When do or should customs trump law? - Page 4

Shadowrun · #31 07-24-2007, 02:00 AM

WTF, what was the courts excuse? I get that it might be hard to find a translator, but given a 3yr time frame c'mon

daveT · #32 07-24-2007, 08:03 PM

This is bad. Liberians apparently speak perfect English, I get e-mails from them all time because my very rich uncle, the oil baron, died in a plane crash.

Also, a question about the original mutilation thing.

Why is the English having a hard time investigating this? Usually these girls are prepubescent. So, logic dictates that the parents took them to have this done.

I don't get it, some things are so simple that no one ever seems to get. Do I have Asperger's?

lmcjaho · #33 07-25-2007, 05:28 AM

This is a a great thread...

I have always been on the "if they don't like the law here they can go back where they come from" side of things on this one, but where I differ from many others is that I think it is a two-way street.

A while back there was a big hubbub here about a female journalist who went to a country in the Middle East (I want to say Iran but I could be off by a few hundred miles in any direction) and she wrote critical pieces about the local government and got her ass thrown in prison for it. While in prison she was beaten, tortured, etc, and eventually died from a beating she was given.

Well, of course all these people were going on about how terrible this all was, and her husband and kids were in the papers decrying the injustice etc etc. I say she got what was coming to her. You don't go to a country like that one and write bad stuff about the government without expecting for the fecal matter to hit the fan over it anymore that you come to North America and expect to be able to set your wife on fire if she displeases you - neither one is acceptable in the country you are in...

Coffee · #34 07-25-2007, 04:53 PM

When custom > law, you are no longer a free nation. You are a nation of zealotry and overgrown children. You are essentially a theocracy, with your god being the custom.

Shadowrun · #35 07-25-2007, 05:55 PM

[ QUOTE ]
This is a a great thread...

I have always been on the "if they don't like the law here they can go back where they come from" side of things on this one, but where I differ from many others is that I think it is a two-way street.

A while back there was a big hubbub here about a female journalist who went to a country in the Middle East (I want to say Iran but I could be off by a few hundred miles in any direction) and she wrote critical pieces about the local government and got her ass thrown in prison for it. While in prison she was beaten, tortured, etc, and eventually died from a beating she was given.

Well, of course all these people were going on about how terrible this all was, and her husband and kids were in the papers decrying the injustice etc etc. I say she got what was coming to her. You don't go to a country like that one and write bad stuff about the government without expecting for the fecal matter to hit the fan over it anymore that you come to North America and expect to be able to set your wife on fire if she displeases you - neither one is acceptable in the country you are in...

[/ QUOTE ]

you dont see a difference between the 2 [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

NotFadeAway · #36 07-25-2007, 10:26 PM

[ QUOTE ]
This is a a great thread...

I have always been on the "if they don't like the law here they can go back where they come from" side of things on this one, but where I differ from many others is that I think it is a two-way street.

A while back there was a big hubbub here about a female journalist who went to a country in the Middle East (I want to say Iran but I could be off by a few hundred miles in any direction) and she wrote critical pieces about the local government and got her ass thrown in prison for it. While in prison she was beaten, tortured, etc, and eventually died from a beating she was given.

Well, of course all these people were going on about how terrible this all was, and her husband and kids were in the papers decrying the injustice etc etc. I say she got what was coming to her. You don't go to a country like that one and write bad stuff about the government without expecting for the fecal matter to hit the fan over it anymore that you come to North America and expect to be able to set your wife on fire if she displeases you - neither one is acceptable in the country you are in...

[/ QUOTE ]

You're an idiot.

lmcjaho · #37 07-25-2007, 10:44 PM

[ QUOTE ]
you dont see a difference between the 2 [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

Of course I see a difference between the two - I was using hyperbole to get my point across as the moron who replied below you apparently was unable to grasp.

I was merely pointing out the fact that people from North America seem to feel like they're entitled to the same rights and privileges when abroad as they are when they are at home, and I have no sympathy for the ones who find out the hard way that they are wrong.

If we expect immigrants to respect our laws when they come here we also need to respect their laws when we go over there - even if it goes against the grain of how we were raised to act at home...

katyseagull · #38 07-25-2007, 11:10 PM

lmcjaho, I got what you were saying. I'm a little confused by the responses that followed your post.

Blarg · #39 07-26-2007, 12:35 PM

Update on the multiple rapist guy. Turns out he not only raped his one underage relative, but also his one and a half year old relative too.

As to his English proficiency, he went through one of the top high schools in the area which requires four years of English to graduate. This guy completed that high school without even having to take ESL courses. They interviewed his next door neighbor at present, who says he speaks English fine.

The courts say they weren't able to find an interpreter for his home country language, "Livian" I think it's called, in 2 1/2 years. There are about 100,000 speakers of it in the world. A news crew says they found a guy willing to do it in about 15 minutes, and they put him on camera saying as a guest in this country, he would be happy to do anything the government asked of him. Which of course means he would have been willing to interpret. (Let's not forget the fact that the guy needs no interpreter.)

It was the court psychiatrist who said that the defendant needed an interpreter.

The prosecutor said that finding an interpreter was the court's responsibility, so the prosecution shouldn't have its case disallowed just because the court didn't do its job.

The judge said the defendant's right to a speedy trial was violated, but the news story didn't address whether she had denied or admitted that the court was the party responsible for the trial not being done with fair speed.

I hope this judge gets kicked off the bench.

And that this multiple child, multi-count rapist dies in a grease fire.

Wynton · #40 07-26-2007, 01:15 PM

Well, here's a cultural problem from the point of view of a defense lawyer.

I've represented a number of people from Latin America, eastern Europe and countries that you might call "third world." In many of these places, there is nothing sinister about bribing public officials or other kinds of kickbacks; for that is simply the way things operate where they are from. And I find that people from such places are often genuinely surprised to find themselves arrested for conduct that is openly tolerated at their home countries.

A distinct problem is that these clients sometimes assume that their criminal cases here will be decided on the basis of politics and corruption. This is problematic for me just to the extent that it interferes with focusing on the issues that actually matter.

(Not that I'm saying that politics and corruption don't occasionally come into play here either.)