Public Address | Cafe | Hard News: On Freedom

BenWilson

Thu, 17 Jan 2013 14:03:58 +1300

Does she call me auntie, you mean?

That's what I should have meant.

Islander

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 23:28:20 +1300

What I should've emphasised is that all senior titles are totally matters of respect
-and, that respect extends to kids-

Islander

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 22:55:28 +1300

O, I understand that from a Maori perspective – I get called Taua at Kai Tahu gatherings, and Whaea at Northern gatherings -correctly, linguistically, I'm neither:
I'm "Tena koe, e te kaipuraukau-

but, aue! I'll go with auntie!

Aunties are an honourable title in all my lines! Kia ora Auntie/taua…

Danielle

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 20:10:46 +1300

Does she call me auntie, you mean? She can't currently because she's dead (uh, I don't mean that as flippantly as it sounds, it's just an awkward thing to write), but she didn't when we were kids either. (Of course in Louisiana you do get called "aunt" a lot even…

BenWilson

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 13:39:09 +1300

Do you call her Auntie?

Danielle

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 11:12:51 +1300

Yes, she was a bit older than me! Wow, I forgot that even happened. Thanks for enhancing my terrible memory for childhood events, Kyle. :)

Kyle Matthews

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 09:24:01 +1300

(My half-sister, who is an absolutely raving born-again Christian and as Republican as they come, *did* actually move here for a year in the mid-eighties because of family stuff but quickly returned to the States – after removing her four children from public school because we taught evolution. I am…

Kumara Republic

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 18:07:23 +1300

Additionally, bare-faced racism, as well as old-fashioned robber baron practices, was and still is a big factor in getting weed criminalised in the first place. All it needed was a mouthpiece to spread the word – in the form of a press baron by the name of William Randolph Hearst.…

Matthew Poole

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 14:43:59 +1300

That's one hell of a tribute, especially if it leads to the end of paywall-for-profit scientific publishing.

Bart Janssen

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 14:00:10 +1300

Back to Aaron Swartz. His death appears to have stimulated something very exciting.

It seems people's shock at his treatment and death might be enough to change scientific publishing. People were already tired of having their science restricted it seems many are taking this as the moment to end that…

Danielle

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 13:31:18 +1300

Don’t do that. Some of them might want to move here!

No, you and Rob don't need to worry. I have experience: these links actually have the opposite effect, in that they just piss conservative people off and make them all internally indignant about the USA being the greatest/free-est/whateverest country…

Matthew Poole

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 11:13:50 +1300

I was just saying on Twitter how much I enjoy posting things like the Crooks and Liars link on Facebook

Don't do that. Some of them might want to move here!

Matthew Poole

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 11:10:32 +1300

Really, dysfunctional countries and ungoverned areas like Zimbabwe or Somalia should be at the top of propertarians’ ‘freedom’ lists. You can do anything you like in those places, subject to a small retainer being paid to appropriate cops and warlords.

Which strongly suggests that they actually did look at more…

Matthew Poole

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 11:02:32 +1300

My understanding is that in order to progress their careers prosecutors want big flashy cases which they can be sure of winning. As much to do with the way they are promoted and paid as whether they are decent human beings.

The use of “tough on crime” prosecutorial cred as…

Graeme Edgeler

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 10:27:28 +1300

Law Schools don’t have much at all to do with admission to the bar, so any advice that students received while at university would be informal/gossip.

Law Schools are asked to comment on the suitability of each of their graduates for admission. I know of one instance around my time,…

BenWilson

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 09:39:10 +1300

Law students are a fairly tight bunch so a lot of that goes around.

Also, fact checking on the Web was in it's infancy in the early 90s. It's going to be hard to convey to my kids that once upon a time you mostly had to trust people who…

Kyle Matthews

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 09:18:33 +1300

If so, it was Law School itself telling them the porkies.

