posted
You stayed up reading the Geneva convention last night to give us thatinsightful comment?
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Ok, so Joe Schmoe doesn't like the way his robust and out-going friend Gregor is always pushing around the smaller and weaker Akbar and drinking all of Akbar's beer whenever the game is on. So he gives Akbar's neighbor, Fat Tony, 25 grand, three red apples and a crate of Stinger missile launchers to take care of it. Fat Tony, passes much of this (minus his percentage of course) to Akbar's even smaller roomate, Jimmy-Skinny-Legs. Jimmy-Skinny-Legs starts standing up for Akbar and even knocks Gregor on his ass a couple of times. This of course has had a rather harsh effect on the allready sparse furnishings of Akbar's apartment. Now independent of all this, Gregor is hitting on some tough times (and besides, the cab fare is killing him) so he just stops coming over for game day. Now Akbar is thankful, and being kind of tired of all this conflict, when Jimmy-Skinny-Legs opines that Akbar sign the lease over, Akbar really isn't in a position to disagree. Some time later, Jimmy-Skinny-Legs takes up a beef with Joe Schmoe (A serious political disagreement) and fucks up his really nice Ethan-Allen Armoire. Joe Schmoe gets all pissed, and decides that Jimmy-Skinny-Legs is gonna pay up and goes over to Akbar's place and starts raising hell. He insists that Jimmy's in there somewhere and starts tearing up floorboards and ripping up the tattered furniture.
I don't think Joe should be held accountable for Jimmy being a jerk. Maybe Fat Tony should've told him Jimmy was psychotic. Maybe Joe should have asked more questions about it. I don't know. I just feel bad for Akbar.
ps-This all gets so much more complicated with the potential destruction of all mammalian life on earth...
-------------------- "Nah. The 9th chevron is for changing the ringtone from "grindy-grindy chonk-chonk" to the theme tune to dallas." -Reverend42
posted
I don't think that's going to bother the amphibian Akbar.
Or was he a mammal? I'm not sure.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
quote:"I give mobster 'a' $1000 to have him kill my wife. He gives, say, $100 of that money to a hired assassin 'b', so the guy can buy a gun and ammunition with which to kill my wife. My wife is then killed, for which I can be held responsible. However, the killer then uses that same gun and box of ammo to kill three other people. Am I then responsible?"
Legally, YES.
It doesn't matter if you only thought he was going to kill one person -- the only way you wouldn't be an accessory is if you could prove you didn't know he was going to commit any illegal acts with what you've provided him. But the second the police discover you hired him to kill your wife and gave him the money to buy the gun, they'll charge you as an accessory to every crime he's committed as a result of having that gun (murder, robbery ...)
posted
Se�or Snay, that theory will never hold up in court.
Any money I give to a homeless person could likely make me an accessory to a drug buy. I'm not guilty of anything because he didn't buy a Big Mac instead of rock cocaine.
On an interpersonal and private level the A to B causing C analogy just doesn't work in this case.
However, on a geo-political scale, when country A gives country B money, specifically in the case of Pakistan during the Afghanistan conflict, only a fool denies we gave them the money to fight a proxy war. Sure, Pakistan maybe used a certain percentage of the money to buy food, beat down segments of the population and to beautify the presidential palace, but it also went buy weapons.
What amount? Who knows. But what is clear is that we were funding Mr. Bin Laden and his ilk through any number of channels during the Afghanistan conflict.
Does that make us responsible? In part, yes.
We also gave money to the Taliban to curtail the Afghanistan drug trade. Goodness knows what they did with that.
This kind of geo-political responsibility question also comes into play policy wise when one talks about the Arab conflict with Isreal. The support we give Isreal is clearly being used to fund the military. The radicals in the international community place a great deal of blame on the United States for the actions of Isreal.
Whether it's the funding of dictators who equip death squads to kill or giving money to states who use it for defense or waging a proxy war with Turkmenistan, on a geo-political level, we bear some responsibility.
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
posted
Any money I give to a homeless person could likely make me an accessory to a drug buy. I'm not guilty of anything because he didn't buy a Big Mac instead of rock cocaine.
Jay, if you don't know he's going to buy drugs, you're right, you couldn't be held responsible.
But then again, if you give someone the means to commit murder (and you *know* he's going to commit murder, even if he commits more crimes then you expected him too), you most certainly can be held responsible as an accessory. Ignorance only works as a defense if you actually were ignorant.
Perhaps some people heard the stories after 9/11 of the 'Islamic Charities'? You know, the things in fast-food resteraunts you're supposed to drop some change into that would feed kids in impovrished Muslim countries. Apparently, money from that was used to fund terrorist organizations.
*THAT* is where the giving party is not responsible, because no-one realized where the money was going. The U.S. is very much an accessory to what Bin Laden & Co. have done with the training and support they recieved as a result of our interaction.
posted
Like many countries, our country values short-term goals over long-term goals. This disaster in Afghanistan is one such example. And, if we aren't careful, we will create another disaster there by not allowing aid agencies to feed the starving and homeless Afghans. Our goal should be more than the destruction of our enemies, it should be the relief of their victims. However, I fear that "compassionate conversatives" lack either the sympathy and/or empathy needed to aid these victims.
Registered: Sep 1999
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Saltah'na
Chinese Canadian, or 75% Commie Bastard.
Member # 33
posted
Always an Oxymoron here in Ontario.
-------------------- "And slowly, you come to realize, it's all as it should be, you can only do so much. If you're game enough, you could place your trust in me. For the love of life, there's a tradeoff, we could lose it all but we'll go down fighting...." - David Sylvian FreeSpace 2, the greatest space sim of all time, now remastered!
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Snayer, I should have been more clear. A giving money to B to cause C makes A responsible for C as if he had committed C himself. However if B, before being caught for C, goes out and commits D and perhaps robbing E independently doesn't a legal responsibility make.
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
Registered: Mar 1999
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Joe Schmoe gives Fat Tony a gun to kill Leslie Schmoe with. Fat Tony not only kills Leslie Schmoe but also kills two other people, robs a 7-11, and exposes himself to a little girl while making obscene gestures with said gun.
Joe Schmoe gets charged as an accessory to them. He may not have known Fat Tony was going to do what we he was going to do (with the exception of killing Leslie), but he knowingly provided assistance to the commission of one criminal act and can therefore (as far as I'm aware) be charged with as an accessory in the other crimes (his role being, of course, giving Tony the weapon he used to commit them).
Sorry, Jay, I think you're wrong.
[ December 03, 2001: Message edited by: Malnurtured Snay ]
posted
According to my criminal lawyer / fianc�, you have a much higher standard to prove criminal intent re the situation I presented.
She did say that person A might be able to be sued in civil court for some version of negligence. The standard for proof is lower in a civil matter.
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
You're just babbling incoherently. ~C. Montgomery Burns
Apparently, it depends greatly on the jurisdiction you're in. If any additional crimes to the ones Joe is aware of were a natural and forseeable consequence of the crime Joe was aware of ... then, yes, he could be charged as an accessory.
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