Or his brother, Ray.
I’m sure you didn’t mean to paint lawyers as specialists who manage the law for their own profit. I normally think of judges more as managers, and lawyers more as cooks. So I think I would rephrase the analogy as lawyers::law -> cooks::cookery. But hey, what do I know? […shrug…]
Not much, apparently.
Judges have fuck-all to do with the day-to-day management of law practice. They’re effectively a third party that has to be dealt with, like a restaurant’s suppliers or the Board of Health. You are aware that there are many different law firms, and they all are individual enterprises competing for business, right?
And we don’t “manage” the law for profit, but we do give advice for profit. And I make no apologies for that. My time is valuable; why should I give it away for free?
kaylasdad, you miss the point. Ginsberg’s sliminess/naivete ratio is unimportant; he’s a pawn. The smear campaign and its leadership are what’s important. If there’s evidence, even prima facie, that the Bush campaign is providing leadership and guidance to organizations with it is barred from doing so with, that information and its public dissemination are what’s important. The political ramifications have been and are being discussed amply in other threads both here and in GD - if you’d care to contribute, you’d certainly be welcome.
You’re the self-proclaimed expert. If you have more to expound about your choice of a different analogy, please do so.
You can keep saying irrelevant things all you want; it only confirms your prickitude. It would help quite a bit more, though, if you’d address *any * of the ways I have explained your analogy to be defective.
I listed “a few” items on a list, you asked me how I concluded the list is “limited to” them, and *I * miss the fucking point? Please do us all a favor and cut the shit. If you’re not going to read what you’ve been told, don’t pretend you have.
Except that I can recognize when they’re *not * analogous, and, when I do make an analogy, I can explore it further without simply repeating it. Which is a helluva lot more than you even try to do.
You miss that point, too - or is that another example of your simply sidestepping it and claiming to have addressed it? The problem, once a-fucking-gain, is *coordinating * those activities with *another * organization. But you’ll never get that if you refuse to read.
Common fucking sense, ability to read English and understand intent, and, bluntly, just as much knowledge of what barometer the FEC will use as you do. Where do you get the notion otherwise?
It might be, if that was what I’d ever said, but of course you have your own wall up against that too. I challenged your continued bland and ungrounded assertion of analogousness on bases that you have never yet addressed or even shown evidence of having read, although you’ve found ample time for Shodanesque invective instead. Why should anyone do you the favor of reading what *you * say?
Don’t blame me — it was your analogy. But now that you’ve changed the subject, we already get your advice for free. We just have to pay to respond.
I’m not going to give a full-fledged seminar on securities law here. If you’ve got a specific question, ask it. Otherwise, explain why this example isn’t applicable.
(I also note that your contention that I’m “finally” raising an analogy you find meritorious to be incorrect – I’ve included insider trading in my list of analagous situations from the beginning).
I did, most recently in posts 163 and 176. You clearly misunderstand how these walls work. They don’t block communication between contracting parties; they block communication between a contracting party and some third person. And I can’t repeat this enough: they do not foster communication, they prohibit it.
Yes, you do miss the fucking point, although I admit I could have been clearer. The point is, you have an idea in your head about the universe of activity that can be called “coordination.” My point was, you don’t have anything but your own instinct to rely on when you assert that those things in your head actually are “coordination.” You aren’t basing that opinion on anything tangible – you’re pulling it out of your ass. A lawyer, recognizing that courts and regulatory bodies typically look to precedent in analagous areas when interpreting a new statute, would’n’t just pull things out of his ass. He’d do research on how such authorities have defined “coordination” in similar contexts, and allow that to be his guide.
Spare me. If I repeat things, it’s because you keep stating things that are categorically wrong.
Why isn’t assisting the other organization in finding lodging “coordination?” The dictionary definition of the term is to “harmonize in a common action or effort” or to “work together harmoniously.” I could certainly argue that sharing logistical information fits those definitions.
But even that is beside the point. Courts and regulatory bodies do not always rely on dictionary definitions. The only reliable way to figure out what the term means is to look at how it’s been interpreted in past analagous situations.
