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Ansem

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8 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Nah fam, I don't buy it. I'm saying that even if it were free it'd be a waste of time. These places still pump out humanities majors that can't do basic algebra and self-important PhDs who can't think critically. Colleges give computer science degrees to guys that can't code. Anyone earnestly interested in learning about a subject is better served by the internet and backyard experiments.

Well that's just an criticism of universities being bad rather than the general notion that having someone dedicate themselves to an actual task in guided setting is a waste of time. I don't really want a surgeon operating on me who learned surgery by watching a couple of youtube videos.

Edited by Jotari
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10 hours ago, Jotari said:

Well that's just an criticism of universities being bad rather than the general notion that having someone dedicate themselves to an actual task in guided setting is a waste of time. I don't really want a surgeon operating on me who learned surgery by watching a couple of youtube videos.

I think that out of all of the professions, medical is actually amongst the hardest to get into. On account of how much effort is spent on education and training before you're qualified to work.

Everything else will requires an relevant degree (might include going to an specialized school, afterwards),an apprenticeship, and an annual subscription for a state-issued license.

Sure, someone can memorize nearly all there is about a given subject because it's cheaper to do your own research as opposed to going to college; but it doesn't really change the fact that they can't really sell their services to the public if people take this shortcut.

Edited by Armchair General
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5 minutes ago, Armchair General said:

Might as well make an new thread for it...

If you're invested enough in it, sure.  I'm not, which is why I haven't said anything on the matter.

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God, I spent too much time on this response on school choice and wrote way too much. It's too much. Spoiler everything..

Spoiler

 

21 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Nah fam, I don't buy it. I'm saying that even if it were free it'd be a waste of time. These places still pump out humanities majors that can't do basic algebra and self-important PhDs who can't think critically. Colleges give computer science degrees to guys that can't code. Anyone earnestly interested in learning about a subject is better served by the internet and backyard experiments.

That's why I didn't just say it was a scam, but outdated. Perhaps these things were useful a hundred years ago when they were used to foster further learning among legitimately intelligent and self-motivated people, but now going to college is so common that a bachelor's degree has been more devalued than the Iraqi Dinar, and self-motivated people don't need universities to learn and create. Want to make a Fire Emblem game? There's more FOSS and tutorials than you could ever need. I think a lot of people are finally waking up to this.

Base on your past responses, you seem to treat school choice as this completely right thing to do, without really considering any potential negative effect it could also bring, but then you talk about college in this hugely negative view, even though college has largely operated similar to 'school choice' as people aren't forced to go to any college, or college in general, and can choose which ever college they want to go to? I'm not claiming that college is perfect or that college's tuition does not exist, but you would think that older people who can make their own choice where they go while actually having to put down large sum of cash to go there (implying the person will have a greater incentive to do well in college since they are now paying for it) would somehow make the education better overall? I bring this up because, you seem so adamant about school choice, but when discussing something that operates similar to it, you're more or less saying school is pointless and we're better off without school as a whole.

Let alone, the example you provide heavily sucks for those who like don't have easy access to internet or don't really have the free time to just do whatever they want, because they're trying to figure out a way to pay the bills, or be in a better stat then starving. 

I'm in favor school choice in principle to improve the lives of individual families, but this is largely in addition to the desire of wanting a major culture shift in how American both view & treat education as a whole, such as: Better respect & payment to staff, particular those who work directly with children; better funding overall for schools and the communities they are a part of; reduce as much barriers as possible to get a good education which includes post-secondary and/or tertiary education, and better standers that is more focus on improving researching/testing, learning, & critical thinking.

I like to think education is a good way to get someone out of poverty and build a happy life, so making sure anyone, and I mean anyone, always having access to good education and a fair chance to learn from good education is extremely important.

On 11/12/2021 at 11:01 AM, AnonymousSpeed said:
On 11/11/2021 at 2:22 AM, Clear World said:

I don't actually know or have data to know if there is a difference between public schools and charter schools in the enrollment process.

