Can individual liberties be lost?

[pevinsghost]

I recently got into a conversation with gunslnger in which we had different oppinions about whether a person can lose, or even contract away rights. Currently, legally the answer is yes, but I wanted to find out what all of your opinions were on the matter, and if possible I'd like to know what the official line of the LP party is

Comments

[greap]

The short answer is yes. If rights were enforced over private property by law then it simply violates property rights. Certainly people must be given a choice between not participating or giving up some of their rights but as long as they are given that choice then all is good. I would go as far as to say that in order for self-ownership to exist one has to be able to make those kind of choices, if they don't then do they really have ownership over themselves?

Is it ok if AT&T taps your phone and records your conversations as long as you know they're doing it?

Yes.

Is the current surveilance/neighborhood warnings about sex offenders justified?

No, violation of due process and significantly undermines the entire concept of justice.

Should people convicted of felonies, especialy violent felonies, lose the right to bear arms?No. As the law stands right now I would say doubly no, with the federal government's war on liberty accelerating every day removing weapons from those convicted of felonies will just ensure that the people who

[greap]

If you don't read the contract properly or hire a lawyer to check it for you then it is your own fault and you deserve everything you get.

Social darwinism is awsome that way.

[rasilio]

go back and think through the implications of that.

If all contracts are sacrosanct and therefore must be reviewed by legal counsel before one could safely agree to them to ensure nothing harmful was in them (or required a person to have the equivalent education of a lawyer to reasonably protect themselves) then how can society exist?

The transaction costs on even the simplest of transactions would exceed the value of the goods and services which exchanged hands by at least an order of magnitude.

A universal assumption that anything written into a contract is valid and enforcable is the death knell of all commerce because no one would ever dare to buy or sell anything and where they did dare they could not afford it.

[pevinsghost]

I see your logic, and while I don't disagree entirely, the market can fix that issue too. If a local grocery store starts requiring a 3 page contract with every purchase, people will stop going there and go to the store that only has a disclaimer or two on the back of their receipt.

[rasilio]

Except what happens when there is NO store which only has a disclaimer or two because they have all been sued out of business for not having sufficiently well detailed purchase and sale contracts? Or worse yet what happens when one of the stores has a single disclaimer which states that the puchaser agrees to all terms and conditions in the standard sale contract which can be viewed at customer service and is subject to change at any time at the stores whim with no notice. Then after a few years they alter the contract to say "By recieving goods or services from this store the purchaser agrees that he is perminantly barred from ever shopping at a competing store again". All it would take is a week for that clause to go unnoticed before the store would not need to worry about the market any longer because they would have several thousand people who were legally bound to shop there and could not get out of it and in your view it would be all their fault for not reading the full terms and conditions every time

[pevinsghost]

What grounds can they be sued for? How is someone going to prove their rights or property have been infringed upon? All there need be is a single disclaimer saying that the store passes all responsibility for the bought items to the new owner and that the buyer acknowledges acceptance of the transaction by accepting the bought items and receipt, remitting funds, and leaving the store and return policy if the store wants one.

You yourself have talked about how a "loser pays" system will reduce groundless lawsuits, even though there are still problems with such a system.

+1

[ghoststrider]

Dude, you FTW. I totally agree with that, but was never brave enough to broach it on this board.

FTW.

Due process.

[montecristo]

A sex-offender database is not a violation of due process if the offenders listed were convicted according to due process.

Re: Due process.

[greap]

I disagree. Notification & public databases are the state saying "we accept you have done your time and are not likely to be a threat but we are going to make you prove your innocence every time we demand it for the next 30 years". Given most states sexual offender laws require the individual to submit to searches at will of the state but without being in custody or having any sort of probable cause. Violation of due process right there.

Re: Due process. Good point

[montecristo]

I wasn't thinking about the database being an apriori preumption of guilt, but you are certainly right: it is.

Re: Due process.

[ragnarok20]

What about probation?

Re: Due process.

[greap]

Precisely the same. Either you are in prison or you are not, there is no middle ground.

Re: Due process.

[gunslnger]

That's not true. Probation is specifically set up as a middle ground. It's letting people out without serving their whole sentence, but not giving them complete freedom, since they haven't finished the punishment yet.

Re: Due process.

[greap]

The court did not sentence them to 8 years in prison and 5 years probation, they sentenced them to 13 years in prison.

The idea of probation is that it adds to the rehabilitative aspects of prison but that is not what the justice system is about, justice is about spanking you when you do wrong.

Re: Due process.

[gunslnger]

The idea of probation is that it adds to the rehabilitative aspects of prison but that is not what the justice system is about, justice is about spanking you when you do wrong.

That is also not true. The justice system is about both, and the balance between the two shifts back and forth over time. We are currently coming back towards more rehabilitation from the last swing towards more punishment.