Unconstitutional Video Game Law Costs California $2 Million 180
An anonymous reader writes "In hopes of protecting the children of California from the ravages of violent video games, then governor Arnold Schwarzenegger attempted to push through a law that would fine retailers $1000 for each infraction of selling a violent game to an underage child. However, in the wake of appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court, which struck down the law, California is now forced to pay the legal fees of all parties to the tune of two million dollars."
Nice! (Score:5, Insightful)
Good. Maybe this will teach future political leaders that censorship is a bad idea.
Oh who am I kidding, these idiots never learn anything.
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Which of course is the counter argument to term limits and what not.
I am just wondering where California will get the 2 million. They can barely cover costs as it is.
And their highways are the worst ever. It is almost like they havent repaved any of them in years.
Re:Nice! (Score:5, Funny)
Schwartsy doesnt care, hes already out of office. Which of course is the counter argument to term limits and what not. I am just wondering where California will get the 2 million. They can barely cover costs as it is. And their highways are the worst ever. It is almost like they havent repaved any of them in years.
They were going to repave the highways but then they got high.
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They were gonna fix the roads up, too, but they they got hiiiiiigh. (Laaaaaa dah dah).
Re:Nice! (Score:5, Informative)
Well, As I am one of those Caltrans employees.. I can tell you where the money goes that we take in in Gas Taxes, Construction taxes, etc etc. It goes in the General fund. Not transportation accounts. "except for certain taxes which do" So Lets say we have a good year.. and our transportation fund is swollen. The State comes over with its hand out and takes from that fund to put into the general fund. As you can imagine this practice has a way of making roads very hard to maintain. On top of that we have say 40 people to take care of around 1200 miles of road. Between staffing issues, cuts, promotions, vacations, sick days etc. There are typically 26-32 of those people at work. On a good day those folk actually get to do some maintenance on the road. On most days.. they respond to accidents and complaints from the public. So this is a snippet from my point of view. I do live in a fairly populated area.. but NOTHING like LA. SF etc. You can extrapolate that there are more people in those areas.. but by and large CT is an engineering organization and it's more fun to build than maintain.. So that is pretty much how we operate. build more ignore the old.
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The odd thing is, the state highways which are federally funded, are also in terrible shape.
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It is pretty obvious that the state government is dysfunctional to the level of Greece.
You think California's bad, try Illinois. At least it's better than when Ryan and Blago ran things.
The odd thing is, the state highways which are federally funded, are also in terrible shape.
The feds don't fully fund anything, the state has to match a certain part of it.
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So, would you say that you're suffering from the same problem that the USPTO suffers from? You may be bringing in more than enough revenue to fully fund your department, but your state legislature sets a budget for you, and wanders off with any of the 'excess' funds for political boondoggles / favors?
Re:Nice! (Score:4, Insightful)
And you can't put most of the blame on him. The governor is not a dictator, he needed a bill from the legislature first before he could sign it. He wasn't popular enough among the legislators of either part to push through something through force of will.
Re:Nice! (Score:5, Insightful)
Except in the case of politicians who actually embezel cash for themselves, I dont think billing politicians for bad decisions is a good idea, because it means that only the super rich could afford to be politicians. That means that only your bushes and cheyneys of the world who a couple of million dollars bill wont send them broke, could do it. But your Ron pauls, obamas , and sarah palins could not, because these guys are just upper-middle class folks who would be bankerupted by it. And it means they could not have run.
Do we really want to guarantee a future run by the filthy rich, folks who for the most part got rich by corruption and gouging others for cash?
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Except Obama is worth 10.5 million.
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Bill them? They should be imprisoned.
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You're forgetting the major part of how the California road work budget is determined: If you don't spend it all this year, they give you only the amount you spent this year in next years budget. This causes the workers to purposely slow down work and soak up hours that they can put on their timesheets, because if they finish all of their work ahead of schedule they will effectively give their department a budget cut for next year.
In theory it keeps the budget cut down to only what's necessary. In practi
Re:Nice! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nice! (Score:4, Insightful)
When politicians make good moves
[citation needed]
Politicians care about votes not money (Score:5, Insightful)
Good. Maybe this will teach future political leaders that censorship is a bad idea. Oh who am I kidding, these idiots never learn anything.
