DanKohn.com

Arguments for the wacky p2p “self-help” bill. Of course, everywhere you see “self-help”, read “vigilante”. It really is amazing that the music and movie industries would try to go against several hundred years of jurisprudence arguing for justice provided through neutral third-parties, and bring us back to the vigilante days of cattle lynchings and retribution murders.

I wish more people realized how extraordinary our court systems are. The idea that parties with grievances would stand before a neutral third party and submit to its judgement (and that conviction further requires the unanimous agreement of 12 peers) is a revolutionary concept compared to how humankind has conducted itself for most of history. The NYT reports on Johnny Michael Spann’s fathers contention that John Walker Lindh (who the WSJ memorably called the Marin mujahidin) killed his son:

“Proximity is not guilt,” the judge said. He told the father that his son, a former marine, was clearly a hero, but added, with a directness that seemed to surprise Mr. Spann, “Of all the things he fought for, one of them is that we don’t convict people in the absence of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Did you know that OBL was planning “attacks on natural gas resources or nuclear weapons facilities in the United States”, including use of biological weapons, that would be so big that within 6 months, they would make people forget about September 11th? Not that any were needed, but this is the best possible confirmation on the necessity of the invasion of Afghanistan.