As I’ve often lamented in these very forums, if all we had to go on was “common fucking sense, [the] ability to read English and understand[ing] intent,” much of what today comprises constitutional law would be thrown overboard. And I could make the case that innumerable statutes have had their provisions interpreted more broadly or narrowly than Congress intended.
(During the debate over the 1964 Civil Rights Act, legislators repeatedly stated that it would never, ever be used to require busing. Joke was on them, I guess.)
A lawyer asked to advise his client on this new law will look at how the term has been interpreted in relation to other statutes with similar goals. That’s what he’s paid for. Granted, the FEC could still go off and interpret it in some novel way, but it is unlikely to do so – it is far more likely to rely on precedent from its sibling regulators.
I’ve read this three times and I still am not quite sure what you’re getting at. Is this a reference to SDMB membership fees?
Incidentally, you most emphatically DO NOT get my advice “for free.” What I engage in here is a generalized discussion of the law. I do not advise SDMB posters on specific legal problems they may have (and when a conversation turns in that direction, I’m very careful to draw that distinction).
You waffle more than Bush. First, you insist that you engage in discussions that are “entirely accessible to the layman”. When called on that, you snarl that this discussion is entirely unaccessible to the layman because it is about the “manner in which law is practiced”. And now we’re back where we were, engaging in a “generalized discussion of the law”. You’re a wigwam. You’re a teepee. You’re too tense.
I was thinking more along the lines of Alain Ducasse, but to each his own. 
Lib, at this point I think you’re arguing just to argue. But to address your points:
-
Most discussions about the substantive law that happen on these boards are entirely accessible to the layman, because they tend to be broad-stroke types of discussions. If you’ve had a civic class, you probably know most of what you need to effectively participate in those dicussions. I have yet to see a thread on these boards about something truly inaccessible to the average layman (say, constructing a tax-advantaged asset acquisition).
-
Discussions about how law is practiced aren’t inaccessible to the layman – this isn’t ancient Sandskrit we’re talking about – but pretty much by definition they include information the average non-lawyer poster doesn’t have, just as the average non-restauranteur poster won’t know much about running a kitchen.
-
As a matter of professional responsibility, I do not offer advice over the internet for people with specific legal problems. If you are hit by a car, I will not give you advice on your chances of recovery. On the other hand, discussing the meaning of the campaign finance laws and how to manage compliance with those laws is a generalized discussion of the law, and I can do that freely.
Frankly, I don’t see how any of that is “waffling” or otherwise inconsistent. Perhaps you’d care to elaborate?
I was looking for an immediately obvious reference, and considering the intellectual level of the one I was flaming, figured it had better be as simple as possible. Trust me to misspell it anyway.
My non-obvious choice was going to be Ben Benson.
Have a great Labor Day.
Regards,
Shodan
Who said anything about inconsistency? I think you’re quite consistent. You consistently dodge my questions. You consistently attack my personal beliefs. You consistently insult or ignore me — even when I offer support. You consistently waive me off with nonsense about martyrdom and other red herrings. And you consistently say bizarre things, like this discussion is accessible to the layman, but the layman has insufficient information to access it. The fact of the matter is that you have swatted me down before for addressing the larger ethical issues of law, saying basically that I don’t know what I’m talking about. You just say whatever it is convenient to say. And you do so consistently.
Example, please.
If asking pointed questions about your political philosophy and noting areas where it might not work so well is an “attack” then color me guilty. Otherwise, you’re talking out of your ass.
Again, example please.
I consistently describe you as a martyr when you – well, when you act like you acted when you wrote the sentences above. Poor, poor put-upon Lib, the whole world’s just out to get you aren’t they?
This isn’t a tough distinction to grasp: the concepts I’m talking about are not conceptually difficult ones; the average person can easily understand them. This isn’t high-level physics we’re talking about; the average person can understand how a lawyer can be an effective gatekeeper and why having such a gatekeeper is desirable.
However, the average (non-lawyer) person does not know what is and is not common in legal practice. It’s thus a little absurd for a non-lawyer to suggest that a particular role is inappropriate when in fact such a role is commonplace. How on earth would he or she know?
Spare me. Your notion of “addressing the larger ethical issues of law” is essentially the same old endless diatribe about how the legal system is fundamentally unjust, followed by your stubborn refusal to discuss the issue in anything but the broadest (and thus most meaningless) strokes.
