costard Posted March 20, 2009 Share Posted March 20, 2009 A large part of the Australian populace have been watching this one unfold... The moral? - don't tell really, really stupid lies. Especially if you're a judge. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25215177-601,00.html 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
REVS Posted March 20, 2009 Share Posted March 20, 2009 He's one comprehensively stupid, arrogant d*ckhead. They ought to simplify the law and have a crime called "being a stupid, arrogant d*ckhead", but then again, that'd fill the jails to overflowing real fast. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dieseltaylor Posted March 20, 2009 Share Posted March 20, 2009 Old man being stupid. However it will certainly encourage a lot of people not to perjure themselves which is a very good thing. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Affentitten Posted March 23, 2009 Share Posted March 23, 2009 I went to uni with one of his sons. He was also a stupid, arrogant dickhead. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gunnergoz Posted March 23, 2009 Share Posted March 23, 2009 Must be that notorious "dickhead gene" that is found in all too many people at the top of the food chain, for some reason. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kanonier Reichmann Posted March 23, 2009 Share Posted March 23, 2009 It's a classic case of someone thinking they're too important for the normal rules of law to apply to them. How wrong he was! Can't say I'm exactly heartbroken over the issue. Regards Jim R. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lars Posted March 23, 2009 Share Posted March 23, 2009 Three years for lying about a $77 ticket? Gee, we had a President who got off. Oops, sorry about the pun. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dieseltaylor Posted March 23, 2009 Share Posted March 23, 2009 You expect politicians to tell the truth?!!! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gunnergoz Posted March 23, 2009 Share Posted March 23, 2009 Three years for lying about a $77 ticket? Gee, we had a President who got off. Oops, sorry about the pun. Only one? Seems to me that they all lie like a rug when it suits them to. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dietrich Posted March 23, 2009 Share Posted March 23, 2009 You expect politicians to tell the truth?!!! Theoretically there are at least some politicians who are in it for the greater good and who achieve their respective positions through hard work. However, millenia of history show that the reason (well, one key reason) people achieve the powerful positions they do is because they are greedy (at least a little bit) and are willing to lie/cheat/steal to achieve said position. No (high-level) policitian reaches an office because he is self-sacrificing and focused on the wellfare of the many; even if that were so, it wouldn't be long before he was ousted by someone ruthless and conniving. (This is just my opinion.) I think people are inherently inclined toward badness -- lying, cheating, stealing, you name it. If ever you observe a person who seems to have no such bad inclination(s), it's because he/she is successful in combating their inherent tendencies. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
costard Posted March 23, 2009 Author Share Posted March 23, 2009 Three years for lying about a $77 ticket? Gee, we had a President who got off. Oops, sorry about the pun. I thought it was the intern who got off? Three years for perjury, yep. A judge needs to be seen to be law-abiding, and we've had a couple in the news for doing unsavoury stuff - swapping blood samples (that was a DUI, blood alcohol test), etc. The harshness of the sentence (I think) reflects the effort that went into not paying the fine in the first place, then trying to avoid jail time. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sixxkiller Posted March 24, 2009 Share Posted March 24, 2009 Thats BS. Judge or not, no one should go to jail for 3 years for lying. Our society is getting too f n ape **** over making laws that dont help the greater good of humanity. I could understand more if this was a felony case where someone got off because of his lies, but this is traffic crap and he isnt endangering anyones life in the process... Just like the AIG bonus fiasco. Why do you bail out any company that is so screwed up they require 170B in help to stay in business!?! If Girls Gone Wild needed 100k, you think the government is gonna spend any money on keeping them afloat? F**k no. And then to bitch about how they are spending it after giving it to them is just insane. Not only should they have known by ya know, reading the employee contracts in the first place and stipulated that none of the monies given can be used for anything but normal pay and operations costs. I mean how hard is that? But to try to impose an unfair tax of more than double the standard bonus rate tax because the company is a wreck and your opinion is that these people receiving these huge bonuses (under a non-performance clause CONTRACT mind you) dont deserve them... Well ofcourse they dont, but to in a manner of speaking, force these people to give up money by almost textbook extortion or else doesnt worry any of you? And whens the last time a congressman voted down themselves a pay raise??? Whats our national debt now? These people giving back any of their money for running us into record debt? And the easiest way to not pay the bonuses in the first place would have been to just not give them anything. Cant pay a bonus if you are deservedly OUT OF BUSINESS. Now lets put a guy into prison for lying about a $77 ticket when he is just doing what lawyers, politicians, priests, cops, athletes, cable installers, and everyone else thats ever lived has done before, but not put our so called leaders away for financial ineptness .... And odd they didnt have money for years to up armor vehicles in Iraq and Afghanistan causing many needlessly lost lives because of it. Maybe they should pass themselves a law to prosecute themselves for manslaughter...... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
