SteveC wrote:
> On Apr 10, 5:47 pm, delancey <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>> Well, once you declare that you don't care about the actual issues,
>>>
>> That's not fair. The law says many many things that range from
>> dubious to ridiculous. E.g., that corporations are in some senses
>> people. Are you really about to say that any denial that corporations
>> are people is a waste of time because it doesn't recognize the actual
>> law, the actual composition of corporations today?
>>
>
> A waste of time? You bet? Who would spend a minute on this?
>
Well, it's kind of an interesting question to someone who's interested
in discussing speculative matters. Or practical ones. The reality of
Corporate personhood has a lot of practical implications right now, as
you must admit if you are paying any attention to the news. The LAW has
things to say about that, and what the law says has a profound shaping
effect on our experience of the world.
So doesn't it make sense to try to MAKE ACTIVE CHOICES about what the
law says?
Which is to say: Spend at least a minute on this?
Not to mention making the tiniest effort to actually understand the
positions of people you're arguing with....
> Or that a debate
>
>> about whether some people are 3/5ths of a person was a waste of time
>> because it didn't recognize the actual law, the actual composition of
>> people at that time?
>>
>
> A terrible example. I'll bet you can't give me the context for this
> argument. 99.9% of people can't.
>
Wow, that's a really, really strange thing to say, Steve.
Perhaps instead of cattily dismissing the example, you could *explain
why it's bad*. I, for one, think it's a great example of why arbitrarily
bowing to the rule of law is maybe not such a /wise/ thing to do. After
all, by modern standards, the early 19th century American idea that some
people were only worth 3/5ths as much as others seems quite bizarre. Yet
if it had never been challenged -- repeatedly, at incredible cost, and
well into the 20th century -- we wouldn't have had to risk having black
people in elected office, because their core constituency would always
be at a 40% handicap at the polls.
Maybe you have a reason in mind why it's a bad example. But unless you
state it, we don't know what it is, and your retort just looks
really....bad.
(So, you don't seriously think that Craig can't give you "the context"
on that, do you? Do you really think he goes around using obscure
examples that he doesn't actually know the meaning of? And why would it
matter to the validity of the example if other people didn't understand
it? Perhaps what you meant to say was that the example was not
appropriate to the audience. Us all beings dummies abouts history and
unqualifieds to discuss ethics, after all.)
> A father reading to his daughter is now an
>
>> infringement. Libraries lending is infringement. Someone lending a
>> book is infringement. A person reading a few pages in the bookstore
>> coffee shop is an infringement. Telling a story from memory is an
>> infringement. And ad nauseum.
>>
>
> We know none of these things are true and that nobody is arguing them.
> You're simply making this up because you don't understand any of the
> law or the facts. That's not a proper way to enter an argument and I
> can't believe you'd let a student get away with this.
>
"Making this up"? Who would spend a minute on this? I mean, really, who
has time for thought experiments on a speculative literature discussion
list?
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