I am, however, consistently befuddled by your persistent portrayal of me as your persecutor. I’ve certainly agreed with you in other threads. We have our marked differences, just as I have them with 'luce or Diogenes or others, and yet I’ve never seen fit to suggest they are out to get me, nor they the opposite.
Really, Lib, it isn’t all about you. Get over yourself.
If the thread keeps up in this vein much longer, that will be an extremely debatable assertion. 
I’m kind of losing interest in it, myself. Thanks for all of the sharing of your knowledge, Dewey, and don’t forget to mark your ballot for John Kerrey in November. We need regime change in this country.
Lawyers can vote? Uh-oh.
Wow, 'luci. Fewer than ten words, and you have me rolling on the floor. Your posts are becoming so efficient lately.
Because, despite your wish for your argument to hold up, this isn’t about securities law, dipshit - this a *campaign * law. The rest of what you say is similarly irrelevant, although of academic interest to those with an interest in securities law.
Yes, you could have actually read what I said. either of the times I said it, then you’d have been “clearer” instead of simply being a prick about it.
And yet, as you noted earlier , that is the current state of the interpretation of this new law. You cannot honestly tell us how the law will be interpreted and simultaneously admit you don’t know enough to predict it, as you’ve done in this thread - no client would pay you for *that * advice, would they?
There you go again. How about this: You explain how securities law has any fundamental relevance to campaign law, specifically this one. IOW you actually attempt to back up your multiply-rephrased but still content-free assertion of analogousness for the first time, and maybe we’ll get somewhere. We’d get there a lot faster if you’d ever actually read what you’re told and address what you’re asked, but there’s so little reason to believe you’re capable of it that I’m wasting no more time trying to pry it out of you. Liberwhatever is on his own as always.
Practices undertaken in a securities law practice provide a convenient analogue for compliance measures under the new campaign finance law. When a client asks what needs to be done in order to comply with a new, untested law, the lawyer doesn’t just make shit up – he borrows commonplace procedures from other areas of practice with similar goals (in this case, the prevention of coordination).
What I’ve said is that I, personally don’t know enough to predict how the new law will be interpreted, because I haven’t undertaken the necessary research in analagous areas to make an informed prediction. Nor will I, because that is a serious investment of time and effort, one I’m not willing to make for free.
Lawyer Ginsberg (or, more accurately, one of lawyer Ginsberg’s young associates) most assuredly has done that research, for which lawyer Ginsberg has charged his clients a pretty penny. I would bet serious money that somewhere in the Patton Boggs DC computer system, there is a 20-plus page, footnoted memo comparing every area of the law where “coordination” is forbidden, noting the similarities and dissimilarities of those laws to the new campaign finance law, and reaching a conclusion as to what the most prudent means of complying with the new campaign finance law happens to be.
Furthermore, I virtually guarantee that a similar memo is on file at whatever firm the Democrats have retained as their chief campaign finance counsel, and that it has reached as similar conclusion, because they also have lawyers acting in exactly the same capacity as Ginsberg, serving both the campaign and select 527s. You can’t call Ginsberg’s actions improper without also calling their actions improper; the law doesn’t make distinctions between sleazy 527s and good and noble and pure 527s.
For the umpteenth time: securities law imposes restrictions on coordination, and has tested compliance procedures to conform to those restrictions. The new campaign finance law has similar restrictions. Ergo, securities law has relevance as a guide to behavior for the new campaign finance law.
Funny, I was just thinking the same thing about you.
One of many examples was my asking you repeatedly about deficiences in actual child welfare and protective services while you were blustering and blathering about the deficiences of hypothetical ones.
That is not the color of your guilt. The color of your guilt is red, as in herring. And its texture is straw, as in man. What would happen if everybody were stupid as mud and voluntarily allowed a psychotic neighbor to amass a fortune at their expense and imprison them on their own property while they stand around scratching their asses and smelling their fingers is not a pointed question — it is a stupid one. Deliberately morphing Libertaria into Libertopia is a vituperative rhetorical vice, having the sole intention of ridicule, and nothing more.
