Opinion.
Did you bother to read this?
Called on it? As in “stray”, there is a difference in which definition is being used.
OK, I agree with the crowd in this thread, but I think that we can re-formulate the OP very slightly so that it actually does make a pretty valid point. Here’s another point that I think Fin_man is trying to make, and it would be a good one had he not later bogged it down by harping on the bad point he made:
If you feel comfortable stating your opinion of whether a jury verdict was “right” or “wrong” and you were not a member of that jury, then you are a rather dim-witted goat-felching so-and-so. The only facts that matter are the ones presented to the jury, and it also matters how they were presented to the jury, so a person who is not on the jury has absolutely no standing to agree or disagree with the verdict, and anyone that does so has a dim understanding of the legal system. The only reasonable response a non-litigant should have to a jury verdict is to accept it as the truth because of the role the jury has been given in our system of justice.
Gee really? :rolleyes:
At least you didn’t add any typos this time.
Ah, methinks this was personal and this post proves it as such. I was wondering why Fin_Man’s post in the “white only prom” received such a harsh slap from Miller, but it seems that a grudge of some sort has formed.
FTR, I was involved in Dog Bite thread, and once again it seems that a frustration fuels a fire more than logic. While that thread dealt with perception (ie, a charging “stray” dog being a possible thread or whatever) the Prom Thread dealt with legal reality. Yeah it sucks that a “white only” prom exists, but legally as long as it’s a private party and not sponsored at all (in ANY way) by the school, there is very little that can be done about it. Fin_man made mention of that fact by saying you can either protest or sue and then Miller jumped on him. Personally I think there are far too many lawsuits in this country, but legally it is one of the options available. Now I didn’t read the rest of the thread, but it seemed a little odd at the time for such a hostle reaction from Miller, but I don’t really know Miller so I don’t know if he’s just a blunt, curt poster or if it was out of context or whatever.
My point is (if I indeed had one…) it seems a bit odd for Miller to so readily rehash old pit threads without a prior grudge. Now if Daniel came in and pointed out such and such then I’d understand it.
Also, I think the pit should be reserved for arguments not he said/she said. Both Miller and Fin_man are guilty of this to a degree. Get back to yelling at each other regarding your views and less rehashing the past because, lets face it, I’ve already read those threads…
TaxGuy, I would alter it slightly to say it is ok to include a caveat like “Given the evidence I saw…” or similar. This, to me, implies that the speaker/poster knows that he/she does not know all of the information.
I think this is a very well thought out post on the subject. Also those posters who added that juries don’t get to see all of the evidence do have a good point. For instance I’ve never seen the uncut video. While it probably wouldn’t change my opinion of those cops and the brutality they committed, it does add to the argument that facts matter quite a bit when spouting opinion.
I also can’t believe this hasn’t been mentioned, “Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one, and usually you don’t want to see them.”
Hmmm, now that I preview that quote perhaps I’ve got it a bit backward… Damn it, I knew I should have figured out the difference between my ass and my elbow…
See, this is what I was talking about above: the jury that was empanelled in the Rodney Kind case is the body that the justice system has decided has the power to determine whether the cops used the right amount of force. The justice system contains various rules for how the jury must be selected, what types of evidence can be presented to the jury, and what types of influences can be brought to bear on the jury. Therefore, any other person’s opinion about the evidence is somewhat “illegitimate” or “irrelevant” because it was not formulated under the proper circumstances.
No one who’s posted to this thread was there the night the Rodney King incident happened, so the only thing we can do is to trust the body that is tasked with deciding what happened.
TaxGuy,
I hate to be a nitpicker, but there were two juries. One that acquitted the officers in state criminal court and one that convicted them in federal criminal (not civil) court. So, no matter which side you take on this now very old issue, you can point to a jury that got it “right.”
Skid
I feel like I’m writing Debate for Total Asswits here. It’s astonishing the sort of things some people need explained to them in painful detail, but here goes anyway.
Doubt doesn’t enter into it. There are facts, and their are opinions, and deciding which is which is not a matter of opinion. That Rodney King was beaten with nightsticks by four police officers is a fact: it’s independently verifiable and not in dispute by either side. Wether that beating was a criminal assault or a legitimate method of subduing a potentially dangerous criminal is a matter of opinion. Even the verdict of the jury was a matter of opinion, and by extension, any comment on the validity of that verdict is also an opinion.
Of course you can offer a cite for an opinion. Or rather, you can cite facts as supportive of your opinion. Let’s say I go into another thread and say, “Fin_man has the intellect of a dead trout.” Someone else might ask me, “What makes you say that, Miller? Can you offer a cite showing that Fin_man has the intellect of a dead trout?” And then I’d link to this thread, so the other poster can read it and draw his own conclusions, such as “I think you’re underestimating the trout.”
SwimmingwithChickens: No, I don’t have a grudge against Fin_man, excepting the one I hold against morons in general. Before the White Prom thread, I’d no idea who Fin_man was, and by the end of that thread, I’d forgotten him again. Or at least, I’d gotten confused and mentally misattributed his posts early in the thread to milroyj. I brought up the old pit threads because, when I saw the OP, I was pretty certain I could find a few threads where he had offered an opinion on a subject he was not an expert on. Of course, that was before I realized that he wasn’t ranting about uninformed opinions, but was merely a somewhat dimwitted pedantic literalist.
