Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Bush Violates Act of Congress in campaign

smooth · 08-27-2004, 02:00 PM

I agree with onetime on this. feelings aside, whether a law is broken is up to a judge. whether a law should be considered obscure or not is immaterial to whether it is a well known/understood law. You certainly could go into a courtroom and claim that you were arrested for an obscure regulation. The merits of your case would dictate whether you were convicted as well as previous decisions that comprise the corpus of case law. That is, a law's relative obscurity is not grounds alone for excusion--but it is relevant and the reading of any law is always argued by both parties.

So rather than dwell on interpretation of a given law until a judge or jury renders a decision, the stronger case, in my opinion, is the moral insanity of Bush to use people in his ads that don't want to be used in that way, and would even rather be violenting resisting his interests if given the chance.

I suspect you know that the Capone scenario was a lot more complex than you sketched and not really apples to apples. So I get your overall point (hope?) that one can shafted on the small stuff due to lack of oversight. I don't agree with that assessment and I share tecoyah's concern that such things begin to appear like nitpicking and discredit more "important" factors.

So I envision something like:

One person believes that the law was violated, but another interprets the regulation as being more fluid and not explicilty outlawing behavior.

Rather than get caught up on those two non-reconcilable differences of opinion (until the fact-finder [judge or jury] decides the "truth") the two viewpoints can be shelved while consensus can be reached that it is morally reprehensible to use people in political ads for a platform they don't support. I mean, who owns the commodity? Is it the pres, the congress, or the people who have been transformed into a thing to be bought, sold, or traded on the market?

If we wanted to bounce this over to philosophy one could make an argument that Congress doesn't have the moral right to dictate anything about the athletes as much as any other commercial interest. In that sense, the only morally correct argument, adhering to a stable moral compass, would be to abide by the wishes of the people portrayed in the media form.

08-27-2004, 02:00 PM	#20 (permalink)
smooth Junkie Location: Right here	I agree with onetime on this. feelings aside, whether a law is broken is up to a judge. whether a law should be considered obscure or not is immaterial to whether it is a well known/understood law. You certainly could go into a courtroom and claim that you were arrested for an obscure regulation. The merits of your case would dictate whether you were convicted as well as previous decisions that comprise the corpus of case law. That is, a law's relative obscurity is not grounds alone for excusion--but it is relevant and the reading of any law is always argued by both parties. So rather than dwell on interpretation of a given law until a judge or jury renders a decision, the stronger case, in my opinion, is the moral insanity of Bush to use people in his ads that don't want to be used in that way, and would even rather be violenting resisting his interests if given the chance. I suspect you know that the Capone scenario was a lot more complex than you sketched and not really apples to apples. So I get your overall point (hope?) that one can shafted on the small stuff due to lack of oversight. I don't agree with that assessment and I share tecoyah's concern that such things begin to appear like nitpicking and discredit more "important" factors. So I envision something like: One person believes that the law was violated, but another interprets the regulation as being more fluid and not explicilty outlawing behavior. Rather than get caught up on those two non-reconcilable differences of opinion (until the fact-finder [judge or jury] decides the "truth") the two viewpoints can be shelved while consensus can be reached that it is morally reprehensible to use people in political ads for a platform they don't support. I mean, who owns the commodity? Is it the pres, the congress, or the people who have been transformed into a thing to be bought, sold, or traded on the market? If we wanted to bounce this over to philosophy one could make an argument that Congress doesn't have the moral right to dictate anything about the athletes as much as any other commercial interest. In that sense, the only morally correct argument, adhering to a stable moral compass, would be to abide by the wishes of the people portrayed in the media form. __________________ "The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann "You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman