The Thurston Mittens the 3rd Veep Megathread

[Barrister]

As to the states, you've overlooked a third option: reduce salaries. 

Whose salaries do you propose reducing?  When I look at state government, I don't see the huge epidemic of grossly overpaid courtiers running about. It's look a  lot more like Sparta than Versailles.   The other day, I was in discussion about some techincal details with a state department only to find they lacked the ability to perform basic database management functions, becuase their computer system dates from the 70s and they have to strictly ration the time of their limited technical personnel.  When I look at the state employees who are in my own profession, it looks to me like they are pretty seriously underpaid compared to the importance of their job functions.  The pay scales are generally lower than the federal equivalent and way, WAY below the private sector. 

If you cut the price offered, you will either get less quality or quantity.  So if the argument is that we should be cutting state salaries, you either have to make the argument that the quality of state public services is better than it needs to be, or that some magical way to achieve vast efficiencies will allow you to cut overall pay and increase quality.

Hm.

Joan, you realize your profession does not, by and large, make a tremendous amount of money, in or out of government, right?  And the government ones are actually doing better than many if not most (I'd say most) in private practice?

Yeah, from the news articles and studies I remember, government workers including state and local do much better than their similarly educated/experienced peers, especially as government workers are more likely to have healthcare benefits and defined benefits pensions. Add to that, you can retire at x years from one government locality and then start at another government locality, finishing with two or three separate pensions.

Ideo is talking specifically about government lawyers though.

And it's a difficult comparison between government and private practice lawyers.  Because for every Minsky, there are 3 American Scipios, and 5 Ideologues (note: numbers pulled out of my buttocks).  But in any event - white shoe new york lawyers are a poor comparison to anybody.

[Martinus]

Never mind god, it's the mark of a civilized society.

Seedy is the one who raised the rights argument, not me.

Albeit a silly one.  Rights from nature?  Yeah, nature's just chock full of that shit.  Human rights are so natural that they cannot be meaningfully argued over and were discovered by a species that has existed for over a million years well over four centuries ago.

That is not really true. The concept of natural rights of man dates as back as ancient Greece (or perhaps to still older times, but no records are obviously present). It has been argued for by Romans, who recognized ius gentium, and by fathers of the Church and later by Aquinas, Marsilius of Padua, Grotius and Spinoza, to name but a few. Also, the paradox of it seemingly changing has been answered at least in two different ways - either that our understanding of it is improving (Kant) or that it does actually change due to human nature also changing (Stammler, Radbruch).

Have you had no history/philosophy of law classes at law school?

[dps]

That is the way it works.

There is a town here of 6K(New Carlisle) that disbanded its police department and lets the Clark County sheriff do its policing. The nearby Park Layne CDP of 4K has no police.

The Clark county sheriff does rock however.

I don't know how it works in other states, but in WV a city or town can disband its police and have the county do the job, but they do have to pay a fee to the county for the service.  I'm only aware of 1 town that's done it, though.

Yeah, it's the same way in Alberta.  About the only cities with police departments are Edmonton and Calgary.  Everywhere else just pays the RCMP.

That's not how it is at all in Alberta.

You have to contract with the RCMP in order to have them act as your police.  They don't do it for free.  The province negotiates that contract on behalf of its munipalities.  The provinces does mandate a certain level of service that must be provided.

Several communities besides Edmonton and Calgary have their own municipal PDs.  Camrose, Lethbridge, Lacombe, Medicine Hat and Taber have their own.

I'll admit - I googled that - I only knew 3/5.

Uh, both Neil and I said that cities that don't have their own police have to pay to have another law enforcement agency do the job (the Mounties in Canada and the county sheriff in WV).  Where'd you get that anybody was suggesting that it was done for free?

[Ideologue]

Never mind god, it's the mark of a civilized society.

Seedy is the one who raised the rights argument, not me.

Albeit a silly one.  Rights from nature?  Yeah, nature's just chock full of that shit.  Human rights are so natural that they cannot be meaningfully argued over and were discovered by a species that has existed for over a million years well over four centuries ago.

That is not really true. The concept of natural rights of man dates as back as ancient Greece (or perhaps to still older times, but no records are obviously present). It has been argued for by Romans, who recognized ius gentium, and by fathers of the Church and later by Aquinas, Marsilius of Padua, Grotius and Spinoza, to name but a few. Also, the paradox of it seemingly changing has been answered at least in two different ways - either that our understanding of it is improving (Kant) or that it does actually change due to human nature also changing (Stammler, Radbruch).

Have you had no history/philosophy of law classes at law school?

I never took jurisprudence,

Well, excluding religious origins of natural rights--iirc, those last four dudes posited God as the ultimate source of law.  Rightfully speaking, this would make them supernatural rights, and would invalidate the idea of "rights" as things that, while lacking material basis, can be said to objectively exist on their own, like mathematics or logic.  Conceptually, God is no different than a (very powerful) sovereign as far as a source of rights is concerned.

I don't know Kant all that well.

