HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: matt@smoke.brl.mil (Matthew Rosenblatt)
Newsgroups: misc.legal
Subject: Re: The Glorious Constitution (was: [UPI] Supreme Court strikes down...)
Summary: This land is your land.  This land is my land.
Keywords: Hocus, Locus, Jocus (to the landlord belong the doorknobs)
Date: 21 Jul 92 13:29:58 GMT
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory, APG, MD.

In article <1992Jul20.171720.9639@bradley.bradley.edu> 
dave@bradley.bradley.edu (David Vessell) writes:

>hallam@zeus02.desy.de (Phillip M. Hallam-Baker) writes:

>>|>	There is a lot to be said for a mobile society.  The only thing I
>>|>recall the constitution using as a social classification was the ownership
>>|>of land, which was hardly difficult to get in those days. 
>>|>[unattributed poster]

>>Yes, you simply stole it off the native Indians.  [Phillip Hallam-Baker]

>Well, yeah.  That is the grim reality of it, isn't it?   [David Vessell]

You know, I'm sick of hearing that I "stole" my land, to which I have
lawful title going back all the way to Lord Baltimore.  I did not
steal anything, and neither did Lord Baltimore.  The people who
claim I did either have not read _Donald Duck and the Golden Helmet_,
or refuse to believe the law as it is stated there.

In the time of Charlemagne, all the nations of the civilized world
got together and enacted the "Code of Discovery."  According to that
code -- a law -- if any man should discover a new land across the seas,
it would belong to him, unless he claimed it for his king.  

Now, the English explorers who first visited Maryland did not claim
the new land for themselves.  They claimed it for the King of England,
and therefore, under the Code of Discovery, that land belonged to the
King of England.  As owner, he had the legal right to grant that land
to anyone he chose, just as you or I may give our land away to anyone
we choose.  The King of England chose to grant Maryland to Charles
Calvert, Lord Baltimore.  And Lord Baltimore and his successors kept
on transferring subdivisions of the property, by sale or by descent,
until four little parcels came into the hands of Matt Rosenblatt &
wf, bona fide purchasers for value and without notice that these
parcels were ever "stolen" from anyone, which indeed they never were.

Any North American whose eyes are so red from "Les sanglots de l'homme
blanc" that he believes his own land was "stolen" from the Indians
is perfectly free to give that land to the local Indian tribe.  But
don't tell me that my land was "stolen."  I know better.

					-- Matt Rosenblatt
                                        (matt@amsaa.brl.mil)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
TRUTH     JUSTICE     FREEDOM     YIDDISHKEIT     IVY     THE AMERICAN WAY
Newsgroups: misc.legal,alt.censorship,talk.politics.misc
From: eck@panix.com (Mark Eckenwiler)
Subject: Re: Billyboy Starr has had it with me
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 21:46:42 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Culturale Elit
Followup-To: poster

In <1992Jul22.175330.12394@Princeton.EDU>, egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU sez:
>
>The suspicion grows: of either a strange, sick obsession on the part of
>BillyBoy Starr with me, or an unwillingness, quite contrary to Starr's
>professed dedication to free speech, to hear all sides of an argument.

There is no inconsistency in supporting free speech and yet not caring
to hear the maunderings of every fool at Princeton with net access --
not that any of us would expect you to comprehend the distinction, Ed.

>Or, Starr originally put me in his kill file because of a fit of rage at
>being bested in argument.  

I wish we could all be like Ed Nilges, who so gracefully
Herbert-Marcrucifies language when the tide of logic and history runs
inconveniently against him.  Say, what's that line from _Surrealistic
Pillow_?  "When logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead / And the
White Knight is talking backwards, and the Red Queen's off with her
head" -- yeah, that's the Nilges way.

Feed your Ed.


-- 
		  For a Big Lie, call 1-800-424-9090

	Mark Eckenwiler    eck@panix.com    ...!cmcl2!panix!eck
From: akbloom@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu (Keith Bloom)
Subject: Re: Stare Decisis
Organization: The Johns Hopkins University
	<45ob021r1b7d01@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com> 
	<1992Jul25.122946.5484@athena.mit.edu>
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 92 18:44:14 GMT

wdstarr@athena.mit.edu (William December Starr) writes:

>Which brings me to a sort of trivia question: How many examples can
>anyone come up with of the U.S. Supreme Court _explicitly_ overruling
>a previous Supreme Court holding on a question of law?  (No, don't
>email me for the answers.  I don't know this one myself; I'm trying to
>harness the awesome power of the net to build a list of such cases.)