That is not quite true. You have a very different perspective than the politicians. The politicians have already banked the votes of frightened parents. Wasting money and time and going counter to the constitution are irrelevant to them. All they care about are the votes and the likely voters are the silly frightened parents and not the gamers.
It is amazing to watch the very same people who in their youth were outraged when Al Gore led his crusade against music become the middle aged people who support a crusade against video games.
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It is amazing to watch the very same people who in their youth were outraged when Al Gore led his crusade against music become the middle aged people who support a crusade against video games.
This is the largest amount of bullshit I've ever seen. You're talking about me (and people in my generation). I was outraged by Gore then, I'm outraged by Das Ahnold now.
You don't speak for me or my generation, any more than I speak for yours. Please kindly shut the fuck up.
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But curse words are evil! They'll corrupt the minds of children with their... evilness! In any case, they're bad because I said so (because I don't like them).
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Fuckers.
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"In any case, they're bad because I said so (because I don't like them)."
"In the words of my generation, UP YOURS!!!" -- Independence Day
There, he didn't use a curse word. But I will you arrogant ass. To hell with what you don't like.
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Al Gore was evidently in on it since he was present and asking questions at the congressional hearing with Dee Snider. (You can see parts of it in the movie "A Headbangers Journey").
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It is amazing to watch the very same people who in their youth were outraged when Al Gore led his crusade against music become the middle aged people who support a crusade against video games.
That wasn't Al Gore. That was Tipper Gore, his wife. Also, the PMRC advocated voluntary use of warning labels, rather than outright censorship. Frank Zappa didn't see any difference between the moral panic (some of the stuff targeted is hilarious in hindsight) and explicit, outright censorship, but I think the PMRC were mostly harmless, even if they were batshit crazy. If they'd pushed for anything beyond voluntary warning labels, I'd have cared about their hysterical antics more, but, really, I think i
Re:Politicians care about votes not money (Score:4, Informative)
It is amazing to watch the very same people who in their youth were outraged when Al Gore led his crusade against music become the middle aged people who support a crusade against video games.
That wasn't Al Gore. That was Tipper Gore, his wife.
A Senator's wife does not call for Senate Hearings. Senator Al did that and testified in support as well.
Also, the PMRC advocated voluntary use of warning labels, rather than outright censorship.
That was a fall back position. They originally wanted to bar the sale of the "most offensive" music to minors. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the recording industry introduced an industry based rating system and warning labels and undercut the PRMC's efforts.
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The "most offensive" music being...music made by brown-skinned people?
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Frank Zappa didn't see any difference between the moral panic (some of the stuff targeted is hilarious in hindsight) and explicit, outright censorship, but I think the PMRC were mostly harmless, even if they were batshit crazy.
The two that come to my mind had nothing to do with Zappa but were hilarious in themselves. One was "Under The Blade" (Twisted Sister?) and the other was "Suicide Solution" (Ozzie). They called these songs evil without even listening to them -- "Under the Blade" is about having surger
Re:there is nothing wrong with a rating system (Score:5, Insightful)
Both of those that you list kids could see with parental permission. But more importantly than that, the rating system in Hollywood and the Video Game industries is voluntary. There is no law against kids seeing an R rated film, just a theater owner's agreement. A big part of that is if the rating were given the force of law, it would need to hold up to scrutiny. As it stands, there are a lot of societal standards and other things which don't necessarily hold up to government oversight, and the ratings process is entirely opaque for fear of influence scandals.
So yes, reward retailers who adhere to the ratings standards, be it movies or games. But there are major, obvious constitutionality challenges in giving a voluntary system the force of law.
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Incorrect. Some states have successfully made it illegal for anyone under the MPAA or ESRB rating to see the movie or purchase the game without parental permission. The California law was thrown out for how it was implemented, the legality of enforcing the MPAA and ESRB ratings has already been established by the courts, it simply requires certain steps and procedures the Cali law failed to follow.
Re:there is nothing wrong with a rating system (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not aware of any such state. Can you identify these "some states"?
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Informative labels are fine (Score:3)
There is nothing wrong with telling parents "Oh, this game allows you to ..."
Agreed. Informative labels are fine. Stores deciding for themselves that they do not want to carry products with a certain label is fine. I do however think that we have crossed a line when the courts or the police get involved because of foul language or simulated violence.