Law Schools don't have much at all to do with admission to the bar, so any advice that students received while at university would be informal/gossip. Law students are a fairly tight bunch so a lot of that goes…

Will de Cleene

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 08:00:35 +1300

That’s just the police. There’s also the courts, the prisons, parole, monitoring and record-keeping. Also, it may be wrong, the police budget is only $1.4 billion per annum, so they’d be using over 7% of their budget on pot.

Yes and no. The $1 billion over a decade does not…

tussock

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 03:35:31 +1300

That's just the police. There's also the courts, the prisons, parole, monitoring and record-keeping. Also, it may be wrong, the police budget is only $1.4 billion per annum, so they'd be using over 7% of their budget on pot.

If that is right, it's pretty clear who's hooked on the…

Sacha

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 19:36:10 +1300

NZ police spent at least one billion dollars maintaining cannabis prohibition in the last decade

Now that should be criminal. What an utter waste of scarce public resources.

Will de Cleene

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 19:19:51 +1300

A drug possession conviction will not prevent you from being admitted as a lawyer.

The Edge is quite correct. Unlike the lawmakers, the lawyers know what truly matters. Here's the proof from Redmer Yska's excellent history of cannabis, New Zealand Green (1990) pg.141:

In May 1977, a Christchurch magistrate fined…

Kit McLean

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 18:47:05 +1300

I did consider that, but ended up deciding that other people (eg: Wired) had considered it and chosen to still simply describe him as a “co-founder”, so I would too. Ahhh, apologies, I should have known you'd looked at it and made a conscious decision to use co-founder. I haven't…

Russell Brown

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 17:34:28 +1300

Minor point… Swartz was a co-owner of Reddit – it was co-founded by Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian. They merged with Infogami, Swartz company a year or so later. Not to diminish his role or deeds before or after Reddit and I’m sure to most it seems like a pedantic…

Kit McLean

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 16:57:04 +1300

Minor point... Swartz was a co-owner of Reddit – it was co-founded by Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian. They merged with Infogami, Swartz company a year or so later. Not to diminish his role or deeds before or after Reddit and I'm sure to most it seems like a pedantic…

Kumara Republic

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 16:54:06 +1300

As Mike Joy found out the hard way, it’s getting increasingly difficult to hold a "free" and reasoned public debate without the risk of being labelled “PC”, “bleeding heart”, “latte liberal”, or words to that effect. Not too long ago, those anti-PC types who fling such labels complained of being…

Graeme Edgeler

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 16:50:01 +1300

Clint Rickards was admitted as a lawyer. If he can get in, anyone can, surely.

Is he still practising?

Yes. You can search the register of lawyers here.

Graeme Edgeler

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 16:48:52 +1300

Declare convictions? Or having used illegal drugs at some point in your life or not? ’Cause the first is on record anyway, and the second seems like just the kind of thing it would be very tempting to lie about, encouraging dishonesty.

You had to declare convictions. Also any occasion…

BenWilson

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 16:36:07 +1300

It might get in the way of getting a job, but while you have to declare it when you apply, the the chance of something like that actually standing in your way is remote. The things to be be avoiding were dishonesty convictions.

Declare convictions? Or having used illegal drugs…

Keir Leslie

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 16:29:09 +1300

And weird stuff like politically appointed prosecutors doesn't help, I don't think.

Rob Stowell

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 16:24:00 +1300

I was just saying on Twitter how much I enjoy posting things like the Crooks and Liars link on Facebook in order to feel some of my very conservative American relatives quietly imploding.
The danger is they'll all arrive at the airport... Minus any assault rifles, at least :)

Rob Stowell

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 16:22:20 +1300

I can’t rule out that in the years before I was admitted these things were treated differently, but I’m confident of the time I was at university and since.
My dad had a law-student friend in the late 70s who’d been busted for possession (I’m not going to name him)…

Rich of Observationz

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 16:14:07 +1300

Clint Rickards was admitted as a lawyer. If he can get in, anyone can, surely.

Is he still practising?

