From: jamesd@netcom.com (James A. Donald)
Date: Mon, 15 Aug 94 11:20:20 PDT
To: jdd@aiki.demon.co.uk
Subject: Re: e$
In-Reply-To: <5975@aiki.demon.co.uk>
Message-ID: <199408151820.LAA13536@netcom8.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


"James A. Donald" writes:
> > You made a claim concerning our judicial and legal system,
> > a claim so far out of contact with reality that nobody can be bothered
> > to refute you.
> 
> I made no claim.  I asked a question.  I quote the exchange in its
> entirety:
> 
> > Jim Dixon says:
> > > In message <9408101428.AA26732@snark.imsi.com> perry@imsi.com writes:
> > > > They are simply trying to stop you from playing games. The law
> > > > isn't like geometry -- there aren't axioms and rules for deriving
> > > > one thing from another. The general principle is that they want to
> > > > track all your transactions, and if you make it difficult they
> > > > will either use existing law to jail you, or will produce a new
> > > > law to try to do the same.
> > >
> > > On what experience or observation do you base these rather extreme
> > > remarks?
> >
> > Plonk.
> 
> This is fundamentalist ranting, followed by a reasonable question,
> followed by <infidel! he dares to question the holy word!>, followed
> by ritual denunciations from bystanders.

sigh.

Perry was expressing, in his usual intemperate fashion, the
legal philosophy known as "legal realism".  Despite the name
legal realism is quite different from the philosophies of
moderate realism or extreme realism.  It is in fact a form
of nominalism.

Today, any judge who is not a legal realist can look forward
to a career of dealing with drunks in the night court at 
topeka.

Happy now?


-- 
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our
property, because of the kind of animals that we              James A. Donald
are.  True law derives from this right, not from
the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.                jamesd@netcom.com