Legalized Pickpocketing

On Dec 30, 4:01 pm, Erik Max Francis <m....RemoveThis@alcyone.com> wrote:
> John Schilling wrote:
> > We can make the pretty good guess that it does not disallow anything that
> > was popular at the time it was established, and that it has been amended
> > as necessary to allow things that were once forbidden but have since
> > become sufficiently popular.
>
> > Also, if it works like the United States Constitution, then in the very
> > specific area of appropriate punishments for crimes, that something is
> > common *does* mean it's constitutional.  A punishment has to be cruel
> > *and unusual* to be uncostitutional here.
>
> That doesn't explain why the death penalty was ruled unconstitutional
> for a time here.  While not unusual at all, the Supreme Court ruled that
> the way it was employed was unconstitutional since it was unfair.  After
> those issues were addressed, it was restored as being constitutional
> again.  If what you were saying were true, that couldn't have happened.
>
> --
> Erik Max Francis && m....RemoveThis@alcyone.com &&http://www.alcyone.com/max/
>   San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM, Y!M erikmaxfrancis
>    What would physics look like without gravitation?
>     -- Albert Einstein

"Cruel and Unusual" is a term of art in a legal context, just as are
"due process" "actual malice" "priviliges and immunities" "hearsay"
"just cause" "high crimes and misdemeanors" and many other such
phrases. Trying to parse these by common dictionary definations
without their specifically legal history is an excercize is futility.
The US ban on "Cruel and Unusual" punishment was originally intendeded
to ban judicial torture, burning at the stake, drawing and quartering,
and simialr punishments that had once been as usual as sunrise in
England, but most of which had not caught on in the "colonies". It was
eventually extended to ban the whipping post (quite usual when the US
constitution was first adopted) overcrowded prisons (ditto) and
eventually the death penalty, and then the USSC changed its mind and
said that death is not "Cruel and Unusual". It has now come to be held
that any punishment involving the intentional infliction of physical
pain is "Cruel and Unusual", and recent disputes over methods of
execution have focused on how painful they are or might be. (Although
things can be held "Cruel and Unusual" that do not involve physical
pain, such as overcrowding) But this standard is subject to change any
time 5 Justices decide to. Whether it makes sense to adopt this
standard can be argued, but it seems to be the current law.

-DES

On Dec 29, 10:39 pm, Erik Max Francis <m....RemoveThis@alcyone.com> wrote:
> norrin wrote:
> > On Dec 28, 1:14 pm, Erik Max Francis <m....RemoveThis@alcyone.com> wrote:
> >> Tim Bruening wrote:
> >>> Voters on Earth had voted to make more and more crimes subject to the death
> >>> penalty, such as jaywalking and false advertising.
> >> And on that subject, nice to see that they don't have a judicial check
> >> and balance in their system.
>
> > So you oppose the death penalty for anything, not even
> > telemarketing.
>
> >> I mean, really, Niven's stories are fun, but you can't take the
> >> sociology or politics very seriously.
>
> > The laws of the Constitution or the European Union
> > are not the laws of nature.
>
> No, but they're a pretty good basis for a constitutional democracy.  The
> point is, if the organlegging-era UN is a constitutional democracy, then
> something's seriously wrong with the government institutions, since
> they're not doing their job (assuming such a constitution would have a
> prohibition against excessive punishment, which is a pretty reasonable
> bet).  If they're not, then it's pretty much an invitation to eventual
> disaster, anyway.  The fault isn't with the idiot voters, it's the lack
> of checks and balances to prevent something so stupid as laws that
> result in execution for jaywalking or parking violations from being
> passed and enforced.
>
> Niven's conception of the UN as a world state is basically only slightly
> friendly totalitarianism, anyway.  That's the point:  It's not a
> particularly appealing place to live.
>
> --
> Erik Max Francis && m....RemoveThis@alcyone.com &&http://www.alcyone.com/max/
>   San Jose, CA, USA && 37 18 N 121 57 W && AIM, Y!M erikmaxfrancis
>    Chance favors the trained mind.
>     -- Louis Pasteur- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

The standard for what is excessive punishment for a givcen crime has
varied widely over different times and places. In the US, when the
constitution was adopted, death penalties for thefts of comparitively
minor sums were not considered excessive -- would you say that the
early US courts were failing to do their job by not striking down such
laws? The argument used in most of the anti-death-penalty cases of
1970s and 80s -- the ones that lead to the USSC ruling all death
penalties invalid, before they flipflopped a year later -- was
'evolving community standards' which explicitly assumes that what is
excessive may and will change over time. If the clear community
standard is that jaywalking or fals advertising merits death, by what
leagal or legalistic standard can you say this is 'obviously absurd"?
(A moral or ethical standard is another matter, but courts are mostly
not supposed to appeal to moral standards)

We are told that in Gils day a "direct UN vote" comes at age 25, and
can be lost on conviction for crime. It is strongly implied that at
least some laws are passed by direct refeerendums, and many others are
passed by a legislature very much alive to popular opnion and pols and
demonstrations. Aroused public opnion (even if ill-informed public
opnion) is shown as the decisive political factor at the end of "The
Defensless Dead"

No effective constitutiuonal democracy/republic that I know of
effectivly prevents an overwhelming long-term public consensus from
driving policy on any issue, and at least arguably, nor should it.
Under the US constitution, the only 'unchangable' provisdions are on
prohibiting the slave trade before 1808, and the equal representation
in the senate. Anything else is subject to admendment by its own
terms.

-DES