You may have the Greeks.  However, I'm unsure how they understood the concept of rights; if they did have their own concepts of natural rights, they would have had to be as alien as could be from how we tend to understand natural rights.  I think that goes more to prove my point than being a bit more accurate about dates or identifying the first folks to introduce the concept.

My point being that rights only come from the agreement of humans to create them and a mechanism to enforce them (e.g., the proposition that there is no right without a remedy).  The same can be said of closely allied fields such as law or morality.

[Martinus]

Well, excluding religious origins of natural rights--iirc, those last four dudes posited God as the ultimate source of law.  Rightfully speaking, this would make them supernatural rights, and would invalidate the idea of "rights" as things that, while lacking material basis, can be said to objectively exist on their own, like mathematics or logic.  Conceptually, God is no different than a (very powerful) sovereign as far as a source of rights is concerned.

This is quite wrong. To medieval scholars, everything, including natural science, was operated by the will of God, so actually conceptually God as a source of natural law is no different than reason in Kant's philosophy or human nature for Romans and Grotius. Btw, neither Grotius, nor Spinoza, nor Cicero, nor the Stoics, nor Aristotle, nor Marsilius of Padua really pointed to God as the source of these laws (well, maybe Spinoza to a degree, but his concept of God was pantheistic, so again there is little difference between his "God" and Grotius's human nature or Kant's "reason"), so you are building a strawman there. And the theory of just law (and just war) built by Aquinas does not treat the God in a way you claim it does here either (he claimed that natural law is immutable and can be discerned with reason, with revelation playing only a secondary role; for example he recognized things similar to due process, right to live or personal property as the elements of this law and even postulated a right of rebellion if the written law did not uphold these basic laws).

[Martinus]

My point being that rights only come from the agreement of humans to create them and a mechanism to enforce them (e.g., the proposition that there is no right without a remedy).  The same can be said of closely allied fields such as law or morality.

That's actually the big source of debate between naturalists and positivists. The entire school of natural law claims the opposite to what you are saying - so if you are making an absolute statement that in this millennia-spanning debate the positivist school is right and the naturalist school is wrong, you would perhaps come across as less ignorant and arrogant if you were at least aware of what the most celebrated representatives of these schools said in the past.

[CountDeMoney]

Mittens lost his temper yesterday with a heckler.  It was impressive.

[Razgovory]

Yeah, from the news articles and studies I remember, government workers including state and local do much better than their similarly educated/experienced peers, especially as government workers are more likely to have healthcare benefits and defined benefits pensions. Add to that, you can retire at x years from one government locality and then start at another government locality, finishing with two or three separate pensions.

Come to Missouri then, we have the worst paid state workers in the country.

[Scipio]

My point being that rights only come from the agreement of humans to create them and a mechanism to enforce them (e.g., the proposition that there is no right without a remedy).  The same can be said of closely allied fields such as law or morality.

That's actually the big source of debate between naturalists and positivists. The entire school of natural law claims the opposite to what you are saying - so if you are making an absolute statement that in this millennia-spanning debate the positivist school is right and the naturalist school is wrong, you would perhaps come across as less ignorant and arrogant if you were at least aware of what the most celebrated representatives of these schools said in the past.

Now that was a fun little colloquy.  I can finally believe that Marty has a law job and Ide doesn't.

[Sheilbh]

Have you had no history/philosophy of law classes at law school?

In law school, no. I think jurisprudence is normally an optional course if you do a law degree at undergrad.

[Martinus]

Have you had no history/philosophy of law classes at law school?

In law school, no. I think jurisprudence is normally an optional course if you do a law degree at undergrad.

I can now see that our (continental European) legal education is superior, then. We have a 5 year legal degree, where two years are devoted almost entirely to history of law, history of ideologies, philosophy of law, jurisprudence, sociology of law, comparative law and similar topics. That way we hope to create people with an understanding of law that goes beyond simple knowledge of case law and statutes.

[Razgovory]

You are all still corrupt as hell.

[Sheilbh]

I can now see that our (continental European) legal education is superior, then. We have a 5 year legal degree, where two years are devoted almost entirely to history of law, history of ideologies, philosophy of law, jurisprudence, sociology of law, comparative law and similar topics. That way we hope to create people with an understanding of law that goes beyond simple knowledge of case law and statutes.

I suppose the traditional response would be that it's more important to create people who understand the practice of law than the theory (which I think operates at a deeper more hidden level in a common law system). I don't think it's a question of superiority but different systems with different historical origins, philosophies and approaches.

I should say that I and many other students do read about the history and philosophy outside the course (I think every law student's read Lord Binham's Rule of Law), but I can't think of a time I've used any of that reading in an essay or exam. The possible exception is constitutional law.

[Sheilbh]

Thinking about it I remember speaking to a friend who did study jurisprudence when he was at Cambridge and he said that English theory was basically very under-developed until great (often Jewish) European jurists started arriving as refugees in the thirties and forties. Apparently they totally revolutionised that side of things here.

[MadImmortalMan]

Marti had a good point a few pages back. Picking Ryan does signal that Romney is not going to fight the culture war here.