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The Forum > Article Comments > The limits of law > Comments

The limits of law : Comments

By Katy Barnett, published 22/1/2010

A good law has to set up a system of incentives to make people keep it along with disincentives to stop them breaking it.

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Good stuff Ms Skeptic Claw. Yer on the right track here!

In another life I would have been a lawyer. But in this life I’m just a very frustrated person as result of the most glaring examples of regulators playing up! They assert particular points of law and then fail to regulate them in anything like an efficient or fair manner. They fail to be interested when I make complaints about law infringements. They effectively teach us underlings that the written law is not the law and that something different really applies, despite continuing to assert vocally that the law does apply as written. Aaaargh!! (:> 0

I am particularly affected by this with the police regarding road safety law and with the code of conduct and other rules in my workplace!

<< Nor do I think that the presence of discretion on the part of regulators is necessarily a bad thing, as long as there are appropriate checks and balances to ensure that it is not misused. >>

Agreed. But this discretion has got to be written into the law. If the law states something in black and white terms then a regulator should not have the right to turn a blind eye to some infringements while bearing down heavily on people over others or letting some people go scot-free while copping others for just the same infringement.

We can’t have a situation, which is evident with the policing of many road rules for example, where the police turn a blind eye to minor infringements of all sorts, thus leading the public to understand that lots of things are not policed at face value, and then have a blitz and bust people who don’t observe the absolute letter of the law.

The fostering of a respectful relationship between citizens and regulators is all-important. But when this happens, good drivers get alienated by the cops and general respect for the law suffers accordingly.
Posted by Ludwig, Friday, 22 January 2010 10:05:30 AM
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Law has literally become a pointless waste of the paper it is printed on. What's the point of adhering to the law when it only gets you into trouble & yet a useless crim in the Public Service for example gets stood down on full pay. I wish I could think of a way of getting twelve months off on full pay till some smart & corrupt lawyer outwits some mutt of a judge & proves me innocent & rewards me compensation on top of it. Yeah, a great legal system we have. Juvenile delinquents get apprenticeships as part of "rehabilitation" while good kids can't get a job. The Police ? They're there to enforce the law on the decent & innocent.
Posted by individual, Friday, 22 January 2010 11:41:45 AM
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What are the limits of the law? What can it change and what it can’t? Who enforces the law? How people react to the law?

Before advancing in this line of questioning shouldn’t we try to find out who is the lawmaker?

Who does he/she want to control?

Why want he/she want to control others?

And who gives to the lawmaker the authority to impose his/her law?

And if the case for controlling people is made, how far into the life of people does the law maker want to intrude?

Would the door of a man’s or woman’s hut be a boundary to the law? Or, the lawmaker insists to intrude further, penetrate their thoughts and direct their actions?

Dear Ph.D. aspirant, be kind to yourself and those who bother to read your utterances.

‘Thinking before writing’ would be a good law to impose on oneself.
Posted by skeptic, Friday, 22 January 2010 1:32:14 PM
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I think there should be a law against writing opinions for OLO in a pseudonym. I can understand that people have usernames etc for commenting. But surely you can write an opinion piece in your own name and actually stand behind what you are saying.
Posted by David Jennings, Friday, 22 January 2010 1:50:08 PM
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Law.

Hired a tradie. Gave me a bill. Over charged. Went to Fair Trading. He had broken the law in other areas that were not part of the dispute but would have been disclosed in Fair Trading Tribunal so he faced losing license. I just wanted a few grand knocked off bill. I was selling house. Soon as sold he placed a caveat on property. I was under contract then with buyer. Fair Trading said this pre-empted my claim as now would be supreme court matter. He would have done anything to avoid Fair Trading. Saw a lawyer, he said I needed a barister. I said why, just a minor bill dispute. Barrister quoted me $10,000. I was disputing like 2. He said just pay it, cheaper. So we have a builder not chargeing GST, not offering a contract for work over $1,000 and illegally placing a caveat on my property. I wondered why he would pay a barrister (though think he was pro-bono?) until I got a brand new bill. A $3.5 grand bill now as $13,000. So add fraud.

SO now we have builder not charging GST.
Not offering contract for work over $1,000.
Illegally placing caveat on property.
Fraudently changing invoices (provable)
However now with mythical amount not offering Builders insurance. (which was his major undoing)

Judge did not wat to know about, not important enough and we chased out fo court to settle.

So tell me that is not a farce.

Every court in the nation knew he had broken the law but off scott free. Dodgy builder free to terrorise yet again as he apparently has done on more than 5 occasions by his own admission.

But wait there is more. Why did the Land office accept the caveat? Oh because you have the right to appeal in the Supreme Court ?

Joke, total joke. Property laywer, you would understand I am sure.

signed

Mrs Jennings
Posted by TheMissus, Friday, 22 January 2010 3:21:38 PM
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<< What's the point of adhering to the law when it only gets you into trouble… >>

Good question Indi.

As it pertains to my concern about road rules; if you fastidiously observe speed limits and many other rules, you become a hazard and you increase the chances of mishap for yourself, because you are driving in a different manner to everyone else and many people are just intolerant of that!

This is bloody awful. But what is even more awful is that when I talk to the police, Main Roads, RACQ and local councils about it, they either don’t get it or don’t give a hoot!

The same applies if you observe the letter of the law with respect to the code of conduct in my workplace. You are put at a disadvantage. You are pressured to break the rules. You have to deal with people who both break the rules with impunity and tell you that you have to observe them.

---

David, there is a rule on the Agmates forum that prohibits posters from registering under a ‘spewdonym’. I post there a lot and find myself in strong disagreement with quite a few people. Some people obviously have a seething intolerance of divergent views. I wonder how long it will be before I get a rock though the window?

Writing under your real name is not always advisable.
Posted by Ludwig, Friday, 22 January 2010 3:51:53 PM
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A major flaw in our laws are that the penalty often doesn't fit the crime.

As an example, one can drive while under the influence, or while impaired by medication, strike a perestrian and get off rather lightly, yet, if you get caught fishing in a green zone, you are automaticly given a criminal record.

If you are caught with an under sized crab, you loose your car, your boat and all your gear, yet, the one who hit a pedestrian while intoxicated gets finned by does not loose their car. Go figure!

I heard recently that if you are caught doing in excess of 30Km over the speed limit, you receive a criminal record. But are you a criminal? More importantly, why is this now a criminal offence when a few years ago it wasn't?

It is against the law to smoke within 3 mt of the entrance to a comercial building, but who really polices this?
Posted by rehctub, Friday, 22 January 2010 6:19:01 PM
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David Jennings,
Perhaps more thought is needed. It doesn't matter a fig who raises a discussion only that is reasonable written and *intelligently argued* with some sense of proportion and objectivity. This article is one such case.

Each to to their own i.e. for my I use a pseudonym simple because my name is "well...identifiable" experience has shown that declaring myself my family has been abused, my house 'egged', my son's car damaged. I 'll take what is coming to *me* but it is monumentally unfair that my *family* cop flack for *my* opinions or vise versa.

As LE points out not everyone else is quite so reasoning.
For that reason telephone councilors never give out personal details.
__________________________________________________

Legal Eagle,
Personally I found your article lacking in substance and a mite duplicitous, overly theoretical/academic re lawyers practice.

We both know that law/lawyers has little to do with justice/fairness/equity or any such 'noble' concepts.It about tactics, Black Letter law, interpretation, precedents and money.i.e the dismissal against Elliott and the NZ fraud. (tactical error) or against the banks with foreign loans.

So long as the focus remains as such the law will remain something less that appropriate and subject to justified criticism.

rehctub, the missus, make good practical examples.

Your argument in fact the focus of your PHD subject if reflected by this article is all practical reasons pointless/academic/solves nothing/adds nothing.

It ignores cultural pressures *see above comment* on consequences.

It also assumes, non existent perpetrator reasoning and ignores emotions (human nature), practicality of enforcement,judgement even the biases of the judicial operators and system.
Try complaining against a lawyer, doctor, the perverting effect of money i.e. major corps (e.g. Hardie ind).
Major corps that 'negotiate' tax liability.
Flaws in corporate governance. HIH, Quintex, Bond corp,etc.

Then we can consider the way laws are formulated and passed.
If I were your adviser I'd tell you to think again about what is it you are trying to come to a *meaningful* conclusion *about*.
To me the thesis is too narrow/superficial.
good luck anyway
Posted by examinator, Saturday, 23 January 2010 12:14:06 PM
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Legal Eagle,
I forgot to point out that all the examples show fundamental *and* systemic failures.
As such I fail to see that worthiness of the outlined 'limits of the law'.
I simply ask what will your thesis achieve? An in depth discussion of most of the limitations of the law and pointing to areas of practical improvement?
My understanding of a PHD thesis is that it rigourously *adds* something sufficiently *new* or meaningful to the topic.
Perhaps I'm being too harsh or simply wrong in my expectations.
Posted by examinator, Saturday, 23 January 2010 12:28:48 PM
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Blair's Iraqi problem must be shared.