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And there is nothing wrong with barring kids from going to see Saw 5 or Basic Instinct.
There is nothing wrong with telling parents "Oh, this game allows you to simulate killing prostitutes". If you think its ok for a 5 year old kid to have 'fun' killing prostitutes and stealing their money, then you have serious issues.
It's the parent's responsibility to monitor what a child does. That's why laws that make the parent buy this stuff are wrong. Duh!
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Good. Maybe this will teach future political leaders that censorship is a bad idea.
Oh who am I kidding, these idiots never learn anything.
Personally I am not against censorship per say, however there are certain classifications (the so called R, X and PG rating come to mind) which if properly implemented are quite reasonable. Unfortunately you always have parent groups who are not satisfied with any type of censorship classification who IMHO don't want to take responsibility for what their children see, hear and play.
In Australia we only have a R15 rating for video games, even though lobby groups have been pushing for an R18 rating for yea
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Unfortunately you always have parent groups who are not satisfied with any type of censorship classification who IMHO don't want to take responsibility for what their children see, hear and play.
I'm not in favor of any censorship classification that restricts certain people (usually children) from buying games. I will not support such a thing until someone can show real-world evidence that video games actually cause a majority of people to be violent (they're going to need to explain why crime statistics don't support their conclusions at all, too). If they don't cause a majority of people to be violent, then whatever effect they do have is probably so small that we don't even notice it. In any cas
Re:Nice! (Score:4, Informative)
Good. Maybe this will teach future political leaders that censorship is a bad idea.
Oh who am I kidding, these idiots never learn anything.
Of course they won't learn. They didn't learn from last time. There was no surprise about what the outcome would be. This had already been pretty well tested. Illinois had passed the same sort of law, and it was struck down in the Court of Appeals (http://www.gamecensorship.com/Illinois.htm). The state ended up paying one-half million dollars in legal fees. Yet already knowing the result of that case (I'm sure the politicians did their due diligence and researched the matter before making law, right?), California passed their law, then did their usual by taking it a step further....to the supreme court, and for two million dollars.
It's like saying "if I smack my head into the wall even harder, maybe it won't hurt this time".
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How will it teach them? The money isn't coming out their pockets. Its the equivalent of getting a parking ticket and paying for it by shaking down the neighbors, putting the money in your checking account, and then happily paying the fine.
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Censorship, hmm, the best way to fight bad content would of course be to eliminate all censorship in the case of that bad content, by simply adhering to the law. "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.".
So don't like the content, stop censoring people copying it and distributing it for free. Greed will solve the problem caused by greed. No fines required, in point of fact,
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They won't learn anything, because they won't suffer any consequences. Passing unconstitutional laws should be criminal. Every politician who voted for this law belongs in jail.
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Why? It's not like it's their money.
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Ok, so help me out here.
Film classification is acceptable in the USA.
Video game classification is not.
This feels utterly confusing. Either children can be exposed to all forms of speech, or they can't.
Where's the big issue in age restricting games? Really, seriously? Or do you support the right of people to create interactive hard core porn and market it to 13yo boys?
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selling violent video games to kids is about as bad as selling them pornography
So, in other words, completely harmless.
it primes them to support things like the Iraq War
Wow. Where did that come from? "I played a violent video game. Therefore, the Iraq war is good!" That sounds like a highly probable scenario. Especially since no evidence of such a thing happening to a majority of people was given.
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What is wrong with the state making sure that the person responsible is actually the one buying the game or movie?
It violates the first amendment. The Supreme Court said so. I'm guessing they know more about law than me or most of the people here.
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selling violent video games to kids is about as bad as selling them pornography, or letting cigarette companies target them with advertising. it primes them to support things like the Iraq War, or the coming Iran War, which will bankrupt this country and dehumanize the nation.
Jack Thompson, is that you?
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Re:JUDICIARY is not innocent. (Score:4)
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"The pen is mightier than the sword" doesn't just hold for warfare. It applies to crime too.
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I've never come across any evidence (compelling or otherwise) as to why people should want to die to protect hate speech instead of protecting those affected by it.
Nobody is "affected by" hate speech. It's just vibrating air, it's not going to hurt you. Now giving politicians the power to counter vibrating air with violence? That's going to hurt people.