In _Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas_, 347 US 483 (1954),
Chief Justice Warren discusses _Plessy v. Ferguson_, 163 US 537 several 
times and acknowledges that its doctrine is directly under question.
He distinguishes the case from several previous cases in which the
Court ruled that access to education (on the graduate level) was not
equal, so the validity of Plessy's doctrine was not challenged.

After citing some sociological evidence on the effects of
discrimination on black children, Warren wrote:

    "Whatever may have been the extent of psychological knowledge at
     the time of _Plessy v. Ferguson_, this finding is amply supported
     by modern authority.  Any language in _Plessy v. Ferguson_
     contrary to this finding is rejected."

This is probably good enough to be considered an explicit override of
Plessy v. Ferguson, at least as it applied to education.  (The
original case had to do with access to transportation facilities.)


Keith
-----
Disclaimer: I've never been either a law student or a lawyer.
From: fsars@acad3.alaska.edu (Allen R Sparks)
Newsgroups: misc.legal
Subject: Re: Males Doing it to Themselves
Date: 30 Jul 92 00:57:08 GMT
Organization: University of Alaska Fairbanks

In article <19002@smoke.brl.mil>, matt@smoke.brl.mil (Matthew Rosenblatt) writes:
> I read somewhere that one of the first sociological studies ever
> performed, 'way back at the end of the previous century, was by
> a French sociologist who found that in countries where wives can 
> get divorce on demand without cause, the suicide rate among men 
> is higher than in countries where they cannot.  I believe that 
> this comes about as a result of despair when a blameless man is
> nevertheless punished by having to continue performing his side 
> of a bargain that his ex-wife has breached.  I believe that the 
> older system, where marriage was "for keeps," was a better system 
> -- especially for children.  And therefore, I hope that State
> legislatures will recognize that the move toward "no-fault" 
> divorce was a mistake, and reinstitute the older system.

Regarding the French study.  You attribute the higher suicide rate
among French men to be because blameless men in France had to continue
to perform his side of the bargain that his ex-wife had breached.  Yet
you did not establish that France, at that time, had the same system
we do, just that wives could divorce on demand.  Were French men
required to perform their side of the bargain after the breach of
contract?

The despair they felt, could simply be that their wives had left them. 
It's my opinion that, emotionally, men need women more than women need
men.  This becomes more true as we get on in years.  (This shouldn't
be confused with people in their teens and early 20's, where men WANT
women more than women want men).

As for your comments about the divorce laws, I think that they were
weighted disproportionately towards men, and now are
disproportionately weighted towards women.  We do need some changes.
Perhaps treating it like a simple contract would be the way to go.

As demands for things like enforcement of child support payments go
up,  Maybe lawmakers will be forced to look into that more, as the
payers become more politically active.
=== Al Sparks
From: Joe.Francis@dartmouth.edu (Joe Francis)
Newsgroups: misc.legal
Subject: Re: Hate Speech Okay, says the Supreme Court
Date: 27 Jul 92 20:04:28 GMT
 <1992Jul27.151442.23606@Princeton.EDU>  
 <1992Jul27.164700.19910@eff.org>
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH

In article <1992Jul27.164700.19910@eff.org>
mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes:

> In article <1992Jul27.151442.23606@Princeton.EDU> egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:
> 
> >This is because high-powered, high-paid
> >lobbyists for the tobacco companies were able to destroy a very
> >effective series of anti-smoking TV ads in return for the mild warning
> >label.
> 
> No doubt the national decline in smoking, as well as the change in
> national attitudes toward smoking, has been mere coincidence.

What is this, debate by distraction?  Look!  Over there!  Whoops, you
missed it.  Where did Ed claim smoking was not on the decline?  The
nature of his claim seems to be that cigarette manufacturers would be
worse off if the alternative scenario had transpired.  This is distinct
from the claim Ed did not make: that smoking has not declined.

