Of course she’s a felon, she’s the wrong colour to be a thug.
For a man half a planet away, your grasp of the USA is uncanny. Bravo good Sir!
Do you really believe that not changing a position on something is something that only conservatives do? Wow.
any chance of us being given a link to that “heated discussion”.
also, is it possible that your opinion can change as to what the generally accepted meaning, regardless of whatever dictionary you’re looking at, is of that or any word?
I’d be interested to see if you found a decent sized group of any people anywhere whose use of that word, in day to day use, didn’t fall in line with what the overwhelming majority of people here take that word to mean.
Here’s a nuance: When does a felon become a felon?
If I commit a heinous atrocity on January 10, 2010 and finally get convicted at my speedy trial on December 20, 2017 do I become a felon as of December 20, 2017?
Or do I, on December 20, 2017 become a felon retroactively to January 10, 2010, the date of the crime?
I can’t think of a situation where one’s actual rights and privileges might be revoked retroactively (actually, even as I typed this, I thought of a case maybe). I don’t think one’s right to vote can be retroactively denied. If the local mayor won the last election by one vote and I’m now a retroactive felon, can the outcome of a settled election be overturned? Can I now be charged and convicted of having owned a gun during the time of January 11, 2010 through December 20, 2017, for being a felon in possession of a gun?
Here’s the case I thought of: People receiving disability benefits can become disqualified upon being convicted of a felony. Government agencies that disburse benefits have no hesitation to demand repayment of any benefits found to be incorrectly paid. But if I’m on long-term disability, can I be compelled to give back all the money I got from the time of the crime to the time of the conviction? I’m willing to speculate that the answer is: Yes.
Anyone know of any more definitive answers to these questions?
Re: My post in which I ask if “felon” status is applied retroactively:
I’ll offer an analogy that I asked about in a thread some time ago: When does a saint become a saint?
When the Catholic Church declares some soul to be a saint, does that mean the soul just became a saint? Or does it mean the soul was a saint all along, only just now recognized as such?
The undisputed answer I got back was: The soul was a saint all along, but is only just now being recognized as such.
So this is really the same question being asked in this thread: Does a felon become felon at the time of the crime, even if that is only recognized later at the conclusion of the trial?
To me, “felon” means “one who has committed a felony.” It’s pretty straightforward. If you were tried and not convicted, of course you’re not a felon. Who would actually argue that? I don’t know anyone who uses the word “felon” to mean someone who was accused of a felony or charged with a felony. It indicated someone who has committed a felony, and, usually, the way to determine that is through conviction.
This.
I would not tend to use the word “felon” for someone who hasn’t been convicted. It is such an oddly legalistic term that it carries no rhetorical weight for me and, honestly, if it’s being used in an accusatory way, it makes me wonder “Why are they giving this generic legal term instead of the term for the actual crime?”
I hate arguments that attempt to use the definition of a word to prove something about an underlying act. Saying something is a felony is not a statement about its moral or ethical nature. It’s a statement about its legality, and that only in a narrow sense. To use Hillary Clinton as the example, if someone said “She’s a terrible person because she did so-and-so with her emails!” that has no persuasive difference for me than someone saying “She’s a terrible person because she did so-and-so with her emails and that’s a felony!” And it strikes me as utterly bizarre if some people consider the latter somehow worse.
The meaning of the word, of course, is what people think it is. It’s weird, again, to me to argue that the meaning of a word controls something about the underlying behavior. (It reminds me of arguments around “atheist.” You can’t convince me that I have a religion by trying to argue that atheism is one. I use the term to denote my lack of religion. If “atheism” comes to mean “having a religion” then I will switch to a different term. I won’t just apply the new meaning to the old term and accept it as, forgive the joke, gospel.)
Not really the same question. Or maybe it’s the same meta question, but there may be different answers to the two questions.
“Saint” has several definitions. One of which is the formal definition used by that particular flavor of church. Given the nature of religion, it’s a pretty good bet that most adherents of that church recognize that definition, whatever it is, as *the *definitive one. Those adherent know other definitions are wrong or vague or something. Non-adherents may have different ideas, but who cares what they think?
“Felon” has several definitions. One of which is the formal definition used by that particular jurisdiction’s body of law. Given the nature of public knowledge of law, it’s a pretty good bet that most citizens don’t know those details and are relying on folk knowledge instead.
See the difference?
The formal definition of “saint” may include a retroactive feature at the whim of the defining authority. It probably does in most denominations.
The formal definition of “felon” may include a retroactive feature at the whim of the defining authority. It probably does *not *in most jurisdictions.
See the difference?