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*sigh* I'm replying to a troll, but...
There's no logic or citation provided for your claim that this move was bad.
You have that backwards. There's no logic or citation that says that video games can be harmful, and in fact the studies show exactly the opposite.
Are you also in support of distribution of alcohol and tobacco to minors?
Tobacco and alcohol, otoh, have been shown to be harmful to minors. The rest of your post was successfully rebutted by Hatta. Now go away, Jack Thompson. Shoo!
Pointless (Score:2, Interesting)
Where do you think the government is going to get those two million dollars? From the very tax payers they abused in the first place. What a pointless gesture. This will not deter future governors or legislators from pushing through other unconstitutional regulations.
Re:Pointless (Score:5, Insightful)
There's pretty big overlap between those tax payers and the people who can vote in state elections. So that seems reasonably fair in the end.
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not really since the voters can't be responsible for every single decision politicians make. voters aren't making the decisions themselves, and their choices are limited by the parties in the first place.
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It's representative democracy - it's how it works.
Note that between the law being passed and it being defended in the supreme court there was an election. It the people gave a shit they would have made that clear and it would have been dropped before making it all that way.
But the voters didn't care. Now they get to foot the bill all 5c per CA resident.
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no.. reasonably fair would be for the money to come from the involved politicians' paychecks. make bad decisions, get docked pay, or fired, just like the rest of the voting block.
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Being elected, or more to the point failing to be elected, isn't "getting fired" any more than contractors get "fired" at the end of their contract. They, like politicians, move on to the next contract job. Big. Fucking. Deal.
Part of the problem with politics is simply the fact that politicians escape the vast majority of the consequences of their actions. Not too surprising that such a person spends the money of others quickly and wastefully. Also not surprising that they lie to get the job, but unlike act
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no.. reasonably fair would be for the money to come from the involved politicians' paychecks. make bad decisions, get docked pay, or fired, just like the rest of the voting block.
In some (many?) states, it's illegal to require an employee to pay for any losses they cause. They can be fired, but you can't deduct money from their paycheck.
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Two Million is chump change for any Government Agency in California. They have that much slop in just about every department.
Nobody will notice this except the lawyers who got bitch-slapped by the Supreme Court. They may be more cautious next time the governor or the legislature decides to pass something like this, if for no other reason than protecting their good reputation.
Wait, they are lawyers, what the hell was I thinking. Where's my meds.
Take it out of Leland Yee's hide (Score:2)
Seriously. Sick and tired of him... It's Yee's baby, he should bloody well pay for the mess it made.
As much as I like ripping into politicians (Score:5, Interesting)
for wasting money, and granted this was waste in the name of violating rights and legislating morality, when you get down to it $2,000,000 is rather cheap for a screw up of this scale.
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Oh certainly. I'm surprised it wasn't $20M, or even $200M. When you get into governmental waste, it's not hard to start hitting the billions.
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At least he didn't go all SCO level stupid on it. He would be selling chunks of the state to Mexico to finance the legal battle.
nobodys rights were violated. (Score:3, Interesting)
you dont have a 'right' to sell children simulated experiences of murdering prostitutes and robbing them, any more than you have a 'right' to sell them simulated experiences of fucking prostitutes, or to put cigarette advertising inside of comic books.
of all the actual, real censorship going on in society today, namely, people like Thomas Drake, Stephen Kim, and others being charged with Espionage for simply talking to reporters.... thats what REAL censorship is. i would love to see the people who get butth
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Listen, you have "valid" points but you're twisting my position.
I don't let my nine year old play those kinds of games and I take a personal interest in that process. I don't want the state policing my involvement, the game ratings already on the box assist me in that process.
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Jack, that IS you! So happy to see you here. What are you doing for work these days since the disbarment?
Re:nobodys rights were violated. (Score:4, Interesting)
1972, Pong is released. Violent crime rate in the US (includes murder, rape, and aggravated assault) is 0.2%.
1993, Doom, the first 3rd-person shooter video game, is released. Violent crime rate in the US (includes murder, rape, and aggravated assault) is 0.4%.
2010. Video games, many of them violent and played by surly teenagers, are bigger than movies. Violent crime rate in the US (includes murder, rape, and aggravated assault) is 0.2%.
