Gdanning
2yr ago
A delay in issuing passports would incentivize illegal emigration rather than immigration, would it not? The US government does not issue passports to aliens seeking to enter the country.
Gdanning
2yr ago
Yes, I understood that to be your point. It is obvious that a show of illegal force will result in fewer people carrying weapons, and hence less crime.
I mentioned the low percentage of frisks that resulted in the discovery of weapons merely to demonstrate that the NYPD was conducting illegal frisks. If they had been only frisking when they had a reasonable suspicion that the detained person was armed, they would have found weapons more frequently.
But I don’t see that you have addressed the central objection that I raised, which is that your argument that it is ok to ignore the civil liberties of individuals if doing so will benefit the broader society is a recipe for having no civil liberties at all.
Gdanning
2yr ago
“Because it matters now” and “because current life matters” begs the question. I can ignore human suffering and focus on my own pleasure, and then I will have more pleasure, and there will be no consequences because we will all die and be forgotten. And I feel no guilt or shame, because I am doing what I want to do.
I am not sure why you are talking about focusing on one's own pleasure. AFAIK, that is not a principle of atheism.
Can you explain why an atheist would spend time reducing suffering if none of it matters once all human life has passed away?
Well, obviously because it matters now. And, just as obviously, to an atheist, now (ie, this life) is all that matters, because now is all that exists. You need to try to reason from the premises of athiests, not just from your own premises.
A reasonable person does not spend a decade building a house that will be immediately destroyed, draw on a canvas that will be immediately incinerated, or donate a kidney to someone who is immediately going to die.
"Immediately" is doing a lot of unearned work there. And, under that logic, it would seem to be irrational to buy a toy for a child with terminal cancer. Heck, it would be irrational to give him pain medication. If your logic leads to that conclusion, there is probably something amiss.
Edit: Btw, you seem to have changed the subject. You have not explained why an athiest who spends his life rescuing abused animals is not "living vibrantly and maximally."
Gdanning
2yr ago
But I’m trying to envision an atheist pondering life while still maintaining motivation to live vibrantly and maximally.
It is completely unclear what you mean by living vibrantly and maximally. If I devote my life to creating art and music for others to enjoy, does that not count? What if I devote my life to reducing suffering in others (human or otherwise, such as people who rescue abused dogs)? What if I spend my life in the pursuit of knowledge? None of those require religious faith.
Gdanning
2yr ago
something which is requires on only a handful rich guys to fund it (NYT, WaPo).
The New York Times Company is publicly traded, so its annual report is online. In 2022 it reported subscription revenue of $1.55 billion and advertising revenue of $500 million.
Gdanning
2yr ago
I think that even with “potential abuses” stop and frisk and broken windows work well enough to be well worth the trade offs. The entire community benefits when ordinary people can walk in their city without fear of street crime or gunfire.
I don't think it is particularly useful to combine stop and frisk with broken windows. The latter is simply the enforcement of law, while the former is, often, the violation of law. (eg: In NYC "[b]etween January 2004 and June 2012, the NYPD conducted over 4.4 million Terry stops. . . .52% of all stops were followed by a protective frisk for weapons. A weapon was found after 1.5% of these frisks. In other words, in 98.5% of the 2.3 million frisks, no weapon was found.". Given that police are permitted to frisk only when they have reasonable suspicion that a detained person is armed,* the police were clearly engaging in widespread Fourth Amendment violations.
And, while it is perfectly true that "[t]he entire community benefits when ordinary people can walk in their city without fear of street crime or gunfire[,]" one can say that of most civil liberties. "It is OK to violate the civil liberties of a small number of people if the community benefits" is a recipe for the complete evisceration of civil liberties.** It is certainly the rationale that has been given in the past for the evisceration of civil liberties.
*Though if Justice Scalia had had his way, they would not be able to frisk without probable cause, a higher bar. See Minnesota v. Dickerson, 508 U.S. 366 (1993) (concurring opinion)
**Obviously Including, given this particular rationale, Second Amendment rights.
Gdanning
2yr ago
Yes, and DNA if the frisk leads to an arrest on a lesser crime. That is a big part of why police do stop and frisks. See the oral argument in Maryland v. King, which okayed taking DNA from arrestees, where the Maryland AG said, "Since 2009, when Maryland began to collect DNA samples from arrestees charged with violent crimes and burglary, there had been 225 matches, 75 prosecutions and 42 convictions, including that of Respondent King." King's crime was rape FWIW.
