On the issue of Personal Jurisdiction

For a court to have jurisdiction means that its word is law. It means that the parties of a case are subject to it’s decisions.

This right to subject an individual to a court’s rulings, does not come from whether it is reasonable or fair. It does not come from whether it is convenient for them to answer the complaint or whether they are present in any given location. The right of subjugation derives directly from the individual’s consent.

Historically, this consent to the governing body has been implied through one’s presence in the territory that it controls.

But, what if the actor has no body? What if the suit is against a company which does not exist in physical form, but merely acts through it’s agents, through computers, telephones, etc. What then is left to determine to who’s rulings it is subject to?

Well, all that’s left is it’s Actions, and indeed, what better a test could there be? Is it not perfectly logical that one be held responsible for their actions in the land where those actions occurred? Is it not the ruler of that territory who is charged with enforcing the laws? Would, as Justice Hugo Black said, it not deprive that state and its residents of their right to self-rule?

The Market…

The beauty of the free market is that the price of products is not based off of what it would cost the buyer to make the product, but what it would cost the Most Efficient Maker* of the product.

*MEM = the best of those who decide to compete

Warrants and a Fair Trial

Those methods of enforcing law which, by their nature, prevent defendants from acquiring evidence in their defense are unconstitutional because a right to a fair trial is required. Applications of law which necessarily disadvantage defendants deny this right.

The application of search warrants, for example of telephone communications, may be said to present an analogous situation which ought to be allowed. This bears no weight because the analogy is flawed. While these searches ought to be allowed, they ought to be so only as the direct result of the fourth amendment which acts as an exception to the right herein described.

In sum, the right to a fair trial provides the accused with the right not to be subject to actions which necessarily prevent them from gaining evidence. Warrants provide an exception to this rule.

The Fundamental Defense Toward Segregation

So long as the individuals in question are accepted as human by the discriminatory body, segregation of them is at it’s very root unconstitutional.

As the Fourth Amendment states,  the people have the right to be secure from unreasonable seizures. To deny them access to any facilities, such as the restrooms of their choosing, is to arrest their movement and thereby seize them of their free will. By denying their right to travel and act as wished the government seizes the individual, without warrant, and so by infringes upon their Fourth Amendment rights.

Moreover, a critical analysis of the amendment may find no alternative but to decide that the issuance of Warrants, as specified by the amendment, is not an exception to the reason-ability of a search but the/a specification of the means by which searches in general may be conducted. Specifically, Warrants as described are to be the means by which searches are to be conducted in absence of extenuating circumstances. Lacking such circumstances, as in the case of segregated restrooms, warrants are required to seize and individual of their free will.

The Impact of Social Roles on Identity and Action

Weaving an Identity Tapestry describes how society’s adoration of particular roles and disgust for others makes for a difficult duality or multiplicity of leanings within an individual when their wishes of themselves to be do not fall plainly in one category. Sonja D. Curry-Johnson therein explains how she feels “We should be able to bring our whole selves to the table.”

Though at the time it did not seem relevant, I recently watched a video of a study where they compared the learning abilities of chimpanzees and human children. After being instructed on how to retrieve a treat through a number of steps both groups learned how to do so. However, when provided with the same situation where it was clear many of the steps were irrelevant, only the monkeys bypassed the unnecessary steps. The study concluded that human children’s expectation to be taught was not possessed by the chimpanzees (or was different) so that the kids wrongly assumed they’d been optimally trained and/or some moral/emotional component existed (possibly the instructor’s feelings toward them).

As I’ve previously stated (as surely others as well), social roles literally characterize the opinions of society and are used to teach others how they “ought” to behave or compel them if they object. It seems to me that this attempt to teach may be usefully compared to the study I saw.

I limit it to the teaching aspect as the use of roles to compel is, as with most all compulsion, not something I support. However, even so limiting the analysis, I can see how one might feel the same tension which Curry-Johnson describes. Having been told how to live there becomes a burden of proof one must overcome to even put their own analysis on equal footing with that which was recommended. Even once somebody has convinced themselves they are right and society’s advice is wrong, they must find the strength to act in a way which may cause them to lose the support of their mentor.

Without any malicious intent involved there can be a great level of strife within the individual. Surely it also becomes more difficult for the protégé as the frequency and degree of disagreements rise. They must encounter the fear that they may, in rejecting a portion of the instructor’s advise, push away the instructor’s support.  This fear is twofold. On one hand, if the mentor finds identity in their beliefs and opinions then rejection of those beliefs would be tantamount to rejection of the mentor. Yet, even when this is not true the student may wander so far that their mentor no longer has the perspective to continue providing useful assistance.

In all this analysis I see only two possible wrongs that are committed. The first being that society may feel so strongly for others that it may move to compel them to do what it feels is best (an argument for minimal government). The second, and far less obvious as to why it’s wrong, being that individuals tend to find their identity in the opinions and decisions they reach.

Of course, I’m not entirely sure the latter is the wrong thing to do. I’ve simply demonstrated that in doing so mentors burden their protégés. But the only alternative I see would be to find one’s own identity in relation to those around them and in doing so they would again burden themselves against being true to their own wishes.

Considering that I only see two useful methods of defining one’s own identity and both are of relatively equal burden upon that party, I conclude that the mere presence of role-related internal strife is not conclusive evidence of societal wrongdoing (compulsion). Instead, it may be the ever-present result of humanity’s educational attempts.

Weaving an Identity Tapestry by Sonja D. Curry Johnson. (an essay found in…)

Listen Up: voices from the next feminist generation edited by Barbara Findlen.

National Geographic’s Ape Genius via Youtube

PS. I don’t actually think they actually said that second conclusion in the Chimp study, but it seemed obvious to me so I credited it to them.

The Right to Legal Counsel

The Right to Legal Counsel is just that. The fact that there is precedent which defends the defendant’s right to competent counsel may at the very least not be used as evidence that it is a right only to competent counsel.  In truth, the fact that the competency of counsel has been brought into question resolves only that precedent for the quality of counsel exists. As freedom includes the freedom to make what others may find to be the wrong decision, this precedent rather protects an individuals right to what the court may feel in less competent counsel.

The Instinct of Respect Toward Predators

There seems to be little coincidence that the most widely consumed animals are vegetarians. Indeed, they are easier and more efficient to raise as raising a carnivorous animal for food would be wasteful. However, it is also wasteful to raise animals for consumption when we have the ability to farm the land they graze on and produce far more food than they. Pure efficiency is surely not the driving force behind our choice of food consumption.

We have preferences. While, around the world, we enjoy eating chicken, lamb, and duck, we similarly prefer the company of dogs and cats. More than the vegetarianism of cattle and such livestock, it’s important to note the carnivorous nature of our companions.

Why is this? Well, for one, there is the risk of disease inherent in eating carnivorous animals. By consuming meat, these animals may more readily pick up infections and pass them on to us. Further, if any disease were to be passed onto the carnivorous animal, they’d likely be passed on to us by virtue of the fact that they’ve so transmitted in the past. They serve to collect illness and disease, increasing the concentrations of such things as mercury.

Which brings us to the most glaring exception. In consuming fish we consume predators, and en masse. They similarly collect poisons. Yet every culture with access to them consumes them.

I therefor suggest that the fear of disease does not explain our abstinence from the consumption of  predators.

Rather, it stems at least in part from a form of respect. Our companionship with the predators that we’ve mastered may well serve to familiarize us with the traits and tactics of their larger brothers. It may simply be a practical fear from the fact that those animals that kill to survive may pose and unnecessary risk in our pursuit for food.

Maybe, it is because the pig will eat meat when given it that a few cultures refuse to eat him.