Source: http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm [disastercenter.com]
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Doom is not a 3rd-person shooter video game, nor was it the first. (Wolfenstein 3d preceded it)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-person_shooter [wikipedia.org]
It's a typo. I meant 1st-person. And I played the first Wolfenstein on an Apple ][e. "Halt! Kom en zie!"
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you dont have a 'right' to sell children simulated experiences of murdering prostitutes and robbing them, any more than you have a 'right' to sell them simulated experiences of fucking prostitutes, or to put cigarette advertising inside of comic books.
Of course you have that right. Why wouldn't you? If parents don't want their kids to see something, they can prohibit their kid from seeing it. It's not my job to enforce the prudery of parents.
of all the actual, real censorship going on in society today, n
Interesting (Score:5, Funny)
Arnold Schwarzenegger tried to prevent children from experiencing violence?
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I remember commando, it was a heartwarming tale of a girl and her father bonding on a tropical adventure...
Not Arnold... (Score:2, Interesting)
Created by California lawmaker Former San Francisco Democratic Assemblyman Leland Yee, now a senator, in the hopes of curbing children’s access to games that allow for assassination, violent crimes, rape, etc.
Seems this was a law the Democrats "attempted to push through".
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FTA:
Created by California lawmaker Former San Francisco Democratic Assemblyman Leland Yee, now a senator, in the hopes of curbing children’s access to games that allow for assassination, violent crimes, rape, etc.
Seems this was a law the Democrats "attempted to push through".
And with the signature of the Republican governor, they did.
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So the legislature wrote it and passed it, but it's the governor's fault.
Who would you blame if it was a Democratic governor that signed it? George Bush?
Go back to high school civics class. Come back after you've done remedial work on the 'veto'.
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And how many of those Democrats starred in violent movies? I wasn't trying to make a partisan statement.
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By the way, these are just about the only two movies he's made that don't have guns (or swords) in them. Not saying they don't, but they're his "cleanest" films for sure.
Kindergarten Cop. There were guns in the beginning and end, but not so much in the middle. Actually wasn't a bad comedy.
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Arnold Schwarzenegger tried to prevent children from experiencing violence?
He had no movies coming out, so he stood nothing to lose. (or loose, as all the kids say these days)
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Arnold Schwarzenegger tried to prevent children from experiencing violence?
You've never had a guilty conscience? ;]
(EDITORS: STORY CAN END HERE) - from TFA (Score:4, Interesting)
Come on...this should have been submitted in the slashdot summary within the first two or three sentences.
Insert bad Austrian accent here (Score:1)
Violent brutality in video games should only be depicted between a man and a woman, man on man violence sends the wrong message to our children and encourages deviant behaviour.
Obligatory Nelson response: (Score:2)
*points at California*
Ha ha.
Think they'll learn from it? (Score:2)
Nope.
It actually cost more than 2 million $ (Score:2)
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Well that and it's a fundamentally bigotted, ignorant law that the state's lawyers are well aware is indefensible. The Mormons can ironically defend "traditional marriage" all they want, ultimately it's their money to lose; not the taxpayer's.
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Exactly. He's be justified if they were. Sex is pure unadulterated evil! I remember accidentally seeing my dad's porn magazines when I was a kid. From that moment on, I was no longer sane. I've been a rapist, a pedophile, and a terrorist ever since.
And I do drugs.
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Why do you presume that short term limits are going to prevent corruption? Why wouldn't it just mean that they'll do even more blatant bullshit since it doesn't matter anyway since they have no worries about re-election?
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I think you need to re-watch the The Next Generation pilot if you think sending lawyers and legalists to the moon would be a good idea. Once you take away those who understand and apply the law, you cease to have any practical law.
Unless, of course, you're going to create a comprehensive legal system whereby the layman can fully understand and apply it... but good luck with that.
The other thing you have to remember in situations like this is that lawyers don't make decisions (in theory), they just advise. I
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Perhaps I should have added an "I am a law student, currently provide some legal services (for free) and aim to be a lawyer in a few years" disclaimer to that...
Many lawyers are aware of their image; and try to do as much free work as they can - unfortunately in many places the cost of being a lawyer is high enough to make that difficult.