What any random person thinks about colloquial usage of either term will be all over the map. Subject of course to my point above that churches are much better at standardizing members’ knowledge than governments are.
I think the official term for this kind of argument fallacy is “equivocation”. Basically, it means using a word in one meaning early in an argument, and then switching to a different definition of the word in mid-argument.
Likewise, given our more-or-less settled definition of “murder”, we have that contingent who insist on alternate definitions of “when life begins” to suddenly, like magic, cause abortions to become murder.
In fact, our legal definitions already seem muddled on that point. For the most part, in most of the United States, we have the law that a human life begins at birth and abortion is not murder. And yet, we have the contradictory law that a killer who kills a pregnant female is guilty of double homicide, which may be a double murder.
I’m unsure of that. I hope some of our on-line leegle beegles can help us out here.
Becoming a convicted felon has legal consequences. To what extent can those legal consequences be applied retroactively (both legally and practically) to the date of the actual crime?
I already raised the question about denial of some kinds of government benefits that entail payment of money to the beneficiary. Felons can lose those benefits. Will convicted felons be compelled to pay back all their benefits retroactive to the date of the crime? I’m not sure, but it would not surprise me. Does anyone here know?
I don’t think that’s what I’m talking about (though that is extremely irritating).
I’m talking about someone saying, as in my atheism example: “‘Atheism’ means you believe there is no god, therefore it’s a belief without proof, therefore it’s a religion.” As if changing the definition of the word changes the belief of the person.
IOW, closer to your abortion example, as if changing “murder” to include a fetus then makes abortion wrong when for most it would simply mean some murders are okay.
your thoughts on this seem a little all encompassing to me.
do you think someone is a felon because they’ve committed a felony or they’ve been convicted of a felony?
it’s entirely possible to commit a felony & either never be charged with it or to have been tried of the charges and not found guilty of it.
simply being found not guilty doesn’t change the underlying facts, it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen (for example, you could have witnessed it happen), just that they weren’t convicted of it.
using the example where you witnessed it occur, your definition has them labeled as a felon regardless of a felony conviction, whereas i (and most others it looks like) would consider that person a felon only because of a felony conviction.
perhaps worth noting is the online dictionary for Merriam Webster has a link on their pages for the most recent usage of a word in the media. in all of it’s current examhttps://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/felonples, not one was using the term to mean anything besides a person having been convicted of a felony.
- as a long time lurker, I’m used to seeing links come up differently than that. I’ll have to work on how to do that.
To expand on LSLGuy’s example in post #24, one can in fact be a murderer, but not a felon. Murder is “the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another.” If someone plans to and succeeds in the effort to kill a stranger for no reason, that person is, by definition, a murderer. They planned it, completed it and it is clearly unlawful. If the perpetrator never gets caught, they are still guilty of murder.
OTOH, only a legal representative of the State can charge, and ultimately convict one of a felony. Once such charged the murderer is “accused of a felony”. Only when convicted can the murderer be said to be a felon and be subject to the loss of rights associated thereto. If never caught, or if the State decides on a lesser charge, or if the jury decides “not guilty” or to convict on a lessor charge, the murderer is not a felon.
Yes, but for all practical purposes, nobody except an omniscient being or witness is in the position to have that knowledge, so for 99.99999% of cases, being labeled a “felon” requires conviction. I was analogizing to myself with the “murderer” label mentioned before. But you can also make the argument that “felon” is a purely legalistic term, in which case, yes, I’d agree that no conviction = no felon. In any normal discourse, I personally would not refer to anyone as a felon without a conviction. In a deeper philosophical one, yeah, I can understand casting a wider net for the term, but it’s mostly just philosophical masturbation.
By the legal definition, unless they are tried and convicted the action they have taken is not a felony.
If I shoot and kill someone I have not committed a felony. If I am never charged, then all I’ve done is committed a killing and can be called a killer, but not a felon. If I am charged and found not guilty I have, again, not committed a felony No facts are being changed; I’ve still shot and killed someone I’ve just not committed a felony, and am, therefore, not a felon.
This has been pointed out numerous times in this thread, why is it so hard to understand? Just because you, or many you’s, believe an action meets the criteria to be called a felony doesn’t make it so. Here in USA an action is not a crime unless and until a judge, jury, or similar authority deems it so.
mc
I believe that is an example of equivocation, however, with an abusive change in the unstated but common definition of “religion” (not “atheism”). The tacit definition of “religion” in the premise (not explicitly stated in the above argument) is “belief in god or similar deity”. The definition of “religion” used in the conclusion is “belief in (something) without proof”. That’s equivocation, leading to the conclusion that atheism is a religion.
If felon means anyone who at some point in their life committed a felony, then it basically loses all meaning.