Certainly needs an efficient body like UNESCO on the job, taking in not only Blair's former cabinet as well as present UK Labor PM, Brown.

John Howard and his former Cabinet must also be perused, seeng that Howard was very strongly pro both Blair and Bush.

Very much also of course, a good shaking up of the media, which surely in America and Britain must be very much suffering underground control by certain Jews who years ago in the early Israeli days were taken in by the US joining US Jewish groups though said to have lost much power in the White House, one can only surmise the way the former strong UN has become a laughing stock, that what could be termed arparthaid style intrusion is still
strongly active.

Though just an aged student who has only learnt during retirement, must say how difficult it has become even to stay middle-road as every decent Aussie aged student these worrying days should be.

After my loving wife's death, I have been trying to pray for Obama, still trying to stay middle-road rather than taking a side, and as it seems that much of our media has been relying on steerage, one can only rely on a hope with a capital H, having lost most of the faith the way I reckon Faith should be?
Posted by bushbred, Saturday, 23 January 2010 2:10:28 PM
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>>We can’t have a situation, which is evident with the policing of many road rules for example, where the police turn a blind eye to minor infringements of all sorts, thus leading the public to understand that lots of things are not policed at face value, and then have a blitz and bust people who don’t observe the absolute letter of the law.<<

What this is really showing is the full cycle of the pendulum swing. Cops can be lazy through to not being properly resourced/supported by their management, and subsequently not police the rules adequately. Then one day the shite hits the fan (eg the Minister gets angry due to political pressure and demands the cops to do a better job etc) and the cops go on a blitz and nab everyone who does the slightest thing wrong and throw their reasonable judgement out the window for fear of being seen to be slack by their commanders.

The key to solving this problem is for the cops to keep their policing proportional to the situations they deal with and to keep up a steady, unrelenting pressure on policing particular types of bad behaviour. But that's pretty easy to say in ideas space, I guess, but a lot harder to actually do in the real world. The fact is, they can only do so much with the numbers they've got. As soon as the smart crims realise where the police are putting their efforts, they go where they know the police are not looking. From recent media reports, it looks like the serious crime gangs are big into identity fraud, card skimming and electronic theft - they get away with it because they're always one step ahead of the "justice system".
Posted by RobP, Saturday, 23 January 2010 3:42:35 PM
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Robp, there are various problems with the regulation of laws, not least a lack of resources.

But there can be no excuse for the espousal of one thing and the policing of something else.

For example, the police have this great catch-phrase; ‘Every K over is a killer’. But they don’t police the speed limit at face value, they allow a considerable leeway, which by all indications seems to be 10kmh over on the open highway and in most situations. Speed-measuring devices don’t have a 10kmh error margin. So what’s their thinking?

This is complicated by the police telling us that there is some leeway, but they’ll never tell us just how much leeway, which stinks! The public have every right to know just exactly what the police are policing!

And it is complicated by the fact that police can pull you over for doing 1kmh over if they wish. So they can target people and act in a grossly unfair manner if they want to, with impunity. They can pull one vehicle out of a line of steadily flowing traffic where everyone is doing the same speed and charge them with speeding while letting everyone else go.

The police can be cruising around slowly. They can observe all sorts of infringements and not act on them. Then they can pull someone over for some piffling infringement of the sort that they’d turn a blind eye to 99.9% of the time.

continued
Posted by Ludwig, Sunday, 24 January 2010 10:15:59 AM
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If the cops are rushing off to a job and they witness infringements on the road, of course they can’t act on them there and then. Although they could take a rego number and act later in some instances.

It is not just road rules and it is not just the police that have an element of unscrupulous behaviour. It is probably all regulators that do this.

With the regulation of environmental laws for example, there is often a real problem with a developer or landholder trying to know just what applies. What is written in law and what is actually regulated is again often somewhat different.

People often have to read between the lines to judge what is acceptable and what isn’t. Then they might find that what has been acceptable for others to do, they’ll get stung for! But they might also find that if they stick to the absolute letter of the law while everyone else around them hasn’t, they’ll be placed at a distinctive disadvantage.

One of my main gripes is that there is a real slackness about the whole business. Every attempt should be made to keep the written law in line the practiced law, and to express to the public just exactly what realty applies.
Posted by Ludwig, Sunday, 24 January 2010 10:19:45 AM
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Ludwig,

I'm guessing you're a moderate, law-abiding citizen. I was brought up the same way, so I can see the merit in your argument from your POV.

>>For example, the police have this great catch-phrase; ‘Every K over is a killer’. But they don’t police the speed limit at face value, they allow a considerable leeway, which by all indications seems to be 10kmh over on the open highway and in most situations. Speed-measuring devices don’t have a 10kmh error margin. So what’s their thinking?<<

I reckon the police's thinking - even if it is an afterthought - is that whenever they draw a firm line in the sand, there will always be those that go right up to it and continually probe to see where they can get away with breaking it. By not having that firm line in the sand - eg the speed limit in a particular traffic zone is 60 km/h with a 5 km/h leeway - the police keep people guessing as to whether they will strike. It's the threat of getting caught that has a bigger effect on the general motoring public than actually getting caught.

In a perfect world where people were not racing around everywhere in their cars, I think your solution would be the correct one. In an imperfect world, the cops have probably worked out that being unpredictable works best (for them). My guess is if the cops have a hard-and-fast rule, it wouldn't be long before everyone saw that the emperor had no clothes at which point the line in the sand would be serially breached and the roads would even more quickly descend into chaos.
Posted by RobP, Sunday, 24 January 2010 1:00:40 PM
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Skeptic and Examinator, my PhD is not on this topic. I merely said that in the course of writing it I had cause to think about what law can achieve. There's no need to be rude and unpleasant.

For what it's worth, I am proposing a radical change to the law in my PhD to try and make it more fair, but I had to think very carefully about whether the change would actually achieve what I wanted it to achieve, otherwise there's really no point.

Thank you, Ludwig, for reading this piece in the spirit which it was intended.

As for the use of a pseudonym - well, as other commenters have pointed out, there are genuine reasons why a person might want to use a pseudonym. I stand proudly by my opinion.
Posted by Legal Eagle, Monday, 25 January 2010 10:44:26 AM
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But thats just the point Legal Eagle - you aren't standing by your opinion. You are hiding behind a pseudonym.

And from my standpoint its mildly offensive on a website where almost every single other opinion writer publishes their pieces under their real name.

To be honest I don't buy the argument about negative consequences. I just don't think that on a website like OLO, which has specific rules designed to cool down discussions, that anybody is going to go and egg your house or do anything else. To start with they'd need to know where you live. Even so, though there are a few weirdos around, Australia doesn't really have that type of democracy. People might disagree with you. They might be rude and belittle your work. But they won't harm you.

Leaving aside this article, what if a person posted a really contentious piece on immigration under a pseudonym and a vigourous forum debate then took place over the next few days. You can imagine the type of debate that might ensue. What if the writer of the piece was then exposed as Pauline Hanson? Would some of the forum posters feel cheated? - They probably would.

I think that using a pseudonym enables you to hide away from genuine criticism. You can publish a piece that is half thought-out without any negative consequences because it isn't being published in your name. You can also say things that you would not ordinarily say, because anonymity means that you don't have to own your opinion. Thats not intellectual bravery - thats cowardice. At least, thats how I see it.
Posted by David Jennings, Monday, 25 January 2010 11:00:23 AM
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David, I understand your point of view. If I had an ongoing job rather than random contract work at the discretion of various universities, I'd be more than happy to post under my real name. But I do not, so for the moment I will remain pseudonymous. I've explained to OLO why I wish to remain pseudonymous. They know my real identity, and respect my wishes.

I assure you that I treat anything I say as something written under my real name.

See this post I wrote last year about online identities and the risks attached: http://skepticlawyer.com.au/2009/04/22/through-a-glass-darkly/

Also have a look at the NightJack case, upon which I commented on last year: http://skepticlawyer.com.au/2009/06/18/anonymous-no-more/
Posted by Legal Eagle, Monday, 25 January 2010 11:51:58 AM
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I think Justice Eady's observation in the Times case is the perfect counterpoint: " It is very often useful, in assessing the value of an opinion or argument, to know its source. …[O]ne may wish to apply greater caution or scepticism in the case of a person with “an axe to grind”. For so long as there is anonymity, it would obviously be difficult to make any such assessment."