On 11/11/2021 at 2:22 AM, Clear World said:

I don't know if this is a current issue or not

Then why even bring it up?

Seriously, @AnonymousSpeed?

 

- AnonymousSpeed: A misconception which arises is the idea that poor families will be barred from charter schools, but charter schools don't charge tuition.

- Clear World: There are means to prevent a poorer family from selective charter schools that aren't directly tied to tuition. (Proceed to list ways to potentially bar poor families from charter schools).

- AnonymousSpeed: Why are you even bringing these thing up?

- Clear World: Because even if they aren't issues at the very moment, if you wanted to bar certain communities or minority groups from gaining access without saying, your group is not allowed, you can do it by tweaking some of these methods. This is something that happened multiple times within American history including right now, most often to the detriment of poorer communities and/or minority groups. Because of this, we might want to consider some potential safeguards early on before getting into a situation we can't do anything about it without going hard authorism to change.

On 11/12/2021 at 11:01 AM, AnonymousSpeed said:

1) What does it mean to "fix"? Is there a metric which will indicate that you've "fixed" this?

2) If it's a tough balancing act, be wary of what happens when you fall off and come tumbling down either side.

I seriously beginning to doubt if you actually read anything I write and attempt to piece together anything together. I've been pretty blatant. Potential threat of bad actors, a history of these bad actors using their influence that has negatively impacted poorer and/or minority groups either intentionally or unintentionally, these poor and/or minority group being in a state where they may not have good options due to structures in place that has limited their choices. 

On 11/12/2021 at 11:01 AM, AnonymousSpeed said:

I secondly disagree with this assessment, assuming I've read it right. Standardization is antithetical to choice. Even if such a state were "easily achievable" it would still be undesirable, since whether a school is of reasonable in quality or not should strictly be up to individual families sending their children to those schools and not bureaus or boards. That's one of many reasons that any family which can homeschool should.

You could just as well have a town of Argentinians with an Argentinian Spanish teacher as one Mexican kid with an Argentinian Spanish teacher, in which case standardized Mexican Spanish would make everything more difficult for everyone. Assuming most of the community was bilingual, offering Spanish at all would be unnecessary.

You're example would generally be considered stupid approach to things, because it is a stupid approach to things unless there are more factors in play that you aren't mentioning.

Let's tweak your example and now said, in this town of Argentinians, there was seven different languages being spoken there with each language having four dialects (like Argentinian Spanish or Mexican Spanish or Chilean Spanish or Colombian Spanish). At some point, someone or a group of people is just going to have to agree that we should all attempt share a specific langue if they wanted to communicate with the community as a whole because learning every single language is probably not going to be feasible for most people. Some forced brain-washing of children while growing up may be required for this community to not completely break down over time. NOTE: This does not mean those other languages and dialects should be erased or outright ignored, 

But using language even more, as a nation that has largely disconnected communities, it will be extremely hard to communicate and have any basic discussion if don't have a common & shared understanding of a language. I'm not only here talking about different languages like, speaking Spanish, French, Japanese, or Portuguese, but definitions of the words spoken within a language. You can't really discuss about something when two people have completely different ideas what a word or phrase mean, for like, standardization. Discussion doesn't seem to go anywhere if one side seems to treat standardization as if it means, there can only be one option, while the other is trying to say, we should probably try to have a baseline with some stuff.

On 11/12/2021 at 11:01 AM, AnonymousSpeed said:

Alright, hear me out.

  • You do not have a good reason to trust the government "as a whole". We seem to be agreed here.
  • People have incompatible views. We seem to be agreed here.
  • People we disagree strongly with can achieve positions of power in government and education. I'm sure we're agreed here, but correct me if I'm wrong.

Where in this line of thinking does it become reasonable to say that we should have more standardization in how things are taught? How is it worse to let others wrongly educate their children if you can guaranteed rightly educate your own? Is it somehow better to potentially have your enemies in charge of education your children- not some nonspecific hypothetical person's children, but your own children?