Is that senility or more disingenuousness? My very first post in this thread was in support of you and the point you were making. Your response was dismissive and insulting.
I do not feel put upon. I do not respect you sufficiently for your putting to have any weight. Your martyr schtick is the stuff of a crybaby who can think of no other way to react, not the stuff of a worthy opponent who is constructing a rebuttal. It is a desperation tactic, not a sound strategy. It is the mark of a loser who is losing.
He or she may think such a role is ethically inappropriate. You constantly skirt the issue of ethics as though you did not know that law is a branch of ethics. Lacking any knowledge of the greater areas of philosophy in which your particular discipline is but a small blip, you simply look stupid when you dismiss ethics as irrelevant. You’re like the guy who owns a cow and wonders what the hell the bovine inspector wants with you. You’re an old fop with a mouse in his house who wonders why they’ve sent someone who exterminates rodents. You grasp at the convenience of your knowledge in your own little world to declare that it is both accessible and unaccessible at the same time. You are like the child who is playing quietly with the deadbolt as guests arrive with their invitations.
Thank you for illustrating my point.
Oh, it is to laugh. Ha! You are not my persecutor. Desmostylus is my persecutor. He has the courage of his convictions to clamp down on my ankle and growl. You are merely a gnat that flies up my ass. If you have ever agreed with me about anything, I cannot recall it.
And that is consistently how you always try to end it. If you can make the argument about your opponent rather than about the issue; if you can put your head in the sand and pretend that no one sees you; if you can keep from spilling coffee on yourself by tossing it in the face of someone else — you feel at peace with yourself. You are like Robin Williams’ character in One Hour Photo, hiding in his car and spying through the family’s window as he declares, “These people are crazy!”
I haven’t gone back to review the thread, but I roughly remember what you’re talking about here. I did not dodge your point. My reply was, essentially, that while the status quo is imperfect and contains its share of abuses, your stated alternative would be nevertheless be worse. That is, of course, a debatable proposition, but in no way can it be plausibly described as me “dodging” your point.
I don’t recall ever making this particular argument, though I’m willing to be corrected on that point. Linky-link, please.
Again, I thought the suffix more accurate, given that we are discussing an entirely hypothetical situation, and one that is ideologically pure to boot. Alluding to More is entirely appropriate. And even if you don’t accept that premise, if that’s an “attack,” it isn’t much of one – hardly the sort of thing worth getting worked up into a lather over.
And I misunderstood you, because your very first post was unclear, and I asked your forgiveness for the misunderstanding. Your support was not clear; it sounded like an insult to me.
Not to mention that, once the metaphor you were using was explained to me, it became quite clear that you were offering backhanded support at best. I’m not sure why I should be pleased by someone saying, essentially, “even this idiot is right every now and then.”
Believe whatever you want to believe, Lib. I’m hardly the only person around here who has noted you like to nail yourself to the cross. If the description is inapt, there are many who are misdescribing you.
And, of course, pointing out your behavior isn’t something I do in lieu of constructing an argument. You’ll note that I also address your substantive points (when there are substantive points to address, anyway). It’s a bit absurd to say I’m doing so because I can’t construct a rebuttal, because I include rebuttals in my posts.
If such a role is ethically inappropriate, then a great many lawyers are acting unethically, and lawyer jokes to the side, that is a tremendous slur to use against a noble profession.
In any event, I have yet to see a coherent argument raised that says a lawyer acting as gatekeeper violates any meaningful ethical principle. The only justification I’ve seen thus far has been “because I say so.”
And you accuse me of being dismissive and insulting, of relying on ad hominems, of being, in essence, a jerk? It is to laugh. I’m stunned that you can type what you typed above without the slightest hint of embarassment at your own inconsistency.
Your own fear of brass tacks was your point?
How quickly we forget. And that’s just the first thing I turned up after some searching; I’m sure I’ve defended your posts on other topics in the past. And if we count my posts that argue in favor of the same position you hold without pointing you out by name, the list would be quite long, as we both tend to disfavor the expansion of government.
Oddly, Lib, given your persistent claims that I’m hounding you or that I’ve got it in for you in some way, I think you might want to look in the mirror before trying to label me in that fashion.