Perhaps a little history is in order.  In 1966, John Banzhaf wrote
WCBS-TV asserting that the one sided treatment of cigarette smoking
provided by advertising was in violation of the Fairness Doctrine.  The
FCC concluded that WCBS was violating the Fairness Doctrine.  Although
the FCC did not stipulate "equal time" for opposing views, the ruling
would have prompted stations to carry anti-smoking public service
announcements.  The dispute ended up before the US Court of Appeals,
which upheld the FCC's ruling.  However, the tobacco lobby executed a
very nifty end run around the ruling by settling on compromise
legislation in Congress that banned TV smoking advertisements
altogether, the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act.  When this act was
challenged in court, it was upheld, but there is some merit to Judge
Wright's dissent, and the following portions seem relevant to this
"debate":

"The history of cigarette advertising since Banzhaf has been a sad tale
of well meaning but misguided paternalism, cynical bargaining and lost
opportunity.  In the immediate wake of Banzhaf, the broadcast media
were flooded with exceedingly effective anti-smoking commercials.  For
the first time in years, the statistics began to show a sustained trend
towards lesser cigarette consumption"

and

"The Banzhaf ruling [...] clearly made the electronic media advertising
a losing proposition for the industry [...] The result of the
legislation was that both cigarette advertisements and most
anti-smoking messages left the air, the tobacco companies transferred
their advertising budgets to other forms of advertising such as
newspapers and magazines where there was no Fairness Doctrine to
require a response."

If Judge Wright is to be believed (and he cited US Dept. of Agriculture
stats to support his point), the tobacco lobby successfully navigated
Congress down a less painful path.  
Newsgroups: misc.legal,soc.culture.usa,alt.activism
From: bfrg9732@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Brian F. Redman)
Subject: Re: U.S. Justice Dept./Violent Crime Report
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 14:17:06 GMT

Nigel.Allen@bbs.oit.unc.edu (Nigel Allen) writes:

>Press release from U.S. Department of Justice

> Attorney General Barr Announces Violent Crime Report 
> To: National Desk 
> Contact: U.S. Department of Justice, Public Affairs, 202-514-2007 
> 
>   WASHINGTON, July 28 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Attorney General William P. 
>Barr today released a blueprint for fighting violent crime at the 
>state and local level in a report titled "Combating Violent Crime: 
>24 Recommendations to Strengthen Criminal Justice." 
>   "Police, prosecutors and law enforcement officials at the state 
>and local level are doing a tremendous job fighting violent crime in 
>America.  But in too many cases, their state criminal justice system 
>is letting them down.  The sad truth is that most convicted violent 
>criminals are returning to the streets after alarmingly short periods 
>of time in prison.  We must stop the revolving door justice that is 
>undermining the good work of the men and women on the front lines of 
>the war on crime and drugs," said the attorney general. 

    They've been saying this same crapola for twenty years now. Ditto
    with the "war on drugs" which has been going on at least since the
    time of Nixon. White collar crime corporate crime continues to
    get lenient treatment while crimes committed by the poor are
    punished more severely. 

	It seems that disenfranchised groups continually get scapegoated
    by the politicos each election year and we constantly fall for
    it. The politicos tell us "the American people are not stupid"
    (did someone say we *were* stupid? -- methinks thou dost protest
    too much) and then they slam poor welfare mothers and working-class
    men. Joe Six-Pak gets drunk one Saturday night, kills someone in
    a bar fight and gets 20 years. Exxon destroys Alaska and how many
    years did they get? I'm not saying that Joe Six-Pak is right. What
    I am saying is if they really wanted to combat crime there is a
    whole bunch of corporate criminals who have yet to experience the
    delights of our penal system.


Newsgroups: misc.legal
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: Hate Speech Okay, says the Supreme Court
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 23:31:12 GMT

In article <1992Jul30.142947.23811@Princeton.EDU> egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges) writes:

>In
>justified reaction to the transformation of the Berkeley campus of the
>University of California into a sort of factory for men in grey flannel
>suits and their helpmates in 1965, that same campus exploded with
>justified demands, documented in such out-of-print tomes as Jerry
>Farber's The Student as Nigger, for a real rather than an ersatz
>education.

Of course, since Farber uses the word "Nigger," it follows that he's a
racist.