Danielle

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 16:02:01 +1300

Graeme Edgeler

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 15:49:01 +1300

Seriously? Every law student I know was terrified of being busted, because it would preclude them from the bar, so they said. Did this change (this was the 90s), or were they just wrong? If so, it was Law School itself telling them the porkies.

It might get in the…

David Hood

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 15:34:04 +1300

It was swampd by the Swartz news, but the day before JSTOR had announced they were trialing limited open access for individuals.

BenWilson

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 15:12:49 +1300

A drug possession conviction will not prevent you from being admitted as a lawyer.

Seriously? Every law student I know was terrified of being busted, because it would preclude them from the bar, so they said. Did this change (this was the 90s), or were they just wrong? If so,…

Bart Janssen

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 15:01:09 +1300

Which is an abuse of discretion, to be clear, in the same way that the prosecutors in the Swartz case really should be considering just how much they fucked up here (and if there’s any justice in the world facing some professional/personal sanctions but.)

My understanding is that in order…

Keir Leslie

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 14:46:33 +1300

Eric Schlosser’s Reefer Madness offers a great examination of how the combination of prosecutorial discretion and sentencing gimmickry has distorted the American system

Which is an abuse of discretion, to be clear, in the same way that the prosecutors in the Swartz case really should be considering just how much…

Russell Brown

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 14:46:29 +1300

His isn’t the only action changing the way science is published and many would argue the changes would have come without him but I have to respect his actions and motives. It’s sad that he was persecuted for those actions.

Yes. Both Lessig and danah boyd have have similarly noted…

Bart Janssen

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 14:45:29 +1300

Basically, prosecutors do the sentencing by deciding which offence they’ll prosecute.

Which really should not be their job. Judges are meant to have that role. And the separation of those roles is meant to serve a very real purpose in the judicial system.

Russell Brown

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 14:41:05 +1300

I don’t think it’s a reasonable political excuse to not develop better laws but I just don’t know that I would do away with all police and prosecutorial leeway.

Yes. There's an important place for prosecutorial discretion, but it's not an excuse for not making better laws. Eric Schlosser's [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reefer_Madness_(2003_book)|Reefer…

Bart Janssen

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 14:40:26 +1300

The other half of this story for me is about publication of scientific literature. Open access publication of science is starting to change the landscape but essentially the science community has been held hostage by major publishing houses for several decades now.

It is no easy or cheap task publishing…

Tom Semmens

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 14:33:31 +1300

even though the perverse effects of the law stare us in the face

I couldn't help wondering if even the slowest politician struggles reconciling this story with the facile cut and paste rubbish from this story just a week later. It seems to me that people hugging each other on MDMA is…

Graeme Edgeler

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 14:31:41 +1300

Also, would be fair to say that if it was fully and equally applied some of the folks Collins worked with before she entered Parliament might have had considerable difficulty getting a practising certificate?

And the answer to this fair question is that it probably wouldn't have made a difference.…

Bart Janssen

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 14:20:03 +1300

Having laws that allow police and prosecutors to use "their judgement" and apply the law to those they deem "bad guys" is a very difficult situation. The potential for abuse is high, yet the ability for police to apply a little used law to get someone off the streets for…

Russell Brown

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 14:09:32 +1300

I don’t know, and its not really any of my business but I can’t help wondering if some of my acquaintances would have had *cough* a slightly different experience of getting pinched with naughty baccy or a skin-full if they weren’t articulate, white university students.

Indeed.

Craig Ranapia

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 14:03:58 +1300

The fact is that prosecutorial discretion – which in the case of drugs often means the inconsistent and arbitrary application of the law – is the thing that keeps prohibition viable. If the law was fully and equally applied, it would not be viable. It’s selective prosecution that allows politicians…

Rich of Observationz

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 13:57:59 +1300

Really, dysfunctional countries and ungoverned areas like Zimbabwe or Somalia should be at the top of propertarians' 'freedom' lists. You can do anything you like in those places, subject to a small retainer being paid to appropriate cops and warlords.

Public Address

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 13:57:59 +1300

Discussion from blog post.