🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <53rtr7$6l7@news2.cais.com>, b@bb.net wrote:

> jam81@columbia.edu (Jake Minas) Said this:
> 
> 
> >Your diatribe might have some basis if the *only* reason that society bans
> >public defecation is concerns over public health.  It is true that public
> >health is a valid and sufficient justification for the ban, considering
> >the awful experiences medieval European cities had with disease
> >transmission through feces.  But its hardly the only reason.  Because
> >society also punishes relatively sanitary public defecation.  Here's a
> >test.  Walk out on a crowded streetcorner, drop your drawers and defecate
> >into a jar, seal the jar, and throw the jar away.  1) did passersby look
> >nonchalant while you did it and 2) did the cop on the corner not give you
> >a good dressing down and a heavy fine?  For extra points, you could offer
> >to show it and/or sell the jar to people (now, don't forget our favorite
> >peace officer) and gauge their reactions.
> 
> >Now, I suppose you can say that when defecation is banned for "public
> >decency" as opposed to "public health" reasons, then its banning is
> >illegitimate.  But it is just plain disingenuous for you to argue that
> >prevailing social standards agree with you.
> 
> >-- 
> >Jake Minas
> >Columbia Law School
> >jam81@columbia.edu
> 
> That is a typical lawyer tactic isn't it?  Let's mince words, even
> though it was clear to everyone what the point was.   Not to mention
> that you have gone from one angle, and then countered the argument in
> a completely different manner.  Let me tell you this before you
> graduate from columbia and begin practicing law... Judges are very
> good at recognizing the relevance of an argument, juries are not....
> choose a jury for every case you argue!

If you are going to act like an ill-mannered brat, tell me why I should
continue this discussion with you.  Furthermore, since you seem to enjoy
taking cheap shots so much, I will stop to point out that you seem to have
some resentment of Ivy League lawyers, which I can only guess is due to
some intellectual inferiority complex.  I mean, you hasten to point out my
academic and professional credentials no less than three times in two
posts.  On the other hand, frankly, I don't give a damn who you are and
what credentials you have.  I know you as nothing more than b@bb.net,
which is not terribly informative, and I don't think I care to know more.

> >>So I take it if I were opposed to public defecation, these enlightened
> >>Europeans would think I'm a coprophile (someone with a sexual fetish for
> >>feces).  I imagine the vast majority of Americans oppose public
> >>defecation.  Do we all just get really horny around shit, then?
> 
> The argument I offered was to counter your assertion which didn't
> follow logic.  You were using algebra to come up with the above
> conclusion, and then you have extended it even further in the latest
> argument, but in a totally different direction.  "if a = b and c = d,
> then we can stretch and say that a = d, and while we're at it, c = z"

To which I followed up and elaborated (and since you like your arguments
so much with abstract mapping):

A.  *Some* public defecation would cause public health problems, namely
defecation where the feces is left as litter and not properly disposed of.
B.  Society strongly bans *all* public defecation, including public
defecation which does not present a serious health hazard, i.e. where the
waste is properly contained and disposed of.
C.  Society must ban public defecation for some other reason than, or in
addition to, concerns about public health.

Now address it or stand down.

> To the argument that europeans would view a person proposing
> legislation against public breastfeeding as a pedophile or sexually
> deranged, you compare that to someone who is against public defecation
> being a coprophile.  

Needless to say, I think your empirical characterization of Europeans to
be utter horseshit.  I could no more get away with taking a shit in a jar
in Paris than I could in New York City.  In fact, considering that I,
personally, was stopped, harangued, and ticketed riding a Vespa topless
through the streets of Monaco, a principality which has topless beaches. 
And yet, I didn't ask the cop if he was worried he would rape me or
whatever your pornographic mind imagines the motivation to be.
 
> My argument is that no, the public attitude would be different, since
> there are truly BONA-FIDE medical/health/cleanliness issues that
> support that view, whereas your own personal views about breastfeeding
> do not have any FACTUAL basis, they are merely based on your OPINION,
> your HANG UPS, and thus, people WILL question those views, and will
> conclude that the reasons are deviant tendencies on your part. 

