels strongly about the case, 
>> or he wants to make a name, or whatever. He volunteers his time for his own 
>> reasons.
> 
>   I thought that the American Bar Association (that name still confuses me)
> stipulates that all lawyers should dedicate a certain amount of time to
> pro bono work.

Probably. But that's not the same as a public defender.  The two are 
orthogonal concepts, but that doesn't mean they don't intersect here and there.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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On 22-12-2010 22:11, Darren New wrote:
> andrel wrote:
>> On 22-12-2010 19:28, Darren New wrote:
>>> andrel wrote:
>>>> probono case
>>>
>>> I don't think that word means what you think it means.
>>>
>> Could be I am not a lawyer and not living there. I meant a case where
>> the defendant is assigned a lawyer that he doesn't have to pay. I
>> though that Patrick was referring to that sort of case.
>> The Dutch term is 'pro deo' (for god).
>
> "pro bono" means "for free". The lawyer does work without getting paid,
> out of the goodness of his heart, or because he feels strongly about the
> case, or he wants to make a name, or whatever. He volunteers his time
> for his own reasons.

Thanks for the explanation, I hope I can remember.

> The lawyer that gets assigned to your case when you can't afford one is
> paid by the government, and that's often their full-time job. The job is
> called "public defender."
>

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andrel wrote:
> Thanks for the explanation, I hope I can remember.

No problem. Sorry if it came across a bit sarcastic. I thought at first I 
was replying to Patrick's use of the word, who, being American, I would have 
thought knew the phrase "public defender." :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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On 22-12-2010 22:46, Darren New wrote:
> andrel wrote:
>> Thanks for the explanation, I hope I can remember.
>
> No problem. Sorry if it came across a bit sarcastic.

You didn't. D*mn I misjudged your tone again.

> I thought at first
> I was replying to Patrick's use of the word, who, being American, I
> would have thought knew the phrase "public defender." :-)

That and that it is close to our Pro Deo made me assume that was the US 
term.

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