You wouldn’t want your doctor naming things with generality, for each nerve does something specific, and they are not fungible (replaceable by another nerve). Similarly for much legal language. In my documents, I often use plain language examples to clarify the legalese, but I won’t remove the legalese because it serves a purpose. Other attorneys generally won’t spend the time to do what I do, but they sure appreciate it when they see it.

Hating lawyers is fine — they (we) deserve it. I went to law school because I was defrauded by a lawyer and was determined to never let that happen again. But, be sure you know *why* you hate them.

Jordan Glass (Patti Santangelo’s attorney)

__
Alter_Fritz

Too much of a coward to face the ridicule of the rest of us ?

Do you Jump when your employers order you to troll here ?

Why keep your identity a secret ?

Is it because if your identity were known you would be recognized as a paid RIAA employee ??

How do we know you’re not just an RIAA rep, or a Lawyer

You’re just a joke .. period

the only reason you are still online is because your whole endeavour is currently being wholly supported by a US businessman who, for the time being, “prefers” to remain anonymous.

For the time being what else do you want to conceal from your readers? Free speech and ethics my arse!

What agenda does this clandestine US businessman have? You helping him in a lawsuit? You publicising his positions and business? Where are your ethics man?

Do you jump when he says jump? and how high? Which articles is he placing? Which articles is he vetting? What stories are NOT being told because he owns your ass?

You owe it to your readers to be honest? What is more inportant? Your honesty or his money? Why keep his identity a secret?

Too much of a coward to face the music if the anonymous benefactor is exposed?

How do we know its not the RIAA? or a Lawyer?

You are a joke of a journalist if you refuse to disclose the very source of your existence.

And is it not incredible that people repeat without thinking what they are saying “ignorance of the law is no excuse”…. when even lawyers and judges cannot agree on what most laws, the spaghetized ones, mean.

One of the more spagetized laws are those relating to copyright, yet some lawyers (who sue kids for sharing files) sue the kids…. just to make money by scaring youth.

The point you make are valid.

Rafael venegas
gvenegas.com

But my main problem with the idea of a “bloggers” code of conduct” (or any attempt to regulate the “conduct’ of people online) is that it fails to draw the line between STATEMENTS and ACTIONS. (This is the same error commited IRL, when individuals get cited for “assaults” which don’t actually involve physical contact. “Assault” and “battery” are two seperate offenses, and only “battery” requires physical contact.

“public discourse” in all other media, and face-to-face contact, has become unimaginably vapid and gutless — primarily because the most thin-skinned and priggish among us have been granted dictatorial veto-power so that nobody gets “offended”.

Well, to put it bluntly: fuck “sensitivity”, and if that stupid bitch wants to cower in her hose “terrified” because somebody happened to say something “offensive” on a blog about her, she can stay in her fuckin’ house until she starves to death.

It’s way past time for people to wake the FUCK up, and realize that we’re plummeting headlong into an abyss of cuddly, inoffensive fascistic bullshit.

Corrected:

There is NOT, I undestand, a more scrutinised code of ethics (same as conduct, same as decency) that the ones that apply to lawyers.

Rafael Venegas
gvenegas.com

Yet it is tolerated that lawyers openly:

1. Lie in court, to also lawyer judges, I may add. Lawyers are exempt of being acused of perjury. A favorite method of lying is by interpreting the law in the most favorable to the lawyers’s client, possibly a drug dealer or a murderer.

2. Lie to their clients (euphemism for “customer”) so as to extract the most money from the client. A favorite lie is that laws are so complex so court decisions are unpredictable. A better, non lying explanation is that court decisions are unpredictable is that most judges are plain stupid former lawyers.

3. Take so many customers that they cannot represent well most or some of them.

4. Take cases that fall outside their area of expertise and as a rsult wind up failing in providing a fairly reasonable representation.

And what the chances has a customer of filing a successful “ethics” complaint? None. The coplaints are eventually processed by lawyers or lawyer-judges with an obvious conflict of interest because their priority is the protection of the lawyers proffesion (their own), not the lawyer customers.

To the point: All ethics codes are a waste of time. Even God must have realized that, as his 10 commandments are hardly followed, even by world leaders such as Stalin, Hitler, Bush, just to name a few in recent history from basically christian countries.

Also to the point: We must conclude that decency (and there are many decent lawyers, and world leaders and people) it has nothing to do with written codes of decency. It has to o with upbringing and education, which are mostly failing to do what is required to make decent citizens and citizens that have learned to tolerate disliked speech and opinions.

So, if the code of conduct for lawyers, one of the the most scrutinized, is utterly worthless and a waste, why bother to make additional codes of conducts or speech? The required work is in the area of education.

BTW, and so that it is clear where i come from, I have been personally sued four time in the last 10 years for things I have allegedly said, The first case was dismissed after it was determined that the acusation was made up (by the suing lawyer, in my opinion). It was part of a lawsuit that attemped to take away from my family what we owned, an inherited catalog of songs and music that a music publisher wanted to steal at all costs. The last three cases are lawsuits from a lawyer (who appears to dislike my opinions and has never tought to be tolerant to criticism and opinions) who, in my opinion, did a terrible job in represented my family in the fist lawsuit. These cases are still pending to go to trial.

Rafael Venegas
gvenegas.com

Moreover, the mere fact that the above poster could discuss the idea of a “mandatory” code of conduct in a serious tone is disquieting in the extreme. The idea of a “mandatory” speech-code SHOULD be met with a hearty, resounding “fuck off and die” — instead, the front-most wedge of creeping totalitarianism is greeted with something between the “benefit of the doubt”, and a disinterested yawn.

The most disquieting thing about this whole issue is whats-her-name, cowering in her house, ‘terrified’ because of a few off-hand remarks in a few blogs. It’s as if “we, as a society” are incapable of differentiating between WORD and DEED — the stupid bitch is more likely to be physically harmed via carjacking or a random mugging than by some disgruntled blogger. Unfortunately, this individual - whom I can just barely dignify with the term “stupid cunt” — seems more terrified by the PRINTED WORDS in a blog, than by the VERY REAL dangers posed by gang-members and sundry other thugs (who most likely DO NOT blog.)

We’re basically fucked. If THIS is what we’ve become, I sincerely hope Al Quaeda wins. THEN the stupid bitch’ll get a taste of REAL fear.

(yes, Virginia, I AM an asshole!!!

The only other code of conduct i’d support would be one that a blogger enforces upon themselves and displays publically on their site, something along the lines of:

i blogger will uphold the following standards while posting on my blog:

list of ethical stuff of their own choosing…