Sandy asks…
In the U.S.,why is there both State & Federal Laws regarding criminal matters?? (Please Read)?
I’v noticed that in the U.S. there are both State and Federal Laws regarding Criminal Matters and I want to know why??? Because in Canada, all Criminal Laws are found in the Criminal Code and are passed by Parliament on the Federal Level alone. So all Offences found in the Criminal Code apply everywhere, if you commit robbery, assault, murder etc it is the same in Alberta as it is in Newfoundland or Ontario, it’s the same everywhere. Also,the Rules of evidence, procedures, statute of Limitations, Minimum or Maximum Sentences if convicted are all different depending on what State you live in.
Also, do you think all Criminal Laws should fall under Federal Jurisdiction??? I mean, if someone commits murder in one state and another person commits Murder in another state where the circumstances are the same, but because of a difference in the law, one person might get a lighter or harder sentence then the other person. It’s bad enough each country has it’s own legal systems that are so very different with one another, but if it’s all under federal Jurisdiction it’s fair for everyone no matter what State you live in. You see what I mean????
to Summarize, Morals are the same everywhere, so if the Law based on morals, then it should be universal and the same everywhere, it only seems right and fair to me, what do you think??
Pip answers:
The USA was set up very differently from Canada – the original colonies were all set up independently and when they decided it would be a good idea to unite, the USA was set up in a way that gives maximum autonomy to individual states and for the federal level to be as minimal as possible. The vast majority of criminal laws are at state level and that, for instance, is why there have been only three federal executions in the last 30 years and all the rest have been by the states. The one that immediately comes to mind is Timothy McVeigh, who bombed a federal office building – so it came under federal jurisdiction.
It’s probably just as well that the USA is federal in this way, as there is so much variety of opinion there on so many things.
Canada, on the other hand, has always had tighter links with the UK and been much more uniform.
Morality is always an unsafe argument as people differ on what they think is moral. Saudi Arabia thinks it’s moral to execute women for adultery.
Joseph asks…
Jews: Please show respect to your local anti-Semite for he think we are magical beings with demigod qualities?
Guys do you get a thrill in attending, reading, listening, or coming across anti-Semitic dialogues. I had a privilege of attending some Muslim sponsored rally where they bashed Judaism. By going to that meeting I have learned a lot about myself, which I was not aware before. For instance I have learned the following things about my Jewishness According to them and their allies :
1.I can kill gods
2.I control the world by proxy
3.I control the world by inventing Human rights, suffrage moment, and affirmative action
4.I control the world by inventing modern Democratic Capitalism, Communism, Socialism, anarchism, environmentalism and all other “isms” as they have put it
5.I control the world’s economy
6.I control the world’s media and entertainment industries
7.I invented porn to subjugate the non-Jews and turn them into sex addicted perverts to obtain my control on people who lack morals
8.Apparently I am also a drug pusher who uses drugs to enslave people into supporting Israel
9.I have apparently murdered throughout history over 1 billion people
10.I have not a single ounce of morality in me because as a supporter of Israel I am a cold hearted SOB
11.I have a Jewish nose to smell out money and trick people to relinquish their cash
12.I eat nothing but fancy foods while others go hungry
13.I control the leaders of USA, Canada, France, UK, Russia, Germany and Sweden
14.At times according to some video that they have shown there is evidence that proves that I like to eat bloody matzos that I obtain by sacrificing a non-Jewish boy for Passover
15.I am most vicious of all races and faiths
16.I am responsible for whites and blacks intermarrying each other as a way to control both the white and the black markets
17.I was responsible for the following wars in the 20th and now the 21st Century: The war in Lebanon, Iraq, 9/11, Gulf War, Afghanistan War, Vietnam War, Yom Kippur War, Six Day War, Korean Conflict, the war of 1948, WWII, WWI, and the Russo-Japanese War (have no idea about that one…I guess they were some rogue Jews in charge of that one).
18.Everyday I am known to kill Palestinians in mass numbers
19.I am also known to invent the stories about Jewish Holocausts throughout history and fabricating the truth in order to get Israel.