As stated earlier:

On 11/10/2021 at 8:31 PM, AnonymousSpeed said:

Like...you know that giving the department of education greater influence over children is a bad thing, right? That it's inherently hostile to democracy? You are giving a bureaucracy the power to shape the minds of people who will one day vote on whether or not to expand the power and budget of bureaucracies. Do you not see the problem here?

The problem with a lot of homeschoolers is that they're concerned that the schools are not teaching the "right" thing in the "right" way, implying they would send them to public school gladly if they were "properly" teaching. Yet there are inherent conflicts of interest, even in a non-polarized society, which make this an impossible state of affairs.

First, you do realize that regardless of if there was a 'bureaucracy' attempting to shape the minds of people, state government/communities/groups/business/individual people already does that, right? You do also realize that a nation or a group of people to exist for a decent period of time without destroying itself usually depends on the group of people on agreeing with each other on something, right? So regarding about, "Where in this line of thinking does it become reasonable to say that we should have more standardization in how things are taught?"; counterpoint: How does letting people with already established incompatible views being given easier means to be teach these incompatible views & ignore the other make the situation any better?

Now also hear me out, a lot of those 'homeschooler' also include a lot of stupid people who doesn't know what they are talking about, and thinks they are right because they aren't knowledgably enough to know why they are wrong. Being homeschool doesn't automatically mean the children is getting a better education. Being homeschool just means a child is being educated at home, usually by their parents. But note; this does not mean: no one is allowed to homeschool their children and this does not mean there is no risk though a public education or a education provided by a group of private individuals.

Let alone, because I have to keep bring up this detail because you seem to just want to ignore it with most of your examples, poorer and/or minority groups usually do not have the luxury of taking this path of homeschooling, so other options needs to be available. And hopefully, as a collective, we have put more effort and resources to make it so that these other options are as good or better than being homeschooled.

On 11/12/2021 at 11:01 AM, AnonymousSpeed said:

Ignoring the other problems with the paragraph you put this in, that's an association fallacy.

It really isn't an association fallacy if the group in question has a continued pattern of dog whistling in championing for choice & freedom, while always ignoring the disproportionate but usually larger negative impacts on poorer and/or minority groups & has a history either gutting or blocking programs to help poorer and/or minority groups without much of an alternative, this is while also ignoring the fact that the group in question also has a past of wielding their power to negatively harm poorer and/or minority groups up to the present even if it wasn't for choice & freedom.

On 11/11/2021 at 5:37 AM, Jotari said:

Yeah, but at some point you have to face the fact that self segregation, to some extent, is what people want, and that "fixing" that could only be done with hardcore authoritarianism. Like the example I gave before, imagine not legally being able to marry someone from your own race due to forced integration, I think most people would find that to be unconscionable, even if they're already in committed life long interracial relationships. Now that's an extreme example, but one that actually did exist. On a more benign level, imagine if there's a gym that gets frequented by a certain ethnic group, is that something that should be stopped? Should people only be allowed to register for gyms that are closed to their house no matter how convenient another place might be based on distance to work or other friends one want's to work out with? In the interest of avoiding self segregation, should the government be allowed to decide what gyms people are and aren't allowed go to? I think absolutely not, and I expect most people would agree with me. So long as the gym isn't barring any type of person, I don't see it as harmful if one group of people gravitate towards it. Hell to some extent I have partaken in self segregation. I've been living as a minority in different countries for over half a decade now, and the vast majority of my friends in that time have also been foreign expats. I've had local friends, of course, but the local friends I've made have been the ones that involve themselves with foreign social circles. The people I've gravitated towards are the people with a similar cultural and linguistic background. And I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing, especially on the language side of things. Some people literally have no option but to self segregate because you just can't learn a language overnight.

The talking point you're raising is such an extreme on the opposite direction that either sides doesn't really desires that.

Some people want segregation, while others were forced into self-segregation because the other side heavily limited what they could do. When generally talking about integration, it's usually on the level of, making is possible to gain access to it and actually used it, and not just theoretically gain access but realistically have access to it. So when you say, 'as long as they don't barring any type of person' is the assumption you're making that misses the point. America has a history & current state of literally doing that. They just aren't allowed to to it explicitly. 

