necoandjeff wrote:

> > What is your own proposal? I would be happy to hear it even if that
> > also took a few hundred posts.
>
> What makes you think I have one?

The fact that the system is imperfect. (Do you even recognize it is imperfect?)
Or are you just to lazy even to try to think?

> >> What they "find" is all we can go by.
> >
> > And is the criminal record of everyone around you known to any and all
> > they encounter, for there to be any practical difference between
> > actual legal findings and the "metaphysical" truth?
>
> You've demonstrated amply in this thread that you don't understand what I
> meant by metaphysical.

What do you mean? Rykk is willing to go by the Miriam-Webster definition, as am
I.

What definition are you making up?

> And you demonstrate it again by referring to
> metaphysical truth as opposed to the metaphysical state of guilt (i.e. a
> state that cannot be measured or known by any physical process.)

Again: what is the difference in practical terms between this "metaphysical"
guilt and actual legal findings, if you do not know the history of any or
everyone around you?

> Why don't you do us all a favor and just stop using words that you have
> trouble
> understanding.

It is you who do not know how the word is used, or at least how it was or
should be used, if you do not appreciate the Miriam-Webster dictionary,
verbatim.

> Let's just confine it to one's objective guilt and the state's subjective
> belief regarding that guilt. Can you handle those two concepts?

Yeah. Objective guilt (or innocence) is the one that is always correct. Not so
of subjective "belief".

What don't you get about those concepts?

> And what you said above makes no sense to me at all. In fact it makes me
> question whether English is your native language.

What about my native language, jeff?

I've posted the Miriam-Webster dictionary definition for you. You tell me what
is wrong with it. Rykk is willing to go along with it in his discussion.

What is your problem with the word you brought up?

> What does it matter if people around you know your criminal record?

I'm trying to demonstrate to you the difference between "objective guilt" and
"the state's subjective belief".

Not only does this difference not bother you, you not get it why it should.

> The state has been given the power to punish people for crimes they have
> committed.

Crimes they have been found to have committed. Even I am unpunished, yet I must
have committed hundreds of crimes.

See. You still don't get it, despite you bringing up the terms yourself.

> Before it can do that it must determine whether a crime has been committed or
> not.

The inherent weakness of the system. They do not take me in for a crime, or
give me a simple traffic ticket, even when I agree with police who question me,
and they have me dead to rights with evidence (or witnessed it themselves), or
I even go down to the station of my own accord to turn myself in, claiming
idiocy, probably not even according to law, like how the VICTIM who lives half
a nation away in another jurisdiction needs to make the report themselves.
Meanwhile, the Japanese statute of limitations has passed for a number of my
crimes in Japan. The crimes in the US also probably have a statute of
limitations.

How lame is that? See, police being expected to get off their asses and do
their jobs better to protect the public or apprehend criminals after it is too
late, does not necessarily have anything to do with trampling upon the public's
freedoms. Yet you do not even bother to consider this aspect of law
enforcement.

> Are you trying to say that one's past criminal record should be used in
> determining guilt for a new crime?

That is not what I meant at all in those statements, nor is it what I
addressed, though now that you bring it up, one's past record or behavior would
be useful in demonstrating a pattern of behavior.

> > You and others are on about how we cannot know the "metaphysical"
> > regarding criminal guilt. I have recognized the limitations in my own
> > post, because at the minimum, only the criminal themselves will know
> > the truth about what they have done.
>
> Exactly. So the state is left to do the best it can do

Again, we must clearly disagree. I do not agree with the how the Bush
administration is handling domestic security, but even that is an attempt at an
improvement.

> to figure out whether one is guilty or not. But we

Who is "we"? Are you a lawmaker or politician? Did you ratify the US
Constitution?

> have collectively decided

You mean agreed with what has been decided, perhaps 220 years ago.

> that there are to be important limits on the state's ability to do so because
> there are some things (like freedom) that we consider too sacred

Who is we? Are you an American voter? Your reaction to the election and
prospects for the future?

> to trampeled over by the state. We have decided that allowing a few criminals

Is millions of criminals going unpunished like myself, perhaps even in a single
year, a few?

> to go free is worth the price for keeping the state from locking up too many
> innocents.

Why not try to get those millions of criminals, as well as not punish any
innocents, instead of being content with the system as it is?

You don't like "trampling" upon people's rights? So why can't you even imagine
better enforcement of current laws? More police who work harder and are paid
better, that they not be lured away by jobs such as in airport security. More
public defenders (with better salaries, that they be motivated to stay and also
work harder) that even poor defendants get a fair trial instead of being
recommended a plea bargain or getting railroaded. Juries that actually are
qualified to make important decisions on matters involving difficult technical
terms and procedures, who are not easily swayed by sharp lawyers or paid expert
witnesses.

Anything?

> If you don't like that particular system I can recommend any number of
> countries with systems that might be more agreeable to you and to which you
> are welcome to relocate.

This argument again. Why is it I who must leave instead of the rest of the
criminals, for example? Should the Bush Administration also get out of the
country for infringing upon people's rights? Why not consider improvements to
the flawed system to serve hundreds of millions, instead of the elimination of
a single individual?

> > Tell me how you know whether or not random strangers around you, or
> > even people you consider recent good friends, are convicted criminals
> > or have lost a civil suit. Do you conduct background checks or make a
> > practice of asking personal questions to know what can be known about
> > them in the earthly sense?
>
> Tell me why I should concern myself with these kinds of questions every time
> I meet a random stranger.

Because we are willing to make smart comments about people like OJ who are
among the few to make the news with their legal problems for us to "know" about
them, while we may be well be surrounded by people who are as bad or worse,
unknowingly. This fact bothers me, like sharing a cell with a random stranger
who turned out to be a kidnapper (confessed), or unknowingly working alongside
a man with multiple felony offenses who bragged eight officers were required to
arrest him (confessed) on work release, or being invited to lunch (as a 7th
grader) by a man serving a ten year sentence (confessed) who had just singled
me out for his verbal abuse because I did not want to look him in the eye.

So, it is meaningful to you that certain people do have criminal records which
we can verify, if we bothered to or had the authority to check. Do you actually
check up on people, for it to make a difference? Or do you go through your life
unaware of people's legal status, as unaware as you are of their objective
guilt?

--
 "I'm on top of the world right now, because everyone's going to know that I
can shove more than three burgers in my mouth!"