20.And this is my favorite one; I control the medical establishments to wipe out those who disagree with me as I have apparently done in Northern Africa.
21.Oh yeah and I have horns (PS this is not from that meeting but from earlier life experiences)
Jews aren’t you proud to call yourself Jews? It seems that we are omnipotent. What are some other anti-Semitic things that you have heard being said at our expanse?
The rally was in LA, CA organized by some students and the speakers were students.
I happened to see a flier that stated, “Come learn about Jew’s plight to dominate the word at the expanse of Palestinian People.” When I came there were some weird, weird, weird people. Mostly they were Muslims and some non-Muslim looking people, also there were some Palestinians there.
PS there were about 100 people there by my count.
Pip answers:
This would be funny if it weren’t so seriously dangerous.
If their people can be convinced of such nonsense, then the Jewish people are in trouble.
I wonder what the audience reaction was, and how the press reported this meeting.
Any information?
A bit of history. It was the Prophet Muhammad himself who attempted to negate the positive image of the Jew that had been prevalent earlier. According to historian Bernard Lewis, the Prophet Muhammad ‘s original plan had been to induce the Jews to adopt Islam; when Muhammad began his rule at Medina in AD 622 he counted few supporters, so he adopted several Jewish practices-including daily prayer facing toward Jerusalem and the fast of Yom Kippur-in the hope of wooing the Jews.
But the Jewish community rejected the Prophet Muhammad’s religion, preferring to adhere to its own beliefs, whereupon Muhammad subsequently substituted Mecca for Jerusalem, and dropped many of the Jewish practices.
Jews faced the danger of incurring the wrath of a Muslim, in which case the Muslim could charge, however falsely, that the Jew had cursed Islam, an accusation against which the Jew could not defend himself. Islamic religious law decreed that, although murder of one Muslim by another Muslim was punishable by death, a Muslim who murdered a non-Muslim was given not the death penalty, but only the obligation to pay “blood money” to the family of the slain infidel. Even this punishment was unlikely, however, because the law held the testimony of a Jew or a Christian invalid against a Muslim, and the penalty could only be exacted under improbable conditions–when two Muslims were willing to testify against a brother Muslim for the sake of an infidel.
.
Thomas asks…
ur view on this?
Right and wrong?
under what cicumstances, if any, is one justified in disobeying the law? in other words.. what situation should make it right to break a law?
heres my answers: jay walking is against the law … i think you should jay walk when you see a toddler unsupervised … or see only a toddler without any sign of adult near teh child…across the street… it is to protect teh child from jumpin in the street
lets hear urs
Pip answers:
Wow, what a huge question; what your asking is under what circumstances is it okay to disobey the law?
What you’re referring to is known as Civil Disobedience. To quote joe.huffman.org,
“At what point would YOU decide to disobey the law if the laws and the government enforcing them depart from your beliefs in regard to morality? For example, would you have been willing to hide Jews in Germany in the late ’30s? Would you be willing to take up arms and shoot at the Gestapo as they dragged the Jews who lived next door away? Or if the Gestapo (or what ever it might be called in your time and place) were about to drag you and your family away? Or help runaway slaves during the 1850’s and early 1860’s in the US? Or would you as a member of the US army fired upon Native American women and children after being ordered to? Or what if our government required everyone to have an electronic identification device imbedded in his or her skull? Or your SSN tattooed on your wrist? Or required that you (as a non-criminal — until now) register with the police every time you left one jurisdiction and entered a new police jurisdiction (it could made easy with today’s technology — magnetic encoded credit card like badges at the county lines and town borders — that sort of thing)? Or required that you show positive ID for every purchase you made (makes it hard to conceal your feeding the family of ‘Jews’ living in your attic). Or what if the police start making “routine checks” of your vehicles for drugs, politically incorrect weapons (the UK has outlawed many types of knifes), and other contraband? What about registration of your firearms? Confiscation of your firearms? Possession of more than X rounds of ammunition? Or what if the government required that you obtained permission before having a child? Or required that your child be taught a version of history that you believed was incorrect? Or prohibited you from viewing certain materials? Or prohibited you from criticizing the government? Or prohibited you from private meetings (a public “watchdog” must be in attendance and the entire meeting video taped) of more than X people? Or declared that mere possession of explosive components was a crime (never mind that kitchen flour can be made to explode)? Or a tax on singles/gays/non-whites/whatever? Or (il)legal abortion? There are people who believe abortion is murder. Is their claim that much different than believing Jews are human and qualified to enjoy the same rights as other humans even though the law claims they are not (US law on abortion, compared to 1939 German laws regarding people of Jewish descent)? Would you break the law to stop someone from having a legal abortion? Others claim abortion is a right. If abortion was illegal in your state or country would you help someone to obtain one in another state or country even if such action were against the law?”