Its hard to argue that the Night Jack case was wrongly decided - the Constable was using his position to disclose confidential information for personal gain (the online readership) and he then tried to rely on confidentiality (?!) to remain anonymous.

I would see it differently regarding the employment issue. If you were writing quality opinion pieces on OLO that might actually be quite respected by a Head of School at an Australian law school. After all, it does tick the box for community engagement. Profile counts - and some academics have already used OLO and their own blogs very astutely to impress their universities. Also, an academic is a public intellectual.

In the other link you provided, the online activities of those posters did genuinely go to credibility. But they were of a very different nature to the genuine type of writing on current affairs that you are engaging in here. But its up to you I guess. But for my part I always give short shrift to anything written anonymously unless its some kind of genuine insiders account (which isn't the case here).
Posted by David Jennings, Monday, 25 January 2010 12:27:02 PM
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Robp, you wrote;

<< …whenever they draw a firm line in the sand, there will always be those that go right up to it… >>

Yes. But wouldn’t it be better to have one firm line that the vast majority of drivers observe, rather than effectively having two lines or a range of speeds that drivers observe?

On our highways, there is a 10kmh leeway. It is patently obvious (in my part of the world at least) that all vehicles including big trucks are allowed by the highway patrolling speed-camera-wielding police to do 110 in a 100 kmh zone.

So you’ve got the type of driver that can’t help himself but to push it to the limit of what he can get away with and you’ve got the driver that observes the law and drives 10kmh slower. You’ve effectively got two speed limits for the same road!!

That creates conflict which translates into tailgating, dangerous overtaking, intolerance, road rage and just generally more chances of mishap than there needs to be.

It would surely be MUCH better if the police just declared what the actual policeable speed is, preferably being the same as what the signs say.

We’d then have much less discrepancy in speed between drivers, and law-abiding drivers wouldn’t feel as pressured to speed up or drive faster than they want to in order to roll with the flow and reduce the chances of having tailgating and other risky behaviour and unpleasantness imposed upon them.

Vagueness with something like speed-limit policing is grossly sloppy and irresponsible, IMO. Especially when it would be so simple to eliminate it.
Posted by Ludwig, Monday, 25 January 2010 12:29:06 PM
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Ludwig,

>>So you’ve got the type of driver that can’t help himself but to push it to the limit of what he can get away with and you’ve got the driver that observes the law and drives 10kmh slower. You’ve effectively got two speed limits for the same road!!<<

It boils down to people being reasonable in how they drive on the roads. Trouble is you can't write a law that makes people drive reasonably.

Maybe the only solution is to have speed limiters in cars. Some sort of wireless gizmo that detects what the speed zone is and automatically caps the car's speed at that. Maybe also have a manually-operated 5-10 km/h booster that allows one to overtake if necessary.
Posted by RobP, Monday, 25 January 2010 2:14:21 PM
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Nice airing of some very important issues, Legal Eagle. When you get your druthers (and presumably drop the anonymity), the first people you should start educating are our politicians, who often behave as though the answer to every problem is a new law, and the response to every misdemeanour is harsher penalties.

On the issue of anonymity, I think it's great that OLO is a space where ideas are more important than personalities. If OLO's editors decide that an opinion can be published anonymously, then it's their decision, and not something we need to get excited about.

However LE, I'd be interested to hear your views on the interplay of legal professional standards and anonymous publishing. After all you're not here as an engaged amateur, like the rest of us. You're a legal professional, writing on legal issues.

In your professional life, how can those you arbitrate over, prosecute or represent know about the matters on which you have already published a view? From the point of view of professional ethics, or when identifying a conflict of interest, is there a difference between an anonymous or non-anonymous view? Choosing to be publicly intellectual has its costs as well as its rewards - do other named legal bloggers have an opinion about you exempting yourself from the costs, relative to them?
Posted by woulfe, Monday, 25 January 2010 10:02:11 PM
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If it was a NSW Lands Act with the Caveat; an archaic 1901 Act that in this century has loopholes all through it [past experience losing 750,000 as a result of crooks using it]. Obviously the Act has not been updated since 1995 despite my opposition to the clauses. I completely comprehend your frustration [Mrs Jennings]
Posted by we are unique, Monday, 25 January 2010 11:59:34 PM
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<< It boils down to people being reasonable in how they drive on the roads. >>

Rob, we are always going have unreasonable drivers. There only needs to be a very small percentage to make it a real problem.