--Mike




-- 
Mike Godwin,     |"Crime is contagious. If the Government becomes a law-
mnemonic@eff.org | breaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every
(617) 864-0665   | man to become a law unto himself. It invites anarchy."
EFF, Cambridge   |         --Brandeis, J., dissenting in Olmstead v. U.S.  
Xref: sparky misc.legal:15190 alt.censorship:6486 talk.politics.misc:36616
From: gearson@jove.Colorado.EDU (James R. Gearson)
Subject: Looking for Chicago lawyer in paternity/custody case
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 03:05:14 GMT

I am looking for references to lawyers in the Chicago area for a
paternity/custody action.  I am the purported father.  If the
tests show that I am the father, my wife and I want to fight
for custody.

So far I have been disappointed by my interviews of various lawyers.  
I am willing to accept
"Your chances of winning are small," but I have yet even to find lawyers
that are thinking hard about strategies for winning.  Most seem willing
just to accept a fee for standing beside me in the courtroom.

Moreover, I would like to find a lawyer with a track record in
father's rights.  I am concerned about my daughter, and I want to see that
she is well taken care of.
Newsgroups: misc.legal
From: ehle@leland.Stanford.EDU (Robert Ehle)
Subject: party rental facilities & caterers
Keywords: catering, party, legal
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 92 16:11:20 GMT

Can anyone advise me on the legality of the following situation?
Please respond directly to my e-mailbox, as I rarely read this
newsgroup.

There are a number of facilities in the San Francisco Bay Area that
rent space to wedding groups and others for one-time celebrations.
Some of these facilities have their own food service as well, but many
do not. Among those which don't, most have a "preferred recommendation
list" of third-party vendors which they give to the prospective
client. On this list would be catering companies, photographers, disc
jockeys (I guess), and so on. Of course, it can be a great boon for a
caterer, for example, to be on the "list" of a prestigious facility (a
large, private garden, for example, or an old house).

The legal question is broken into two parts, the first regarding
exclusivity. If the prospective client wants to bring in a third-party
vendor not on the space's preferred list, is the facility within its
rights not to allow it, even if the third party is completely licensed
for all functions of  its business?  That is, can the preferred list
be an exclusive list?

The second part has to do with money. Facilities of course charge a
fee for the use of their space, which is charged to the client. Is it
legal for the facility

	a) to additionally charge the third party vendor a percentage
of its gross sales? and

	b) to tell that vendor that this is not to be discussed with
the client?

If I'm using this newsgroup in the wrong way (essentially I'm trying
to get some legal advice for free), I hope someone will let me know.
I've seen no "FAQ" list for misc.legal.



-- 
Rob Ehle
Stanford University Press
415/723-1132; fax 415/725-3457
From: dfpedro@nv2.uswnvg.com (Donn F. Pedro)
Newsgroups: misc.legal
Subject: Re: Self-Defense
Date: 29 Jul 92 22:28:27 GMT
Reply-To: dfpedro@uswnvg.com.UUCP (Donn F. Pedro)
Organization: I don't speak for them anyway.

In article <9956@sun13.scri.fsu.edu> pepke@ds1.scri.fsu.edu (Eric Pepke) writes:
:In article <1992Jul23.035153.2572@midway.uchicago.edu> thf2@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
:>Situation: You're a prisoner in a cell.  Your prisonmate, who's five
:>inches taller, and a hundred pounds heavier, whom you have no hope 
:>of defending yourself against tells you one night: "When dawn comes,
:>I'm going to kill you."  He then goes to sleep.  Assume that going to
:>a guard for assistance has proven futile in the past, and that you have
:>no reason to believe otherwise now.  What do you do?
:
:It should be the way it is now in most states.  This is not self-defense.  It's
:murder.

Quite correct.

:It may be a less serious form of murder than killing a stranger in 
:cold blood, and the judge and/or jury depending on the state may take that 
:into consideration when deciding on a sentence, but it's still murder, and
:you should do some (more?) time for it.

But, as a corpse, you could not do time, right?

You made some good points.  It is murder, no doubt, and you
would probobly have to pay.  But you would be alive.


     Donn Pedro ....................................dfpedro@uswnvg.com

		     There are no ordinary moments.
From: kevin@cfctech.cfc.com (Kevin Darcy)
Newsgroups: misc.legal
Subject: Re: ProMaleChoice
Keywords: flesh and blood
Date: 27 Jul 92 22:39:41 GMT
Organization: Chrysler Financial Corp., Southfield, MI

In article <18976@smoke.brl.mil> matt@smoke.brl.mil (Matthew Rosenblatt) writes:
>
>A man's child is his own flesh and blood.  How can he turn his back
>on him and just walk away?