PS: Note that this not meant to be an argument in favor of stop and frisk, which is far too subject to abuse.
Gdanning
2yr ago
I don't get where you get fugue state out of it. That seems to be a reference to the very commonn phenomenon of a person doing something while in an agitated state and then turning around a minute later and saying to himself "what the fuck did I do that for."
Overall, it seems to be a very standard " the defendant acted wrongfully, but there is not enough to show, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he committed the specifuc crime he is charged with."
Again, that is not to say that someone could not reasonably conclude the opposite.
Gdanning
2yr ago
But the next sentence says: "see also ibid. (positing that a higher ratio might be necessary where "the injury is hard to detect or the monetary value of noneconomic harm might have been difficult to determine"). The converse is also true, however. When compensatory damages are substantial, then a lesser ratio, perhaps only equal to compensatory damages, can reach the outermost limit of the due process guarantee." (Italics in original).
So, in a case arising out of the Volkswagen emissions fraud case, in which each plaintiff was awarded about $1000 in compensatory damages, the Ninth Circuit held, "This case does not support a punitive damages multiplier above a single digit ratio because the damages were not insignificant." Riley v. Volkswagen Group of America., 51 F. 4th 896, 903 (9th Cir 2022). Perhaps other circuits are more generous, but I would like to see actual evidence that the rule in fact has no teeth.
Gdanning
2yr ago
Yes, there is certainly some evidence to support the charge, which is why the grand jury returned the indictment. But Hacker also testified, and we don’t know what that testimony was. Nor do we know what else the gym employees testified to. The threat to break the phone does not mean a whole lot, given that he did not actually break it.
None of which is to say that there wasnot sufficient evidence to convict, but merely that, without seeing more of the evidence, it is a dubious claim to say that it was some sort of open and shut case. I don’t know for sure how Oregon treats circumstantial evidence, but in CA, a jury is instructed, "before you may rely on circumstantial evidence to find thedefendant guilty, you must be convinced that the only reasonable conclusion supported by the circumstantial evidence is that thedefendant is guilty. If you can draw two or more reasonable conclusionsfrom the circumstantial evidence, and one of those reasonableconclusions points to innocence and another to guilt, you must accept theone that points to innocence."
The judge explicitly considering and justifying his judgement by considering whether Hacker went into a short-lived fugue
I didn't see that on the video, though I had it on fast forward so I might have missed it. What is the time stamp for that?
Gdanning
2yr ago
That seems to be an odd summary of a case which per your own cite says "the United States Supreme Court held that the due process clause usually limits punitive damage awards to less than ten times the size of the compensatory damages awarded and that punitive damage awards of four times the compensatory damage award is "close to the line of constitutional impropriety".
I'm very hard-pressed to believe wasn't clearly guilty.
As is true of most states, in Oregon to convict a defendant of any theft offense, including robbery, the People must prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant intended to permanently deprive the victim of property. See State v. Pusztai, 348 P. 3d 241 (Or: Court of Appeals 2015). So, proving robbery in that particular case would not necessarily be easy.
Edit: That was exactly the basis for the acquittal. See starting at 4:30 here
Gdanning
2yr ago
Oh, if he did not include a negligence cause of action, then the causation question probably was not at issue in the first place. If it was just a cause of action for battery, then the operative law seems to be:
For a person to be liable for the intentional tort of another, two legal requirements must be satisfied. First, the defendant must have participated in or aided and assisted in the assault in some way. Paur v. Rose City Dodge, 249 Or. 385, 389, 438 P.2d 994 (1968). Second, the defendant's participation in the assault must have been with the requisite mental state, i.e., defendant must have intended the harmful or offensive contact or least understood that the assault was going to be committed against Olsen at the time defendant aided G.
Olsen v. Deschutes County, 127 P. 3d 655 (OR: Court of Appeals 2006).
Again, I have no idea what evidence was presented to the jury on this.
Gdanning
2yr ago
And I'm not sure Ngo should have even had to prove directly bloody hands, especially in a civil trial; the various tests in the context of mob violence are a mess, but I'm pretty sure they're wider than but-for.