Also, it's an extreme and false statement to claim that the only way to stop it would be to remove freedom of choice completely. I wish I recalled what the study was exactly called (and I'll take the time to attempt to find it again), but just even some small interaction with other minority groups greatly reduces the prejudices one group has to another. It may not require a mass integration at once, but just a steady stream of small integration over a long period of time (and no, I'm not here saying, we need to forced a small stream, but given a large population, its likely there will be a given faction of the population who do want to integrate).

Now, I will repeat, I am favor of school choice because this does make it possible, but the flag I'm raising is the tendency of these prejudices groups of making barriers (either directly or indirectly) to prevent these poorer and/or minority group from having a chance to migrate to these 'different' environment while at the same time, now making it possible that more publicly available options are getting less funding and needed resources. School choice also includes private schools, which can serve as a huger issue going forward if no negative impact is considered or taken accounted for these poorer and/or minority group.

 

EDIT: Broke up the spoiler and ... I hate myself for spending this much time on a response on a thread.

2 hours ago, eclipse said:

Ahem, this is the politics thread, not the failures of higher education thread.

But it is... kind of.

Edited by Clear World
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5 minutes ago, Clear World said:

God, I spent too much time on this and wrote way too much. It's too much. Spoiler everything..

  Reveal hidden contents

But it is... kind of.

At this point, it's better to split it into its own topic.  But I will leave it for those who care about the topic to do so.  If I don't see another topic about it, I'll assume that no one cared enough.

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3 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

have i mentioned lately that i hate sinema and manchin

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19 hours ago, UNLEASH IT said:

Rittenhouse verdict came out today. Are there any lawyers here who can explain the trial to me? Because the only things I know about it are what I gleaned from watching the news.

I am not a lawyer. But I have watched multiple lawyers speak about it in various youtube videos etc(I like listening to/watching law vlog type of things). I have also watched much of the videos of the incident as well, partly because it is often included in said law videos. I could try and find some of those old videos but much of my watching was right after the news broke of the incident so there was missing information/etc. As such the videos aren't exactly a good watch now if you want to understand the trial since they weren't about the trial and not all the information was fully available(in fact I can think of at least one video that the creator, a cop I think instead of a lawyer, had to address a previous video they made because they had misinformation in it due to the fact that they were reacting to current events and just didn't get it right the first time. A "Sorry guys, I was wrong. That wasn't the case, this is what really happened" type of deal). There were probably hundreds upon hundreds of hours of people in the law field reacting to the events that night. Though obviously I did not watch all of them. I don't have THAT much free time.

From the start this was considered a fairly solid self defense case by many lawyers and folks who understand self defense. Now lawyers mind you don't usually speak in absolutes, particularly when it comes to self defense since such cases can have so many unknown elements that you are often betting on a sympathetic jury as much as the facts of the case. However, the sheer amount of video evidence in this case made it one of the stronger claims that I at least have ever seen. There were some questions though.

The first was the illegal gun possession charge, even after reading the law in question many of the lawyers weren't sure how that one would play out. Many of them saw what looked to be a hole in the law concerning 17 years old that could potentially get him off, others meanwhile shook their heads at that argument thinking it was quite the reach. I saw at least one(this was a lawyer on forum trying to break everything down) saying that the law in question was a mess. It had been amended so many times by so many different groups of lawmakers over the years that it had gaps an elephant could walk through(that was my interpretation of their post anyways, but it was obvious they were not happy with the way the law was written). In the end the prosecution withdrew the charge after they were asked what the length of the rifle was. The law in question is CLEAR that a short barreled rifle is off limits, it is only the full length rifle that he could possibly have been carrying legally. As for the full length rifles. In general if the law isn't clear it should fall in favor of the defendant, which is how the judge ruled. The instructions that were going to go to jury was that the law allows for a full length rifle or shotgun, but not a short barreled weapon. And with that set of instructions there was no point in the charge since the weapon clearly didn't fall into the prohibited category. A lot of people have pointed out that this doesn't appear to be the intention of the law(I think I saw a memo/meeting/whatever you call it type thing that was supposedly dealing with the statute in question where it was clear that the lawmakers were looking to carve out exceptions for hunting and target shooting not general carry). However, the law having holes in how it is written is on the lawmakers. IF the intent was to bar general carry of even long guns then it needs to be revised and made clear. In a case where you have a law being unclear ruling on it in the way that is favorable to the defendant is actually the best practice(in my opinion anyways, but I do believe in a system that favors the defendant).