From a blob of cells?? Easy.

A better question is: how can a woman bring an illegitimate child into the 
world, to likely suffer misery and unhappiness?

An even BETTER question is: why do we, as a society, encourage and subsidize
such behavior at the hefty expense of men whose only "crime" consists of
having been biologically unlucky???

								- Kevin
From: egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Ed Nilges)
Newsgroups: misc.legal
Subject: Re: Hate Speech Okay, says the Supreme Court
Date: 27 Jul 92 15:14:42 GMT
Organization: Princeton University
Originator: news@ernie.Princeton.EDU

In article <1992Jul27.144100.18135@eff.org> mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes:
>
>As for your reference to advertising of cigarettes, well, it's old news
>to mention this, but cigarette advertising has been increasingly regulated
>and restricted for the last two decades. For a discussion of the passage
>of cigarette advertising, see THE DANCE OF LEGISLATION by (as I recall)
>Eric Redman. 

It's a dance in which the elephants stomp the mice, a la Fantasia.  The
passage of warning label legislation was not an increase in tobacco
regulation; it was a wash.  This is because high-powered, high-paid
lobbyists for the tobacco companies were able to destroy a very
effective series of anti-smoking TV ads in return for the mild warning
label.  To this day, there has been no legal recognition of the central
fact of smoking (that tobacco is an addictive drug probably as powerful
as heroin) because the lobbyists, being smart, know that such a
concession would open legal floodgates.

The Joe Camel campaign was one of the most irresponsible cigarette
campaigns in history, appealing to children 10-18 when it is illegal for
them to buy cigarettes and when they are at most risk for smoking.  It
began in 1990 and so far it has not been regulated.  T shirts and other
promotional chachkas have been marketed as a part of this campaign which
do not bear a wanring label, yet the power of the tobacco companies is
such that no legal challenges have been mounted.
Newsgroups: misc.legal
From: nancy@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov (Nancy Feagans)
Subject: Re: Help please!
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory (NASA)
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 19:29:46 GMT

In article <712296835.AA00001@eilc.UUCP> Michael.Baumann@f60.n374.z1.fidonet.org (Michael Baumann) writes:
>        Not being involved in law, I have lost my way and need some
>assistance.  I have heard the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) has a
>rule/law/regulation that can be used to over turn a Home Owners' Association's
>ban on antennas.
>        I live in a town house and according to the Home Owners' Association,
>we (the tenants) are not allowed to erect an antenna.  As I have just passed
>the exams for my Technician Class license (amateur radio) and wish to become
>involved with the local RACES (emergency communications in disasters) group I
>need an out side antenna.
>
>        If some one could point me in the right direction for what/where to
>search or perhaps could provide some case cites that uphold the right of an
>amateur radio operator to erect an antenna to be used in emergency
>communications, I would greatly appreciate it.
>
Mike:  Hate to tell you this, but the governing documents of your Homeowner's
Association will prevail.  I'm in my second year as president of my 118 unit
HOA here in Sunland, CA, and have learned much over this time as far as the
enforceability of the governing documents (CC&Rs, By-Laws, and Rules and
Regulations).  They will stand as written in a court of law, *except* if
they are in conflict with the Civil Code for your state.  I would have to
say that unless there is such an FCC law and IF it is not in conflict with
the Civil Code, you cannot erect an outside antenna.
 
My Association is a member of Community Associations Institute (CAI), and
Board members have attended many seminars over the last two years, as well
as being on mailing lists for bulletins and magazines that deal specifically
with condo/townhome/planned unit development living.  I seem to remember an
article in a past issue of "Common Ground" regarding the erection of a large
(tall) CB-type antenna by a homeowner.  It went to court and the homeowner
lost.  Unfortunately, I don't remember the state or any details about this
incident.
 
Sorry I can't be more optimistic about your dilemma, but based on what I
know of Homeowner Association operation and Civil Codes, I think you're
out of luck on this one.


-- 

Nancy J. Feagans     (818) 306-6423
Jet Propulsion Lab   nancy@jpl-devvax.Jpl.Nasa.Gov
"Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious."