Law: Understanding the difference between what the law is and what it should be

[Alatriste]

@dps, Marty

Good question... What's the West? I agree with Marty, if a democratic country, member of EU and NATO, doesn't belong to the West we have different meanings for the word.

No, they didn't burn the flag. I was making reference to the polemic about flag burning in the United States and Spain.

Flags are funny things, by the way... a few months ago we had another crazy incident in Spain. A foolish young angry radical (redundant, once again) climbed a government building to replace the national flag with the republican tricolor. He was of course arrested and brought to trial and some coworkers of mine that really should know better were saying he should be declared innocent because he was just expressing his opinions.

You should have seen their faces when I mentioned that, in that case, no one could be brought to trial for climbing a building in brown shirt and jackboots to hang the Nazi flag...

[grumbler]

Don't be so sure... For example, last year a pair of brainless teenagers (redundant, I know) vacationing somewhere in the Baltic, let's say Riga but I don't remember the place, decided it would be a great idea to climb a street lamp, tear down the small national flag hanging, and get a souvenir on the cheap. In the Day of Independence...

Result? Swiftly arrested and jailed on charges of robbery, public scandal and much worse, defiling the national symbols. They were shocked to learn some countries don't think burning the national flag is a right, and even less if you are a foreigner.

Let's just say the Spanish ambassador wasn't pleased, but he managed to secure a minimum sentence, rescue their sorry asses and pack them home after spending two or three weeks in a Lithuanian jail... and they were quite lucky to escape so lightly.

You still focus on the petty details and (apparently) argue that they are evidence of the lack of a general agreement on what activities should be criminalized. 

You example merely demonstrates that some places regard theft as a worse crime than other places, but I will bet that, even in Spain, there is broad agreement that theft should be criminalized.

[grumbler]

Maybe you guys should then define how you understand "West" in your statements. If you do not consider an European Union country to be a part of the West, your definition seems to vary wildly from a common understanding of the word, and perhaps that's where our misunderstanding comes from.

Maybe you guys should define what you understand "general agreement" to mean.  If you think that petty differences disprove general agreement, then your understanding of the term varies wildly from the common understanding of the meaning of the term.

For "us guys," the West includes Western and Central Europe, the western hemisphere, Israel, Australia, and New Zealand. It includes all the countries on the shores of the Baltic bar Russia. The only Western Balkan country is Greece.  South Africa is debatable (I don't include it myself, but don't object when others do).

[Caliga]

Lithuania is definitely the West nowadays.

[C.C.R.]

Lithuania is definitely the West nowadays.

We've lowered our standards...

[PDH]

Wait, which was the Baltic country with the hot chicks?

[Caliga]

Wait, which was the Baltic country with the hot chicks?

All of them, but especially Estonia.

[PDH]

Wait, which was the Baltic country with the hot chicks?

All of them, but especially Estonia.

I will begin the process of Westernization ASAP.

[C.C.R.]

Wait, which was the Baltic country with the hot chicks?

All of them, but especially Estonia.

I will begin the process of Westernization ASAP.

Couldn't we just Westernize the hott chicks by importation & forget about the rest of the Baltic?

[Ideologue]

Not sure that most of us would really consider Lithuania to be part of the West.

Maybe you guys should then define how you understand "West" in your statements. If you do not consider an European Union country to be a part of the West, your definition seems to vary wildly from a common understanding of the word, and perhaps that's where our misunderstanding comes from.

Former Soviet bloc is West Junior.  You know that better than just about anyone here--and it's nothing to take personally.

I do consider everything up to the Polish border and perhaps a bit beyond more-or-less Western, however.   Lithuania is Western.  Latvia and Estonia afaik still practice apartheid, so fuck them.

[Caliga]

Let's just compromise and call it the mid-West.  Poland even looks a little bit like Ohio.

[Agelastus]

Let's just compromise and call it the mid-West.  Poland even looks a little bit like Ohio.

Wouldn't the idea of two mid-wests just confuse people...

[crazy canuck]

Don't be so sure... For example, last year a pair of brainless teenagers (redundant, I know) vacationing somewhere in the Baltic, let's say Riga but I don't remember the place, decided it would be a great idea to climb a street lamp, tear down the small national flag hanging, and get a souvenir on the cheap. In the Day of Independence...

Result? Swiftly arrested and jailed on charges of robbery, public scandal and much worse, defiling the national symbols. They were shocked to learn some countries don't think burning the national flag is a right, and even less if you are a foreigner.

Let's just say the Spanish ambassador wasn't pleased, but he managed to secure a minimum sentence, rescue their sorry asses and pack them home after spending two or three weeks in a Lithuanian jail... and they were quite lucky to escape so lightly.

What you are saying supports what I said.  Everyone in the West would agree that taking property that does not belong to you should be penalized in some way.  Nobody would suggest that what they did was correct or proper.

[Ideologue]

Don't be so sure... For example, last year a pair of brainless teenagers (redundant, I know) vacationing somewhere in the Baltic, let's say Riga but I don't remember the place, decided it would be a great idea to climb a street lamp, tear down the small national flag hanging, and get a souvenir on the cheap. In the Day of Independence...

Result? Swiftly arrested and jailed on charges of robbery, public scandal and much worse, defiling the national symbols. They were shocked to learn some countries don't think burning the national flag is a right, and even less if you are a foreigner.

Let's just say the Spanish ambassador wasn't pleased, but he managed to secure a minimum sentence, rescue their sorry asses and pack them home after spending two or three weeks in a Lithuanian jail... and they were quite lucky to escape so lightly.

What you are saying supports what I said.  Everyone in the West would agree that taking property that does not belong to you should be penalized in some way.  Nobody would suggest that what they did was correct or proper.

But what if (disclaimer: I don't know that it does) the same penalties had accrued if they had simply bought the flag and "defiled" it in some fashion?

Would criminal penalties be remotely acceptable under this "Western consensus"?

I'm sure someone has mentioned euthanasia, but I'll repeat it--there are acts permitted in some countries that would be defined as premeditated murder in the United States.  In Denmark, sex is provided at taxpayer expense to the disabled (I think they're still doing this?, btw it is the greatest thing a state has ever done for its people) when the entire industry is illegal in almost every state of this Union.    Fuck, if I lived in North Carolina I would technically be violating the law by cohabitating out of wedlock.

[Ed Anger]

Let's just compromise and call it the mid-West.  Poland even looks a little bit like Ohio.

You trying to get on my bad side today boy?