Earlier quoted context omitted.
We like to think of it as democracy in action.
So the Salem witch trials were "democracy in action"?
The Salem witch trials were under the justice system.
University of Florida bars professors from testifying in a voting rights case
381–390 of 484 posts
Re: University of Florida bars professors from testifying in a voting rights case
#382Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep. Democracy isn’t perfect it’s just one compromise among many.
So better that more innocents be punished than risk any guilty going free? Truly, your love of the strictest "definition" of democracy is baffling, though I think most would vote against you.
I'm not sure how you get "punishing innocents" from publishing a very incriminating recording even though making such a recording is illegal.
Re: University of Florida bars professors from testifying in a voting rights case
#383Earlier quoted context omitted.
My state in the US (Oregon) has had universal mail-in voting for two decades and we don't have any voter fraud to speak of. There isn't really a debate here. Anyone complaining about voter fraud is uninformed or purposefully making a bad faith argument in order to justify voter disenfranchisement.
> we don't have any voter fraud to speak of You probably mean you're not aware of any voter fraud. The whole objective of fraud is to have it not be discovered, so it's possible fraud has in fact been occurring and it has not yet been discovered (and/or nobody in a position to do so is interested in discovering it).
To sway an election, even a close one (e.g. PA or GA in 2020) you'd still need tens of thousands of votes.
The sheer scale of an operation to cast that many fraudulent ballots has such an infantessimally small chance of not being discovered (e.g. "Sir/Madam our records show you've already cast a ballot. You'll have to fill in this provisional one and come in with ID to verify")
Re: University of Florida bars professors from testifying in a voting rights case
#384Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm familiar with MLive, but even good organizations are capable of making mistakes. As for "evidence presented to the court" that is not what this is. It is a motion to compel discovery in hopes of uncovering such evidence. Such motions can be quite legitimate and well founded, but they can also be desperate fishing expeditions. Either way, they are not evidence in and of themselves. For MLive to report these claims…
I’m not sure extremists are able to actually apply logic and understand that difference though - the kind of mindset that leads people to join paramilitaries that commit terrorism and murder police isn’t especially vulnerable to reason. The lawyers that they follow (Lin Manuel, and the other Kraken lawyer) are currently being sanctioned for this exact same pattern of dishonesty, and know that their followers will acc…
The disgraced lawyer is Lin Wood. Lin Manuel Miranda is the guy who did Hamilton. The name of the other “Kraken” lawyer you’re thinking of is Sydney Powell.
Re: University of Florida bars professors from testifying in a voting rights case
#385Earlier quoted context omitted.
The critical question here is whether the University is restricting alternate employment or speech. It seems reasonable that a full-time employee on salary be prohibited from accepting simultaneous alternative employment in their primary field of work.
> The critical question here is whether the University is restricting alternate employment or speech. The process that stopped the professors was not one for restricting additional work in general, but one for restricting additional work based on a conflict of interest. Since they are a public University their ability to limit free speech like this is more limited than a private institution as iudqnolq mentioned abov…
> ...but one for restricting additional work based on a conflict of interest. Since they are a public University...
Public university serves the public, no?
So then the argument is the anticipated testimony wrt voting rights would be detrimental to the public interest?
Re: University of Florida bars professors from testifying in a voting rights case
#386Earlier quoted context omitted.
We have more options than mob justice. Who told you that, that was our only option? Once you resort to mib justice, their verdicts can't just be "taken back". I'll give you a link to Emmett Till, and that's what mob justice brings. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Till
I live in the US. Courts in the US are often useless. If you have a high profile case you might get justice but usually nothing happens. I'm definitely aware of what can happen. I don't know how often it does. But if you restrict yourself to forcing justice only when you aren't acting on a hunch you're probably doing the best for yourself you can, because the alternative is usually nothing.
I live in the US as well and you're arguing for a medieval form of justice. You think we should go back to conviction on a "hunch" and feelings. Have we fallen so far that I have to argue for the merits of a justice system based on evidence in a technical forum? Education and critical thought should be inextricably linked.
Re: University of Florida bars professors from testifying in a voting rights case
#387Earlier quoted context omitted.
So better that more innocents be punished than risk any guilty going free? Truly, your love of the strictest "definition" of democracy is baffling, though I think most would vote against you.
I'm not sure how you get "punishing innocents" from publishing a very incriminating recording even though making such a recording is illegal.
You literally called the Salem witch trials democracy in action, and don't understand how I got to punishing the innocent?
Re: University of Florida bars professors from testifying in a voting rights case
#388"Three University of Florida professors were denied permission from the school to testify in a major voting rights case " What the fuck is 'permission to testify'? I thought access to justice was a constitutional right. If you can't get anyone to tesrify, then you have no access to justice. We have surrendered so many rights in various contracts, we hardly have any freedoms left.
I find it fascinating that the supreme court has upheld the ability to forgo so many purportedly inalienable rights via contract.
I've recently been disabused of the quaint notion that our Supreme Court's job is to make findings of law.
Re: University of Florida bars professors from testifying in a voting rights case
#389Earlier quoted context omitted.
The supreme court has historically taken a more nuanced stance on this sort of issue than you. Broadly speaking in the US everyone has many constitutional protections against the government restricting them in certain ways. When you become a government employee you give up only the most narrow subset of the protections necessary for the government to effectively be your boss. This means the professors have a reasonab…
The critical question here is whether the University is restricting alternate employment or speech. It seems reasonable that a full-time employee on salary be prohibited from accepting simultaneous alternative employment in their primary field of work.
On the contractor-employee continuum, professors are really closer to contractors than they are full time employees. Critically, professors are not “full time” from an annual timeframe. They are salaried, yes, but maybe only work for 9/12 months per year. Their salaries are commensurately lowered. Therefore many professors take outside contract jobs during those 3 months to make up the difference. Contracting arrangements, including serving as expert witnesses. are so common that it’s usually built into the Faculty “constitution” or whatever it may be called at UoF.