[PLUG-TALK] Fair Use, etc.

Jeme A Brelin jeme at brelin.net
Thu Mar 28 08:50:17 UTC 2002


I've been busy the last couple of days, but I'm going to reply to choice
few comments in this thread, particularly where I've been grossly
misinterpreted or when what I consider a major point has been missed.

On Wed, 27 Mar 2002, J.A.Henshaw wrote:
> A court's job is to APPLY the law AS WRITTEN-
> 
> NOT to INTERPRET the law.

Application REQUIRES interpretation.

The act of interpretation is part of the automatic process of reading.  
We take words from a page, apply various understood denotative and
connotative meanings for the words, names, and idiomatic phrases, and
interpret the author's intent based on our understanding of those concepts
(which are not merely words on a page, but the MEANING of those words in
our minds).

> If it needs interpretation is should be rewritten or be null 
> and void for vagueness.

The law can never be complete enough.  It is a logical system that will
ALWAYS contain more unstated assumptions.  It is simply not possible to
codify everything.  Interpretation is required for the law to be usable.

It is lawyers trying to write "airtight" law that create those monstrous,
confusing, and often logically inconsistent and meaningless strings of
wherefores and henceforths.   Those stumbling shambles of "legalese" are
the work of people trying "to leave no room for interpretation".

Read Goedel, seriously.  He'll tell you a thing or two about
incompleteness.

> How many of us can understand the 2nd amendment?

Man, oh man, this was such an obvious ploy.  I can't believe you guys fell
for it.

Jeff's tactic (used to great effect -- mostly obfuscation and frustration)
is to twist every conversation back to one of the three or four topics
that make him feel safe and self-righteous.

> Who needs an interpreter to get the meaning of "the right to keep and
> bear arms shall not be infringed'?

What requires interpretation is the law passed relating to keeping and
bearing arms to ensure that its enforcement is consistent with Amendment
II.

Personally, however, I think "infringed" is fairly ambiguous here.

It's certainly not as absolute as the wording of Amendment I "Congress
shall make no law...".  Surely similar wording would have been used if the
intent was the same.  So the intent here is different.  And if that's
true, then what is it?

The above is not a call for specific interpretations, but simply an
attempt to show that interpretation is required.

> Jeme does not believe in private property rights, therefore anything
> he says must be weighed against his desire for a global marxist
> society with no borders and no personal wealth.

Ah, Jeff... even when we show it to you plainly, you fail (again and
again) to see that you only understand what you already believe.

You base the above strong statements on an off-list conversation we had
wherein I attempted to show you that private property is not a requirement
of freedom and, in many ways, hinders same.

If you look back to the first few volleys in that conversation, you'll
find numerous disclaimers in which I state that this is not MY view, but I
understand it and can show you how the reasoning works.  I never once
claimed a desire for "a global marxist society with no borders and no
personal wealth".  In fact, I don't recall EVER discussing the issue of
borders or a global society with ANYONE in PLUG.

After a while, I dropped the disclaimers because I assumed they were
understood.  But, apparently, you believed my arguments were from my own
viewpoint solely despite numerous statements to the contrary.

I believe you have a (very) few political archetypes in your head and just
pigeonhole people as they come along into one of your little forms.  If
they don't fit... even if they go and sit in another hole with a big flag
reading "Jeff, I'm over here!"... and certainly if they try to show you
the existence of other holes, you still believe they are sitting snugly in
the whole in which you attempted to shove them.

> Even though what he desires is impossible, unjust, and unlawful under
> this country's laws and God's law ( do no covet thy neighbor's
> posessions ) - and ignores history and would be the cause of much
> mayhem and destruction of life and property to achieve.

[Neglecting, for a moment, that the above is a string of lies, incorrect
assumptions, fallacious statements and rhetorical blunders...]

Even though all of that, what?

J.
-- 
   -----------------
     Jeme A Brelin
    jeme at brelin.net
   -----------------
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 http://www.openlaw.org






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