If you are curious this is the act that changed it from allowing general carry for full length rifles to something fairly close to its current rendition. https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/1991/related/acts/18. This way you can make your own call on what you think it says. Personally I am rather surprised he dodged that bullet and do not have a hard time believing the intent was a narrow exception and not a general open carry allowance, however, I have been playing SRW 30 and haven't been watching too many lawyer reactions to the trial itself. So maybe lawyers are more or less surprised than I am. At the time of the incident it seemed a lot more divided, but maybe after a year of digesting the statute it seemed more obvious?


The second question is on the gun's legality. Not the possession, but whether or not a straw purchase was involved. That to my knowledge is still winding its way through the court system. Rittenhouse's friend who bought the gun and was planning to give it to Rittenhouse when Rittenhouse was old enough to own it and allowed Rittenhouse to carry it on at least 1 occasion is still in the process of going to trial over a straw purchase charge. I am not sure if this could get Rittenhouse in trouble too if his friend is found guilty of making a straw purchase. But this is one of the questions that has yet to be answered. I REALLY don't know this type of law, it wasn't brought up, except maybe in passing as an offhand comment, in any of the law vlogs I watched and I am not even sure what exact statutes are in play, so I can't even read the laws and try and make my own interpretation. I do know parents do this type of thing where they buy their kid a gun when they are underage with the plan to gift it to them when they are old enough. In some cases exchanged for chores/good behavior/good grades or sometimes even money if the kid has a part time job and wants something that is either limited or on sale now that won't or may not be there when they are of age. In the meantime they are allowed by the parent to use it for target shooting and hunting. Theirs but not theirs. Not yet. The question is can a friend do this for you(also in Rittenhouse's case apparently he gave cash to his friend not chores/behavior/grades in exchange, that could very easily sink any defense that it was a gift)? Heck, maybe that practice I described is actually illegal and it just never gets charged since it doesn't usually make the headlines. I don't know. But I'll be interested to hear how that case goes.


The third question was on intent. IF the prosecution could prove that Rittenhouse planned this all out and went down there with the intent to incite someone to attack him so that he could shot them, then that would have tanked the self defense claim, or at least severely weakened it.  The prosecution was not able to show this beyond a reasonable doubt. That was my take on it, and apparently the jury's take as well. This was basically the best shot the prosecution had for the murder charges and they couldn't deliver. And to be fair proving intent beyond a reasonable doubt when you don't have a confession is REALLY hard. So I didn't think they had much of a chance here from the very start. Though the kid probably regrets running his mouth in the past before the incident since that gave the prosecution some potential ammo. Though even if that bit of audio had been allowed I still wouldn't view it as beyond a reasonable doubt. Weakens the claim, but doesn't destroy it since the statement was generalized and not directed at the night at hand. Mostly it would act as character testimony and they do try to limit that. Yes you can argue it is related to the case, but in my opinion it should only be allowed if very narrowly related to the case not just generally related(if you argue hard enough you can stretch related pretty darn far,  but obviously this is something folks will constantly debate and go back and forth on). You aren't judging whether they are a good person overall or whatever, you are merely judging the event in question. I am getting off topic, but people constantly bringing up criminal histories and the ilk when it doesn't narrowly relate to the case has been ticking me off, particularly when it is being done to vilify folks. Rosenbaum's, Huber's, and Grosskruetz's histories do not matter. Rittenhouse getting into a fight with a girl does not matter. What matters is the chain of events during the night in question. If you can't directly and narrowly link something to the event in question then it is out of bounds and shouldn't be brought in.


