🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <Cn89vF.Kvx@world.std.com>,
jason n gull <jgull@world.std.com> wrote:

>JWELLS@ARTSPAS.watstar.uwaterloo.ca wrote:

>>I find this somewhat offensive.  It's hardly a "novel legal concept" --
>>in fact it is a legal concept that predates America, or even knowledge
>>of North America.  Inherent in your statement is the attitude:  "The 
>>American legal system is the first and only legal system of any value.  
>>If you do anything different than we do in America it's just no good."


>Frankly Justin, I find this entire post rather petty, and "offensive."  You're
>trying to defend the Canadian legal system-- great.  But it simply assinine
>to defend the Homolka/Teale media ban with some "you Imperialist Americans
>just don't understand our ways-- but we've been doing things this way since
>before there was an America." 

Nope, I didn't do that.  What I found offensive was the comment that a 
basic principle of Canadian justice was sarcastically referred to as a
"rather novel legal concept", and then juxtaposed with the American way 
of doing things.  As if the way things are done in American courts is
necessarily the way things should be done in Canadian courts.

You can argue for or against the ban all you like, but please don't do
so by interpreting the Canadian judicial system in terms of the American
constitution.  In fact there are a lot of excellent arguments that can
be brought to bear against the ban, but "that isn't how we do it in
America" isn't one of them.


>Whoopee!  SO, do you mean the Canadian
>legal system has been violating the rights of its citzens since before
>1776?  You're right.  And the nascent American government was violating
>them too.  That's not the point.  Not at all.

Nope.  The issue here is which of two conflicting rights is most important.  
In America you chose to guarantee the right of the collective (public/media) 
whereas in Canada we chose to stand up for the rights of the individual(the 
rights of the accused).

I think both approaches have merit, and the Canadian approach certainly
has a few flaws.  But I do get a little bit annoyed when people assume
that there is a violation of rights whenever someone makes a choice that
doesn't agree with the choice America made.


Justin

-- 
Justin Wells  (rjwells@uwaterloo.ca, stem@io.org)

"Maybe I've lost my baby for four years, but at least she'll come back
educated.  Karla has a real thing for psychology."  - Dorothy Homolka