But doing 110kmh in a 100kmh zone if the police are going to let us is not unreasonable. To drive according to the speed signs and make sure that you don’t exceed 100 on the same road is not unreasonable either. And for each group of drivers to feel annoyed by the other IS not being unreasonable. So conflict can be generated where there is no lack of reasonable attitude from anyone!

Conflict is not reasonable. So a lack of reasonabliity can be generate amongst reasonable people due to the ambiguous or duplicitous state of the law!

If everyone understood that there was one speed limit on any given stretch of road, it would certainly help, all else being equal.

<< Trouble is you can't write a law that makes people drive reasonably. >>

I reckon you can improve ‘reasonability’ a lot, by making speed limits and other road rules unambiguous...and by making them fit the conditions more effectively which is another major problem with speed limit signage, especially where slow zones are often just far too long, on either side of roadworks or small towns on the highway, for example.

Of course, much better policing would also help drivers to drive in a more reasonable manner as well. And there are many ways of doing that without significantly increasing the numbers of police.

I don’t think we need fandangled technofixes, although some of them would no doubt help.

Just tidying up the basic elements of road law and its enforcement would go a very long way towards improving road safety.
Posted by Ludwig, Tuesday, 26 January 2010 8:48:54 AM
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Ludwig - now that you've well and truly outed yourself at the Agmates forum, I'm wondering why it is that you choose to continue posting under a pseudonym here?

Your road rules hobbyhorse seems to me to be far less contentious an issue than the AGW stoushes that you're embroiled in at Agmates under your real name, so what's the point?
Posted by CJ Morgan, Tuesday, 26 January 2010 9:38:07 AM
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Wow, that Agmates forum is something to behold isn’t it! It’s is just so totally different to OLO (:>0

You should get into it CJ (or are you into it under a different name!?!). Much more head-banging opportunities to be had there than on OLO!!

I’m wondering why my use or non-use of a spewdonym is of any consequence to you. I’ll continue to write under Ludwig on OLO to maintain the flow. I write under my own name on Agmates because pseudonyms are not allowed there. Simple.

I’ve never been afraid of being ‘outed’. I expected it would happen quite quickly on OLO, especially as I started off on OLO as I have on Agmates, with quite few hot-headed people bearing down on me!!

Please continue to respect my wishes that my name not be revealed on OLO, as you have done to date. Thanks
Posted by Ludwig, Tuesday, 26 January 2010 1:30:19 PM
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Hi Ludwig - no, you'd have to pay me for me to participate in that snake pit! Talk about redneck central, but useful in a way to see the depth of anti-environmental sentiment in much of the rural community.

I was just curious about your double standard, in light of comments here about pseudonyms and the fact that you got all precious about your anonymity in the context of discussing your hardline attitudes towards asylum seekers. Or is it that you're prepared to "own" your opinions about AGW, but not those about asylum seekers? I've noticed that you rarely post about AGW here under your pseudonym.
Posted by CJ Morgan, Wednesday, 27 January 2010 5:57:21 AM
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Woulfe, I do not practice at the present time. I've got enough on my plate with full-time study, blogging and, most importantly, two small kids! I was on maternity leave from a firm job when I first started blogging, and my early posts charted my decision to quit.

If I did practice, I think it might be more useful to be "out" because then I would have exposure to potential clients. Of course I'd have to seek permission from my employer.

In the end, in any case, ultimately it shouldn't matter what my personal opinion about the law is. I have a duty to represent my client to the best of my ability regardless of what I think of a particular law. But I can see that it might be of interest to a client.
Posted by Legal Eagle, Wednesday, 27 January 2010 8:11:22 AM
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<< no, you'd have to pay me for me to participate in that snake pit! Talk about redneck central… >>

It certainly is that!

But you like a good stoush CJ. Go awwwn get into it!!

<<.but useful in a way to see the depth of anti-environmental sentiment in much of the rural community. >>

Yes, it is an eye-opener. An articulate old greenie like you could have a real impact in there! Afterall, a lot of them are apparently not very bright. It is easy to pull their simplistic arguments apart and show up their contradictions. Given that you’ve got a thick skin like me, I reckon you’d have a ball…and probably have more of a useful input into influencing peoples’ opinions than we do on OLO. Besides, I could do a bit of support over there, old mate! ( :>)

<< I was just curious about your double standard, in light of comments here about pseudonyms... >>

I don’t know why you feel the need to further analyse it after the straightforward explanation in my last post.