Steven asks…
If not for God, why do we have agency and moral law? Did these things evolve to?
Agency is, philosophically, the ability to know between right and wrong, and the ability to base your decisions on knowing this. We can choose whether or not to do certain things, such as steal, based on this agency. By agency we also feel guilt for the ‘wrong’ things we’ve done, such as commit adultery. Why do other animals, especially carnivores, not think twice when they hurt or kill others in their species? Dont they feel guilt or a sense of doing wrong?
Also, there comes the question of how our morals came about. For example, why is it wrong to borrow someone’s pencil without asking for it, when you’ll give it back as soon as youre done with it? There seems nothing wrong with that when you boil it right down. Also, why is adultery wrong? Why, when you are in an unmarried relationship, is it not okay to be with someone else at the same time? And lastly, why is it wrong to be jealous of someone, or lust after someone? Its not like your hurting anyone, right?
These moral ‘laws’ as they literally are, make you wonder when you get right down to it: Why have humans made these things wrong, if not for God? Hurting someone physically seems to be the only clear concept, while the others seem unreasonable, if you boil it right down.
So my two questions are, how did agency develop in the brain if not for God? And how did our moral laws develop, if not given to us by a supreme being? Are both of these a product of evolutionary processes? I’m looking for some scientific answers!
Pip answers:
The Code of Hammurabi (sixth king of the Amorite Dynasty of Old Babylon) predates the law of Moses (Torah) by around 500 years. The king received the law from Shamash, the god of justice.
Inventing God’s Law: How the Covenant Code of the Bible Used and Revised the Laws of Hammurabi – by David P. Wright
http://books.google.com/books?id=3_1iHwAACAAJ&dq=Inventing+God%27s+law
The evolution of morality – by Richard Joyce
http://books.google.com/books?id=QxZrQnioPicC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_navlinks_s#v=onepage&q=&f=false
SEXUAL SELECTION FOR MORAL VIRTUES
https://blackboard.newpaltz.edu/bbcswebdav/users/geherg/Glenn_Geher_Continuous_Works/PSY_558_Mating_Psychology/miller_2007.pdf
The better angels of our nature: group stability and the evolution of moral tension
http://academic.evergreen.edu/Curricular/iescriticalthinking/downloads/lahti-weinsteinEHB.pdf
“O Lord . . . You Perceive my Thoughts from Afar”: Recursiveness and the Evolution of Supernatural Agency
http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/InstituteofCognitionCulture/FileUploadPage/Filetoupload,90247,en.pdf
Helen asks…
can u answer this?
1. can religion dictate the morality of the society?
2. can man live without religion?
3. can a country have only one religion?
4. does religion affects the decision of the individual?
Pip answers:
1) yes for example British Law was based very heavily on Christian morality until Jeremy Benthem and John Stuart Mill coaxed a lot of amendments and made it more utilitarian/humanitarian.
2) yes, the same way that it is possible to be moral without having to have a supreme force to keep you on it
3) this is tricky… It depends how general your’e being for example a country can consider itself one religion, but is that 1 religion and no sects, or one religion and many sects? Or 1 dominant religion with other religions. Eg the uk in times gone by has considered itself Christian, but that was divided into catholic and protestant. Not to mention the presence of other religions eg Judaism. Not a very cut and dried thing.
4) if a religion was not influential on a person would their be a point in that person being religious? It effects the way people make decisions, what they consider ‘ethical’, ‘respectful’ and ‘right’.
Hope this helps
Powered by Yahoo! Answers