Apparently, there are two standard jury instructions re causation in civil cases in Oregon: Oregon Uniform Civil Jury Instructions (UCJI) UCJI 23.01 (but-for causation) and UCJI 23.02 (substantial factor causation). "[T]he uniform substantial-factor instruction applies only when there are multiple causes of a plaintiff's injury that act together or independently to cause an injury. In other negligence cases—the majority of cases, according to Joshi—the but-for instruction is appropriate. 342 Or. at 162, 149 P.3d 1164." Haas v. Est. of Carter, 316 Or App 75, 87–88, 502 P3d 1144, 1151 (2021).
This case would seem to be one of multiple causation, so the substantial factor instruction should have been given. I don’t know if it was.
Gdanning
2yr ago
There is separate language in 1069 re instruction on sexual orientation:
Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in prekindergarten
kindergartenthrough grade 8, except when required by ss. 1003.42(2)(n)3. and 1003.46. If such instruction is provided in grades 9 through 12, the instruction must be3 or in a manner that is notage-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards. This subparagraph applies to charter schools.
See page 7 of enrolled version of bill.
Gdanning
2yr ago
It appears that unit 1 (10-14% of exam) AP Psych is about general research methodology. Unit 2 (8-10%) is about Biological Bases of Behavior, such as the endocrine system and the brain. Unit 3 (6-8%) is about Sensation and Perception. Unit 4 (7-9%) is re Learning, including Pavlov and Skinner, Unit 5 (13-17%) is Cognitive Psychology, including memory retrieval and storage and Biases and Errors in Thinking. Unit 6 (7-9%) is Development Psychology. That's a awful lot of baby to throw out with the bathwater.
Gdanning
2yr ago
I think perhaps you are looking at a different law (HB 1069).
HB 1557 indeed applies to instruction:
Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.
I agree that the State Board of Education has indeed interpreted the latter part broadly (though perhaps not incorrectly).
Gdanning
2yr ago
Yeah, I would make the same argument, were I the lawyer for a teacher. But I wouldn't expect to win!
Either the College Board has shitty lawyers (a real possibility, I admit!) or they just didn't want to make the argument.
I don’t think that would have been much of an argument. The AP Psych course requires teaching, as part of unit on developmentalpsychology, "how sex and gender influence socialization and other aspects of development." That is nowhere close to what your examples from state standards relate to, and an argument that a standard that requires teaching how the Nazis treated homosexuals somehow brings within its ambit "how sex and gender influence socialization and other aspects of development" would seem to be frivolous.
Edit:
Maybe they're right about that!
I doubt that they have it out for the College Board. But I do note that DeSantis is running for President on an anti-"woke" platform.
Gdanning
2yr ago
This is clearly not what happened. The FDE statement doesn't say the gender identity and sexual orientation stuff must be omitted; the relevant law is quite clear that such instruction may be offered in grades 9-12.
Although I suspect that you are probably correct that the College Board is being disengenuous when it says that the course cannot be offered without the gender/sexuality stuff (it is a small part of the course; in my experience, albeit re AP World rather than AP Psych, teachers are not expected to have time to cover literally anything; hence, I suspect but do not know that the AP Course Audit has in the past approved individual teachers' syllabi that do not include coverage of gender/sexuality), the FDE's May 19 letter to the College Board says the following:
On April 19, 2U23, the State Board of Education amended Rule 6A-10.081, Florida Administrative Code (F.A.C.), Principles of Professional Conduct for the Education Profession in Florida, to prohibit Florida educators from intentionally providing classroom instruction to students in grades 4 through 12 on sexual orientation or gender identity unless such instruction is either expressly required by state academic standards as adopted in Rule 6A-1.09401, F.A.C., or is part of a reproductive health course or health lesson for which a student's parent has the option to have his or her student not attend.
Since AP Psychology is neither required by state academic standards nor a reproductive health course, that certainly sounds like they were saying at that time that including those subjects in an AP Psych class is unlawful, or at least that an AP Psych teacher who taught that material would be subject to discipline.
Real individual income for African Americans also increased from 2008-2016
It seems to me that, if anything, the exact opposite is the case. Terms in legislation are typically given very specific definitions, and terms like "woman" usually don't appear in sex discrimination statutes. Nor do hate crime statutes refer to hate or even define separate crimes, as opposed to increasing penalties for existing crimes where the victim is chosen because of their actual or perceived race, color, religion, or national origin.
Rather, this phenomenon seems to be used outside the strictly legal realm (eg, in addition to your examples, the use of the term, "groomer").
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