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Path: utzoo!lsuc!watmath!watnot!jjboritz
From: jjboritz@watnot.UUCP (Jim Boritz)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Television coverage and censorship in Canada (in net.columbia??)
Message-ID: <11594@watnot.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 10-Mar-86 11:27:54 EST
Article-I.D.: watnot.11594
Posted: Mon Mar 10 11:27:54 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 11-Mar-86 19:24:36 EST
References: <6396@utzoo.UUCP> <514@kontron.UUCP> <814@alberta.UUCP>
Reply-To: jjboritz@watnot.UUCP (Jim Boritz)
Distribution: net.politics
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 112
Summary: 

In article <580@kontron.UUCP> cramer@kontron.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) writes:
>> college.  The average american.  By going to university or college you
>> have already placed yourself way above the average.
>> 
>
>The average American has gone to college.  (Average number of years of 
>education is this country is now 12.7, I believe.)
>
>The elitism in the statement above is really nauseating.  You and I are
>smart enough to distinguish truth from falsity, but the MASSES -- they're
>just not bright enough.  The more rationalization I see on this network
>for suppressing free speech, the less confidence I have in the benefits
>of a college education -- it seems to make people more tolerant of 
>totalitarian approachs.
>
>> >   The Constitution says "freedom of speech."  This is what I believe in.
>> >Without conditions.
>> >
>> >   -- David desJardins
>> 
>> :-{) The constitution also allows groups like the KKK to exist, as well as the
>> American Nazi Party.  
>> 
>
>And the various communist factions as well.  This is called "freedom".
>Freedom to go along with the majority view isn't freedom -- it's 
>totalitarianism.

 So let's see here, the majority thinks it's wrong to kill, not they outlaw it
and the majority thinks that it is wrong to steal so it is outlawed as well.
Maybe I am being a little extreme here, but I could also find some not so 
extreme views.  There are people that believe theft is fine as long as they
can get away with it.


>> Aparently their are laws in the US which will allow you to prosecute someone
>> that violates or breaches or is a threat to national security.
>> 
>
>Rather narrowly defined, though.  That's why the Progressive was allowed
>to publish their article about H-bomb building.
>
>> I also do not believe in censorship, but in my message I described how I 
>> would choose between the lesser of two evils.
>> 
>> Asides from this I would like to mention some things that are different in the
>> Canadian and American systems of justice.
>> 
>> In the US you tend to lean very heavily towards protection of the accused, and 
>> freeedom of the individual.  In fact you lean in this direction so heavily,   
>> that there are cases in which guilty persons have been set free because the
>> police violated the rights of this individual.
>> 
>
>I make no apologies for this.  Better than 10 guilty go free, than one
>innocent man go to prison.  Besides, criminals seldom commit one crime --
>if they don't go to prison on the first crime, they will on the second or
>the third.

Real criminals commit hundreds of crimes and are never arrested for any of them.
I have heard many learned lawyers refers to the US legal system as the knee
jerk system.  Everything is very automatic.  If X then Y.
There is no discretion involved.  I believe the term used is legal machine.

>
>> In Canada we lean towards the protection of society as a whole, and we place
>> less emphasis on the rights of the accused that we do on the rights of 
>> society. The arm of the law in Canada is much heavier in Canada than it is
>> in the US.  The biggest problem is that most Canadians know more about the
>> American Legal System than they know about the Canadian Leagl System.  I 
>> myself was one of these, luckily I have been told or taught what the 
>> differences are. Canada now has a constitution of its own.  Could you believe
>> that we existed for over a hundred years without a constitution. Imagine that.
>> :-) Somehow we haven't gone to hell in a handbasket, we haven't become 
>> socialists or communists or Nazi's.  We did not have 'Freedom of Speech' as
>> a right.  Yet we had it somehow.  We had no CIA or FBI or NSC .  When we got
>> our constitution though we soon after got the CSA (Civilian Security Agency)
>> They are probably not related, but sometimes I wonder.
>> 
>> Jim Boritz              
>>  
>
>Your comments above about the Canadian legal system leaning towards
>society's protection, and less emphasis on the rights of the accused,
>would seem to argue that you needed more protections.

I don't know what lines you read between to get this but let me tell you 
that the Candian system also feels that it is better to let ten guilty go
free rather than have one innocent person go to jail.  What we don't 
believe in is having 1000 people go free to save the one innocent person.
You could say that theoretically a justice system should never send an innocent
person to jail, but this happens in Canada and in the US.  You could also say
that if an innocent person goes to jail tyhe justice system is not working
properly, but you don't.  You can also say that it is better to have any number
of guilty people go free, than to have a single innocent person go to jail.
This is very nice, theoretically, but somewhere the line has to be drawn.
If this were what we used (you guys in the US too) then we would only have
a couple hundred people in jail,  because we would have to have video tapes
of the guy committing the crime to prove his guilt.

Let me followup on what I meant by knee jerk system.  If I am correct you 
have cases in which police procedure got somewhat or very out of hand.
These cases went to court and the accused were released because of their 
treatment or the method which the police used to get their evidence.  These
cases which have names I do not know, but could learn from television, have
become precedents in the US legal system.  Apparently, it is now enough to
site the precedent, to get the evidence dissallowed.  In Canada each case 
is taken separately.  Each case is given its own consideration.  I like this
a lot better than a system in which the guilty go free because they know they 
will get off on some technicality.

Jim Boritz