I have a real problem with this position. See, I don’t trust the courts to render just and correct verdicts, especially when it comes to race. There is a long history of the most heinous and brutal miscarriages of justice in this country when it comes to racially motivated crimes, and the only tonic for them that has proved to be even remotely effective has been social outrage. Indeed, out entire legal system is predicated on the idea of the public trial, because public comment and scrutiny can check many abuses of power by the judicial system. And, in general, the system works: for the better part of a century, it was impossible for a black man to get a fair trial in the Southern US. It was only through widespread public criticism and protest that this was eventually changed. If Martin Luther King, Jr. had “trust[ed] the body that [was] tasked with deciding what happened,” we’d still be living under Jim Crow to this day.
I guess you don’t live in America or understand the American judicial system. A verdict from a jury at the end of the trial is the fact. If someone is found not guilty, he/she is NOT GUILTY. This cannot be changed. It is a fact. I’m not going to talk about the appeals process if found guilty since I do not know what the requirements are for an appeal (i.e. can somebody get one just since they don’t like the outcome or does there need to be evidence of error in the first trial).
I agree with you that there are facts and THERE are opinions, and people cannot decide which is which. However, if I were to say “SARS is spreading like wildfire in China”, is that a fact or opinion? Unless you do research, you would not know. So, without requiring readers to research every statement in a post, which should we assume? Given the surety in which it is written, I don’t believe it to be a wild assumption that it is fact. But, if I were to say “IMO, SARS is spreading like wildfire in China”, there is no possible way that can be misread.
No, it’s an opinion. A verdict is the opinion of the judge or jury on the guilt of the accused, based on their evaluation of the evidence. That opinion is backed by the force of law, but it is still an opinion. And it is even refered to as such within the legal system:
Opinion: 5. Law. A formal statement by a court or other adjudicative body of the legal reasons and principles for the conclusions of the court.
And, even better,
Verdict: 2. An expressed conclusion; a judgment or opinion.
So you see, a verdict is an opinion, and an opinion is a verdict. The two words are interchangable, as you would have known if you had taken two minutes to crack open a dictionary. As the great man once said, “If you don’t know the facts, shut the fuck up.”
Oh, and as regards the changability of a verdict, here’s a bonus definition for ya: Appeal. Pay particular attention to definition #3.
Nice catch there, Mr. Strunk. You must have been waiting all thread for me to make that typo, so you could pounce on it. Must’ve been frustrating, the other fifty time I correctly used that word or one of it’s homonyms. But yes, finally, I did make arguably the single most common typo in the English language. Kudos for spotting that.
Opinion. I don’t even need to know what SARS is. Or China, for that matter. You used a simile. You’re making a judgement on the spread of the disease as compared to the spread of a wildfire. I might disagree: wildfire spreads much more quickly. I might think it’s spreading like molasses on a hot summer day. Now, if you said “SARS is spreading at a dangerous rate,” well, that would still be an opinion. “Dangerous” is a relative term. If you said “SARS is spreading,” then, at last, you would be talking fact. At least, that’s assuming that there were more SARS cases currently than there had been previously. Otherwise it would not be a fact, it would be a lie.
See, it’s easy to tell an opinion from a fact if you just think about it for .03 seconds. Try it yourself! Earlier, I said I’d made “arguably the single most common typo in the English language.” Was that a fact? Or opinion? What if I’d left out the word “arguably”? Make a small diorama to illustrate your answer, and present it to the class.
If you get it right, I’ll give you a sucker.
Very true. Once a person is found not guilty, the law considers them not guilty from then on.
But that doesn’t mean they didn’t do it.
The only fact is that they made a decision. They could of course be wrong and I mean all of the jurors. Look at the 100 or more cases of people convicted and placed on death row only to later be released because someone else comitted the murder. Even facts turn out to be opinions, people used to believe the earth was flat.
And that is why they call them not guilty - but they don’t call them innocent.
Restating the obvious?
Looking at the links you provided, you would see that opinion (the non-law definition - since we aren’t talking legal opinions but personal opinions) has the definition “A belief or conclusion held with confidence but not substantiated by positive knowledge or proof.” God, I would hope a verdict would be substantiated with some knowledge or proof.
And for verdict, the definition includes " (Law) The answer of a jury given to the court concerning any matter of fact in any cause, civil or criminal, committed to their examination and determination; the finding or decision of a jury on the matter legally submitted to them in the course of the trial of a cause." emphasis mine So, where is this at all like an opinion?
And EasyPhil, my contention is that people can believe the jury was incorrect. Just don’t say things like “I know the jury was wrong” as if you are stating a fact. Even though people thought the earth was flat, I don’t believe it was ever stated as a fact, just a belief (but I could be incorrect)
Not really - just stating that I know there is a difference.
I really don’t have enough information to form an opinion on that one.
Wow, I get props from Zenster for my vitriol and Fin_man for my judiciousness, all thanks to the same thread… I’ve gotta lie down.
I’m a big fan of going off half-cocked foaming at the mouth, but after a few rather painful lessons, I’ve learned (well, almost) to make sure I don’t look like a complete dumbass beforehand.