Making copyright/IP protection last for a very long time defeats the purpose of it entirely.

If you want indefinite protection, you don't share your idea. You get to realize all the benefit, but you run the risk of your idea being independently discovered or stolen.

In exchange for offering you a monopoly for a limited period of time, which guarantees that no one will steal your idea or benefit from independent discovery, then we require that you give your idea to the public after a set time. Thus encouraging progress, from which the public benefits, and at the same time, ensuring that that progress does actually benefit the public at some point in time, rather than one person.

The good thing about the criminal code in the U.S. as it relates to taxes is that most of the crimes require you to act "willfully," which is one step above knowingly, and requires that you voluntarily and intentionally act in violation of a known legal duty.

In other words, you have to know that what you're doing is a tax crime before you can be guilty of it, under U.S. law, a rare exception to the usual "ignorance is no excuse" rule.

My point was that people treat income lost to taxes as money lost forever. It's still being used for something, it's just that you have a lot less of a say in how it is used. It's not wasted, just used in a different manner.

Taxation has always curbed a certain amount of trade. I don't have to cite a source, as I would consider it common sense.

Does it though? Instead of you spending your money on X, the government takes your money and spends it on Y. It still gets spent. In fact, when the government takes your money, it's almost guaranteed to be spent on some good or service, because the government doesn't typically horde cash. Whereas, if you held onto that money instead of giving it to the government, you are probably not going to spend as much of that money as the government did, and instead might horde it and not spend it at all.

For example, a federal law trumps a state law, unless it happens to be in the state constitution, in which case only the federal constition can override or restrict it.

Go back and read the Supremacy Clause again. It clearly says that federal law trumps state constitutions and state law.

This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

NH has had a property tax for a long time. In fact, the property tax in NH pretty much accounts for almost the entire state budget. The problem is that owning valuable property does not necessary equate to ability to pay taxes. Thus, you're anecdote bears some relevance to NH's tax system, but not because the tax is new, rather, because your friend inherited valuable land, but has a limited income and therefore cannot pay the tax.

If you exchanged something for those services, you technically did enter into a contract. It only lasted for a fraction of a second, but there was an oral contract. The contract being, I pay you X, you do Y.

If you read the court's opinion, you'll see why this case is different from the typical "You have the right to remain silent" case.

During an interrogation, you can always reinvoke your Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination, even if you've already started answering questions. However, the statements you've already made can be used against you.

Conversely, if you're the defendant and take the stand at trial, you have just waived your Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination for the rest of the trial. You don't get to pick which questions you want to answer. If you refuse to answer a question, you can be held in contempt of court until you answer it.

Like most legal questions, it depends on the circumstances.

Seriously people, read the court's opinion. Nowhere does the court say it finds he has waived his Fifth Amendment rights because of his initial cooperation. Instead, the rationale is that because the government is already aware of what is on the hard drive (the border agent saw suspicious file names and then apparently saw actual images of child pornography while reviewing the computer when it was turned on), forcing him to hand over the documents is not a self-incriminating act.

Further, because they are documents already existed, they are not "testimonial" in themselves. The Fifth Amendment concern is with forcing the person to hand over the documents, because doing so may in effect be self-incrimination because the person is being forced to admit either that they have the documents or that the documents are real and exist. Neither of these is an issue, because the government already knows the documents exist and are real, and the defendant admitted to having them on his computer.

So, to sum it all up, the conclusion is not that the defendant has waived his Fifth Amendment rights, but rather, that forcing him to produce what is on the laptop does not constitute compelling him to testify against himself.

Sue is not a very "lesbian" name.

The term "protected class" is typically used in the U.S. anti-discrimination sense. Sexual orientation is not a protected class under U.S. law. Some states have added provisions to their anti-discrimination laws, but as far as the feds are concerned, it's okay to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.

Thankfully, trial courts don't make any precedent at all.

That wouldn't really be ex post facto. You're making a factual argument that there was consent. Consent is an affirmative defense, which means the burden is on him to prove it. Ex post facto would be the situation where the law did not prohibit his actions, but then was later changed to prohibit his actions, and he is prosecuted for actions that took place prior to the change in law.

Nor is your other example a bill of attainder. The defendant was charged by the state with a crime, and brought before a (hopefully independent) judge. That judge decided that the amount of bond necessary to guarantee the defendant's attendance at trial was $5,000,000. It is not punishment, it is just the only reliable mechanism available to us to make sure people show up to court when they're supposed to.

They're trying to find something to pin on him so they don't get seriously censured by the court for keeping this guy in jail 7 months.

Judges set bonds, not prosecutors. Bond really only serves 2 main purposes. The primary one is to make sure you show up for trial. The secondary one is to protect the public from you, if there is a showing that are a serious potential danger to the public if you are allowed free pending trial. Given the nature of these charges, I'm guessing the judge decided the defendant was not likely to show up for trial on his own, or even with a significant amount of cash or surety at risk, so he set a high bond to guarantee his attendance at trial.

Our local inmates wear Hamburglar outfits. The only thing missing is the hat.