D.  Americans ban all public defecation (see B).
E.  Since Americans ban public defecation for reasons other than, in
additional to "bona fide" public health concerns, the vast majority of
Americans that support such blanket bans must be coprophiles, according to
youl.

Now you have proved semi-skillful at attacking people's characters when
you don't feel like rebutting their arguments.  Now defeat A-E or yield
the position.  Or keep acting like a punk -- I can't stop you from doing
it.

> So, this doesn't have anything to do with WHY it is not acceptable to
> shit in public, it has to do with what people would THINK of someone
> based on their view of that issue.  There may be any number of valid
> reasons to support a law against shitting in public, but the fact of
> the matter is, that most people will agree that health is the PRIMARY
> reason. Smell is probably the 2nd or 3rd reason. :)  

If health is the PRIMARY (is that different than merely "primary") reason,
how come, in any public way in the country, if you were to defecate
publically in a sanitary manner, "most people" would be happy to bash your
head in for it.  If you disbelieve me, try my little test with the jar. 
I'll be happy to supply both the jar and the Peace Officer.  And if you
are going to give me some line about the smell being the only reason, I
will offer you, stand on a street corner alone, not with anyone nearby you
downwind.  Have the cop on the other corner.  Do you think he'll give you
a break?   Again, if you are going to be so rude and ignorantly smug, you
can at least get around to answering my argument.    See A-E.

> Okay, let's stretch this one   R e a l l y    f a r . . . . .   You're
> accustomed to stretches aren't you.
> 
> If you were to stand up in public and demand that shitting in public
> be illegal, because you are afraid that someone would see your hairy
> ass and rape you, people would think that you had some deep seated
> fears against homosexuals.  does this then validate or invalidate the
> decision that it be illegal?  NOT really, but there would definately
> be some strange looks from people.

Geez, talk about a pornographic imagination.  Why is it you suddenly
assume that disgust with public displays of bodily functions must, which
don't fit with your preferred rationale, must invariably be due to some
sort of sexual pathology.  First of all, its clearly not the case that if
people propose the wrong public policies, they must invariably do so out
of some sort of sexual fetish.  But you seem to assume so.  It seems you
have such a fixation.  Actually you seem so clueless that you have even
got your own fantastic twisted analogy wrong.  According to your logic, if
I opposed public defecation on other than public health concerns or in
addition to them, my deep-seated fear, according to your usual stuff, is
that I would rape their hairy asses.

Needless to say, most people support laws banning public defecation
because they think its "gross" or "yucky" and something that should be
done in privacy.  Personally, I don't give a damn, since I don't exactly
think the fate of the Free World turns on whether people are allowed to
defecate in jars in public, or not, instead of using the bathroom, or
whether mothers are allowed to nurse their children in public, or not,
instead of using some private place, such as a bathroom.

> I don't know if you've been dragged too deep into the convoluted logic
> of legal-speak or not to be able to differentiate between the "ANY
> MEANS NECESSARY" logical leaps of lawyering to the "let's try to stay
> within reason" arguments of the real world.  It appears you want to
> "win the case, sway the jury"  in this argument, rather than come up
> with an argument that NORMAL people will actually buy.

Oh.  This is the cop-out I suspected.  When you can't think of a good
rejoinder, a superficially plausible way to uncharitably read or misread
my statements, make broadside ad hominems.  And for you to talk about the
"real world," gimme a break.  As the average Joe why he supports laws
banning public defecation, and he'll just say "because its fucking
disgusting," probably without a second thought to any public health
rationale.  Who are these "normal" people?  You and your five friends? 
There's a representative cross-section.  So let's try to stay in reason
there, chief.  If you are going to argue why society pursues some public
policy, give the actual reasons that society supports those views, rather
than those reasons that you would prefer society to support them.

And honestly, I don't care whether the "jury" or whoever that is supposed
to represent, buys my argument or not, since I will most likely never sit
in a courtroom in my entire life.

-- 
Jake Minas
Columbia Law School
jam81@columbia.edu