Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
Date:         Mon, 4 Jan 1993 11:39:36 EST
From:         Jamie <PL436000@BROWNVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Hateful Penalties, some more

>From:         Andy Freeman <andy@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU>

Jamie:
>>>>But many, most, policies that violate individual rights
>>>>*are* unconstitutional.

Andy:
>While the rights we have may be those that are protected by the
>Constitution, that doesn't mean that there aren't other rights.

You mean, there may be some rights that we do not have?
I don't understand what that would mean. For example, maybe
there is a right to fly, but we do not have it. What would that
mean?

> For
>example, what about rights we don't have and which aren't protected by
>the Constitution.

What about them?

>Do we actually have all of the rights supposedly
>protected by the Constitution?

I think so.

>Are the constitutionally protected
>rights really the only ones we have now?

No. But I never said they were.

>Has Congress/President
>really gotten around to violating every individual right that isn't
>protected by the Constitution?

No. But I don't see the relevance of this question.

>There are four categories of rights under discussion.  The two lines
>are "does the constitution protect it" and "has congress/president
>gotten around to trying to violate it yet".  I'd be really surprised
>if any of the categories was empty.

But once more, I don't see why this is relevant. I never said
any of the categories was empty.

Look to the top of this posting to see what I said. I said that
most policies that violate rights ARE unconstitutional.

>>What I'm saying isn't at all circular. I think we might have had
>>an inferior Constitution, in which case very few of our rights
>>would be constitutionally protected.
>
>I agree that we could have had a worse Constitution.  We could even
>have had a better one that is ignored more than the one we have.
>Clinton supporters best argument notwithstanding, things can almost
>always get worse.

I suppose I agree with this. I am glad that andy took a gratuitous
shot at Clinton supporters in a context that I raised. I'd hate
to think I was wasting my time.

>>My sense is that if someone wasn't even aware of the possibility
>>of death (of the victim, of course), then it isn't criminally
>>negligent homicide.
>
>My sense is that it involves not a little "should have been aware"
>because we still don't have mindreaders.

Mindreaders are irrelevant.
We can get evidence about what is in people's minds even without
mindreaders, it may surprise you to know.

>>Perhaps, but what we do can't very rationally be to plan to deter.
>>It might be to plan to PREVENT further passionate attacks by the
>>same person, but I was talking about deterrence.
>
>While there may well be people who always calculate and consider every
>possibility others who never calculate, I think that most people fall
>somewhere in the middle.

So do I.

>If we tell people "it's okay, you just got mad", we'll have a lot of
>people who "just got mad".

That's an important consideration, I agree.
The law recognizes something like that consideration. It says, you
are not excused just because you didn't know what you did was
illegal. The reason is not that that is not a good excuse. It is
that it is too easy an excuse to feign.

Jamie
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU