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From: jchapman@watcgl.UUCP (john chapman)
Newsgroups: net.women,can.politics
Subject: Re: paying plumbers
Message-ID: <2240@watcgl.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 24-Jul-85 09:23:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: watcgl.2240
Posted: Wed Jul 24 09:23:28 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 25-Jul-85 04:16:42 EDT
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Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
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Xref: watmath net.women:6601 can.politics:694

> >  any issue and have them do a good job; out justice system may be
> >  a little slow but the udges and juries seem to generally do a good
> >  job.
> 
> Oh really?  A good job on deciding guilt vs. innocence, I am willing to
> concede.  Generally.  A good job on sentencing convicted criminals to
> something appropriate to the crime, no way.
> 
> Note that EPFWOEV is a "how much" decision, rather than a "yes or no"
> decision, akin to sentencing rather than guilt/innocence.  I would expect
> the same pattern to prevail:  being nice to the poor guy standing up
> front, and to hell with the social consequences.
> -- 
> 				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
> 				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
 I am sure that it is within the power of our society, given the will,
 to implement EPFWOEV in a reasonable manner - dependant only on being
 able to find a large enough pool of people to make fair decisions based
 on a set of rules - the (a) problem with the justice system is the range
 of choices available in sentencing is too limited; this does not have
 to be the case with EPFWOEV.

 I stand by my other example as well.  People generally react to 
 the introduction of EPFWOEV laws in the same manner as they do to
 laws regulating smoking - e.g. "impossible to administer", "too
 expensive", "abrogates my rights" ad nauseam.  Yet San Francisco
 has shown that these are all straw men (to the point of requiring
 only one person for 1/2 day per week to adminsiter the entire program
 for the entire city) because when you get right down to it all that's
 being said is : behave in a reasonable fair manner or we'll make you
 behave that way (like any parent to a wilful child); faced with this
 choice most people find it possible to behave in an acceptable manner
 without having to have big brother looking over their shoulder.

-- 

	John Chapman
	...!watmath!watcgl!jchapman

	Disclaimer : These are not the opinions of anyone but me
		     and they may not even be mine.