One further comment on that as it pertains to the subject of this thread: The Agmates code of conduct compels people to write under their real name. So I had the choice of doing that or not participating in that forum. Or I had a third choice of writing under a false name and making out that it was my real name, thus breaking a basic rule which no doubt some posters there do as it is dead easy for anyone to do that.

As appealing as the third option was, it was not a goer for me as a principled law-abiding citizen.

So um, why do you write under a half pseudonym / half real name?? I mean, if you are going to write under your real name, why would you do it in an impersonal manner by using your initials instead of you full first name?

Do you feel as though you need a modicum of anonymity because of your unrealistic no-detention no-border-security no-balance open-the-floodgates approach to asylum seekers?
Posted by Ludwig, Wednesday, 27 January 2010 9:03:39 AM
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Ludwig: << So um, why do you write under a half pseudonym / half real name?? >>

I'm known to my friends and members of the community in which I live as either "Morgan" or "CJ", so there's nothing pseudonymous about it. It's also the name under which I conduct my business. As you know, my first name's Christopher - but the only people who've called me that in the last decade or so are my exes and daggett, bless him.

<< ...your unrealistic no-detention no-border-security no-balance open-the-floodgates approach to asylum seekers >>

Thanks for exaggerating and thus misrepresenting my position on asylum seekers. However, I'll continue to respect your desire to be called "Ludwig" at OLO.
Posted by CJ Morgan, Wednesday, 27 January 2010 11:32:06 AM
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>>If I had my “druthers”, I’d educate everyone about basic law, and what it can and can’t do.<<

Legal Eagle,

Here's a claim I've heard a lot in the past. If a decision is taken by a government agency, say, that seriously disadvantages an individual, he/she can use the Common Law to seek redress. A good example would be the fellow that went on a hunger strike in a tree for 40-odd days (reportedly).

What's you view on this? Is it true or false that the Common Law will provide a remedy? Or true in theory but next to impossible to enact in practice? Or the Government will only do something about it when something good about the person affected is right on the verge of turning bad as a result?
Posted by RobP, Wednesday, 27 January 2010 1:19:58 PM
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Thanks for explaining your use of CJ, CJ! I accept that. I can see why you would rather be called CJ, than erm, Christopher!! ( :>)

I don’t think I exaggerated your position on asylum seekers at all. But I do feel as though (mildly) misrepresented me by labelling my views as << hardline >>.

My position of wanting to double our intake of refugees, increase our international aid to at least 0.7% of GDP and direct it at causal factors of refugeeism, and to uphold strong border protection and thus bring an end to onshore asylum seeking and all the misery and complications associated with it, is hardly hardline!

But I know we’ll never agree on this issue.
Posted by Ludwig, Wednesday, 27 January 2010 1:53:56 PM
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"The more laws the less justice." Cicero
"It would be better to have no laws at all, than to have too many." Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
"The good of the people is the greatest law." Cicero
"Every law is an infraction of liberty." Jeremy Bentham
"Never forget that everything Hitler did was legal." Martin Luther King Jr.
Manmade laws are in practice regulations, in that we are all regulated to the weakest, or most unscrupulous, ie if the law states every driver should rest every 2 hours, what is really being said is: every driver capable of attaining a license should be capable of driving safely for at least 2 hours without a break; therefore every driver should have a break every 2 hours.
Likewise if the law states: Speed limit 110, what is actually being said is: all drivers (no matter how inept) capable of attaining a license should be capable of safely controlling a vehicle at a maximum speed of 110 kph, in so designated areas.
Such is our 'equality' before the Law. In effect, we are guilty until proven innocent.
We pay people to make our laws, with scant regard for their background. Some would say that lawyers should be excluded from houses of Legislature, on the grounds of clear conflict of interest (between legislators and legislated).
In a truly free society, nothing could be more important than the ability of a jury, randomly chosen, compensated but not rewarded, to test not only guilt or innocence but the validity of the law alleged to have been broken.
Too many regulations, recently and currently being imposed, reflect nothing more than the prejudices and cultural bias of the legislators, as exampled by 'the missus' and 'Rehctub'.
Posted by Grim, Saturday, 30 January 2010 12:39:02 PM
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