The fourth and final question was provocation. If you go up and punch someone and they punch you back you can't hit them again and claim self defense because you provoked the attack. So if they could show that Rittenhouse provoked the attack then it would greatly weaken his ability to claim self defense. There is only one problem with this. If you read the law it is very reasonable. I was honestly shocked at how robust Wisconsin's self-defense laws are. I had just assumed that legally speaking there would be plenty of ways someone could defend themselves but still be on the hook legally(namely in cases where you started the initial fight or had a hand in the start of the fight). That is not the case. Wisconsin's law is so impressive that it covers every ridiculous scenario I throw at it(though I am not a lawyer, an actual expert of the law might be able to come up with a hypothetical case that breaks it, but my layman's mind sees it as pretty solid and at least one of the vlogs I listened to at the time made mention of just how impressive Wisconsin's law is, 'one of most robust self defense laws in the country' or something along those lines also I recall hearing someone say something along the lines of 'if you are going to claim self defense, Wisconsin is the state to do it in'). It is actually well done. So much better written then that mess of a dangerous weapon for minors law which almost certainly let him get off the hook when a better written version of it wouldn't have. But I should get back on topic. In places with reasonable self defense laws, you do not permanently lose your right to self defense if you start the fight. Rather you are held to a much higher standard. You MUST attempt to escape and may ONLY use force when your escape options have been exhausted AND you fear for your life or that you will be seriously injured. The thing is. Rittenhouse was trying to disengage at every turn and only used force after being cornered/knocked down and never fired at someone who couldn't be considered a threat, and it is all caught on video so there is no question or debate on what happened in those pivotal moments. He makes the higher bar, so even if he provoked the instance he still had a self defense claim. That said if the prosecution managed to convince the jury that the Rittenhouse was the provocateur it would not have been good for Rittenhouse. As I said at the top these cases can rely on the Jury being sympathetic since it is a trial where you basically say yes I did that illegal thing but I had good reason to do so. As such if the jury is convinced you started it you are a less likely to convince them that you had a good reason to do it. So the provocation was important to answer since it could pivot the jury, after all if the Jury already thinks you are the aggressor they are more likely to disagree that you exhausted all attempts to get out of the situation. And convincing a hostile jury is a very bad place to be, even if you maybe still have a reasonable claim.



Some other things that could have changed is that there may have been other laws he could have been charged under. Reckless endangerment, etc. Successfully arguing self defense helps against much more than just murder, but a lesser charge may have stuck even so. This is, from my understanding, part of the reason why some lawyers were pretty sure the gun charge would stick. Since juries will sometimes split the difference. They don't want to let someone fully off, but they also don't think it is reasonable to lock a person away for life. So they convict on the lesser stuff, but let the bigger stuff go.


But yeah TL;DR - If you run someone down and corner them you are likely the baddie and your victim is likely to have a very strong self defense claim. Somewhat unrelated but it sounds like the Arbery case is heading toward the proper verdict as well. Kinda the opposite of Rittenhouse. In Rittenhouse's case there was only a narrow window for conviction, intention or possibly provocation making the jury unsympathetic. In Arbery's case there is only a very narrow window to avoid conviction and it sounds like the judge has slammed that window shut on the defense. So lots of good news at the end of this week regarding justice being served.



Edit- I didn't bring up all the controversies regarding the judge though I did read up on some of that even if I haven't been following the livestreams/law vlogs on the case, so I could go a bit into that if you wanted.

Edited by Usana
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6 hours ago, Usana said:

If you run someone down and corner them you are likely the baddie and your victim is likely to have a very strong self defense claim.

Yeah, that's generally what self-defense is and you're actually making the victim's legal situation a lot easier because they're supposed to have an duty to retreat before they use any sort of force.

Hopefully this doesn't inspire anyone else to try something similar; but considering what's been going on lately, it'll only be a matter of time before another protestor gets shot.

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The controversies around the judge are media nonsense. 

Bottom line though, Kyle Rittenhouse got away with murder. He was pointing his gun at the protesters before they engaged him, and that is a really big no-no no matter how you slice it. He was the one threatening others before they engaged in self defense, not the other way around. 

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On 11/20/2021 at 10:42 AM, Usana said:

Some other things that could have changed is that there may have been other laws he could have been charged under. Reckless endangerment, etc. Successfully arguing self defense helps against much more than just murder, but a lesser charge may have stuck even so. This is, from my understanding, part of the reason why some lawyers were pretty sure the gun charge would stick. Since juries will sometimes split the difference. They don't want to let someone fully off, but they also don't think it is reasonable to lock a person away for life. So they convict on the lesser stuff, but let the bigger stuff go.

Yes. The prosecution chose the wrong way to approach it, completely. Honestly, what a shitshow.

Edited by Lord Raven
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The verdicts in the Ahmaud Arbery case have just been handed out. Travis McMichael guilty on all charges, including malice murder (which seems to be murder with intent to murder). His father Gregory and William Brian guilty on nearly all charges, including felony murder, but not malice murder.

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Just now, Excellen Browning said:

The verdicts in the Ahmaud Arbery case have just been handed out. Travis McMichael guilty on all charges, including malice murder (which seems to be murder with intent to murder). His father Gregory and William Brian guilty on nearly all charges, including felony murder, but not malice murder.

Isn't murder, categorically, only murder if there's intent to murder?

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2 minutes ago, Armchair General said:

It depends on the defendant's state of mind, whether or not that he actually wanted to kill someone, and if it was an attempt at defending himself.

But if they didn't want to kill someone then it's not murder. It's manslaughter.

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16 minutes ago, Excellen Browning said:

The verdicts in the Ahmaud Arbery case have just been handed out. Travis McMichael guilty on all charges, including malice murder (which seems to be murder with intent to murder). His father Gregory and William Brian guilty on nearly all charges, including felony murder, but not malice murder.

What was their reaction? Could they comprehend that stalking a random jogger based on his skin color and murdering might get them into trouble? Or where they shocked. 

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20 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Isn't murder, categorically, only murder if there's intent to murder?

Depends a bit on jurisdiction, but there is some overlap between manslaughter and the lower levels of homicide, at least to us lay people. You can get a lesser homicide charge due to extreme recklessness in some places if memory serves, basically if you are acting maliciously and intend to badly hurt someone(but not kill them) and accidentally kill them that can be lower tier of homicide rather than manslaughter charge. The exact line varies by jurisdiction and whether or not a jury is sympathetic can play a big role. And then of course there is felony murder which doesn't even require intent to cause harm let alone death, you merely have to be in commission of a qualifying crime when the unlawful death occurs and that is murder by law.


And just like the Rittenhouse case this one comes to the obvious conclusion on the matter of law. Kinda surprised given how often the courts manage to screw things up, but I suppose the screw ups were mostly before the verdict this time round.

Edited by Usana
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2 hours ago, Jotari said:

Isn't murder, categorically, only murder if there's intent to murder?

No. Felony murder does not (always) require intent, per example. 

The McMichaels were assaulting and attempting to kidnap/unlawfully imprison Arbery when they killed him, both of which are felonies, so it's felony murder and not some degree of manslaughter.

Also, Travis McMichael was found guilty of malice murder, and that requires intent. So if he didn't intend to kill Arbery, he didn't convince the jury.

Edited by Excellen Browning
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While the murderers are all obviously evil men I think its also quite tragic for them as well. They've reached a point where their racism cost them everything.

You often hear that white supremacy is harmful to white people too and we can see this on display. These people all had lives of their own but because they've been trained to view black people as subhuman and a danger they now lost all of that. It was just a normal day for them before the sight of a black man inspired such dread in them that they felt they simply had to risk everything to ''protect themselves''

Had they not be so racist then they'd still have lived their lives as if nothing happened. But instead they'll spend the rest of their lives in prison over an absurdly stupid fear.

Edited by Etrurian emperor
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