costard Posted March 24, 2009 Author Share Posted March 24, 2009 Yeah, life's pretty hard. I mean, here's all these laws we're expected to obey because the man with the stick will put us in jail, and the philosophers of the age saying "Hey dude, the world's your oyster: do what you will, it doesn't matter." The people occupying leadership positions in our society all seem to be on the ball as far as serving themselves goes, and they seem to act as if expecting our contempt. Perhaps its mutual? What's an adult supposed to do? Being able to think, and communicate those thoughts is no answer - you just get madder when told by the ignorant that you don't know what you're talking about. It's even worse if they happen to be right. The judge was jailed because he perjured himself - he got on the stand, swore an oath to tell the truth, then lied. He showed contempt for the institution that holds the whole of this sorry society together, that paid for his children's education and the food on his table. He showed he was quite prepared to risk time in jail for the sake of a $77 fine and some demerit points. He took the risk, and it failed to pay off. Too bad for him. As far as these other clowns are concerned - sure, your legislature is owned by a class of American that has not only lost its moral compass, it has turned that absence of character into a perceived plus. So strongly is this idea held by the middle class that only those that can think get it yet - the rest still believe there is a chance they'll be able to get to the same place as these others, where there are million dollar bonuses to be gained by the prostitution of their souls. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dieseltaylor Posted March 24, 2009 Share Posted March 24, 2009 sixxkiller - I am never sure that the line of reasoning - "other guys do it and get away with lesser punishments if they get caught" - is actually much help. Surely we could be lamenting that others got off too lightly? Three years is a lot of time - of which no doubt he will only spend a part in a better class of prison . However judges know more about perjury than most, and the importance that perjurers are punished severely if the rule of law is to prevail. Any society that has optional rules on whether you tell the truth or not an hardly be expected to run properly. In ancient Greek times one of the punishments was to banish people from their city-state. I have often felt that this ostracisation is still perhaps the most potent of punishments. Imagine if you will the white collar "criminals" who are banished to Alaska for several years. Of course they can pay for all the luxuries, and will certainly be paying for the necessities, they want but its hardly going to compare to the society of NY or LA. For Australia there is plenty to irritate them with - Coober Peddy would do. Coober Peddy is in the Australian Outback. Adelaide 846kms Alice Springs 685kms Darwin 2,170kms Port Augusta 535kms Tennant Creek 1,173kms Yulara 725kms. Did I mention no personal internet access allowed? Of course visitors would be allowed. : ) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sergei Posted March 24, 2009 Share Posted March 24, 2009 Thats BS. Judge or not, no one should go to jail for 3 years for lying. Our society is getting too f n ape **** over making laws that dont help the greater good of humanity. If being truthful in a court was irrelevant, then what good would laws and courts do? Like bribery, perjury is not a crime of little consequence, and neither is it something that you can explain by ignorance ("oh pardon, I didn't realize the oath really meant that I had to tell the truth"), especially if jurisdiction is your day job. Whether it was about a speeding ticket or genocide or if he wasn't being accused of anything, doesn't really matter. You break your oath, you will be hanging from your balls. "Einfeld pleaded guilty last year to perjury and perverting the course of justice, offences that carry maximum jail terms of 10 and 14 years respectively." Looks like he could have had it much worse. Jail sentences are over-rated, really. But that being Australia, they probably have a fetish for life long banishment to imprisonment... here in Finland sentence for perjury is max. three years or four months to four years in case of aggravated perjury. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luderbamsen Posted March 26, 2009 Share Posted March 26, 2009 "Everybody lies..." 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
costard Posted March 26, 2009 Author Share Posted March 26, 2009 "Everybody lies..." Yes, we do. The point is, there are times when it is essential that we tell the truth - if your justice system is set up to try to arrive at the truth of a circumstance, in order to effectively administer justice, then there is a need to provide witnesses with a motivation to not lie. If your justice system cannot deliver justice, say good-bye to a law abiding society and hello to the general poverty and misery that accompanies a lawless one. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Affentitten Posted March 27, 2009 Share Posted March 27, 2009 For Australia there is plenty to irritate them with - Coober Peddy would do. Coober Peddy is in the Australian Outback. Adelaide 846kms Alice Springs 685kms Darwin 2,170kms Port Augusta 535kms Tennant Creek 1,173kms Yulara 725kms. Did I mention no personal internet access allowed? Of course visitors would be allowed. : ) For very severe crimes, you could even send people to NZ. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
costard Posted March 28, 2009 Author Share Posted March 28, 2009 For very severe crimes, you could even send people to NZ. No crime is that bad. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luderbamsen Posted March 29, 2009 Share Posted March 29, 2009 Yes, we do. The point is, there are times when it is essential that we tell the truth - if your justice system is set up to try to arrive at the truth of a circumstance, in order to effectively administer justice, then there is a need to provide witnesses with a motivation to not lie. If your justice system cannot deliver justice, say good-bye to a law abiding society and hello to the general poverty and misery that accompanies a lawless one. Dude, I was just quoting "House"... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
costard Posted March 29, 2009 Author Share Posted March 29, 2009 Dude, I was just quoting "House"... Apologies for the pedantism. Obviously, I am not a patron of the classics. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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