gtall wrote:
their biggest problem is putting up with the American people; the American people believe the worst while refusing to take any responsibility for the state of the country.
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IMO: Making a general statement about the political actions of U.S. citizens without understanding the nature of our political system is not very insightful.
Citizen's Political Power in the U.S.
IMO: Although the pile of democratic nations has been growing, when the ability of U.S. voters to influence their government is considered the U.S. voter is close to the bottom of that pile!

I_Voter
Platforms: From the Voters Perspective

dlevitan wrote:
your only piece of information is from the prosecutor and defense lawyer,

The prosecutor and defense lawyers speech can also be restricted in most states. The purpose is specifically to limit the juries knowledge to what the judiciary considers relevant. This has been considered constitutional since 1895. Prior to that a jury was often addressed as "the Nation." "Will the Nation please rise" was intoned when the judge entered the courtroom. The tension between the judge, who represents the government, and the citizen jury, that represents the people, is obvious.

Background for the function of the Jury in English and U.S. constitutional tradition
The Constitutional Relationship of the People to the Law

Go copponex yes yes yes

RE: Yawn Yawn Yawn

I think that leak about the contents of a July 24 2009 cable, which summarized the assessment of the US embassy in Honduras on key facts that were politically disputed by supporters of the (Honduran) coup regime provides important information to U.S. citizens relating to the actions of our U.S. Executive branch, and is significant. This leak has not been widely covered by the U.S. media probably because it does have political significance for U.S. citizens, as well as the citizen of Central and South America. It is certainly being covered elsewhere.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1012/S00018/wikileaks-honduras-us-busted-on-support-of-coup.htm

SmallFurryCreature wrote:
Democracy ONLY works when the public is well informed

True, but the corollary of this is that limited or ineffectual democracy leads to less support for freedom of speech. The majority below the average income (the poor) will defend speech, as a political issue, as long as they believe the political system benefits them - and no longer.

From the Wikipedia Pentagon Papers page
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1894524&op=Reply&threshold=-1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=34429666 [slashdot.org]

"To ensure the possibility of public debate about the content of the papers, on June 29, US Senator Mike Gravel (then Democrat, Alaska) entered 4,100 pages of the Papers to the record of his Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Grounds."

"Article I, Section 6 of the United States Constitution provides that "for any Speech or Debate in either House, [a Senator or Representative] shall not be questioned in any other Place", thus the Senator could not be prosecuted for anything said on the Senate floor, and, by extension, for anything entered to the Congressional Record, allowing the Papers to be publicly read without threat of a treason trial and conviction. This was confirmed by the Supreme Court in the decision Gravel v. United States."

From the Wikipedia Pentagon Papers page
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1894524&op=Reply&threshold=-1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=34429666

"To ensure the possibility of public debate about the content of the papers, on June 29, US Senator Mike Gravel (then Democrat, Alaska) entered 4,100 pages of the Papers to the record of his Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Grounds."

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IMO The level of free speech in such a limited democracy as the U.S. has always been an anomaly of history. Actually, U.S. free speech is based on money.

The political power of the citizen, or democracy, as in the rule of the people, is always for me - the primary issue. Freedom of speech can never be the primary issue, because limiting freedom of speech is always about controlling the people. Yes, one group of people in a democracy will often limit the speech of others, particularly for national security issues ( ie anti-fascist laws in Germany ), but in the long run free speech is always in the people's interest. The poor will defend speech, as political issue, as long as they believe the political system benefits them - and no longer.

In colonial America the citizen Jury, and its nullification power, was the original protection of speech. Government speech restrictions could be nullified by the jury.

A Colonial Example From our Tradition of Free Speech and Press
In 1735, jury nullification decided the celebrated seditious libel trial of John Peter Zenger. His newspaper had openly criticized the royal governor of New York. The current law made it a crime to publish any statement (true or false) criticizing public officials, laws, or the government in general.

The Bill of Rights guarantees both freedom of speech and trial by jury. While it is true that, originally, the Bill of Rights was not widely accepted as applying to state governments; it would even then have applied to any Federal trials.

A polemic article on the subject
The Constitutional Relationship Between the People and the Law

Yes I mostly agree. My information was mostly to help clear up confusion about whether a treaty overruled the constitution or not. I guess if there was no national law, then new state laws might prevail. However, that is just a guess.

Sonny Yatsen wrote:
Nowadays, Executive Agreements are the norm in foreign policy and not Treaties.

A treaty that is ratified by 2/3rds of the Senate gains constitutional authority. Among other things it allows the federal government to legislate in areas which would otherwise fall within the exclusive authority of the states.

My interest in this subject stems from being a democracy activist. Most U.S. states have effectively outlawed private member based citizen parties.
SEE Quote from 1927

"Here in the last generation, a development has taken place which finds an analogy nowhere else. American parties have ceased to be voluntary associations like trade unions or the good government clubs or the churches. They have lost the right freely to determine how candidates shall be nominated and platforms framed, even who shall belong to the party and who shall lead it. The state legislatures have regulated their structure and functions in great detail."

Source: American Parties and Elections,
by Edward Sait, 1927 (Page 174)
Quoted from: The tyranny of the two-party system,
by Lisa Jane Disch c2002

George H.W. Bush signed the Copenhagen Document of the Helsinki Accords that states in part: (7.6) - respect the right of individuals and groups to establish, in full freedom, their own political parties or other political organizations and provide such political parties and organizations with the necessary legal guarantees to enable them to compete with each other on a basis of equal treatment before the law and by the authorities;... However it has not been ratified by the Senate.

Ref. Treaty Clause
One of three types of international accord.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_Clause

In Missouri v. Holland, the Supreme Court ruled that the power to make treaties under the
U.S. Constitution is a power separate from the other enumerated powers of the federal
government, and hence the federal government can use treaties to legislate in areas which
would otherwise fall within the exclusive authority of the states.

wampus (1932) writes:
Yup. Trolling. Don't trust the government? Smart. Don't trust some guy with a website? Troll.
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I don't think this is about trusting Julian Assange. It is about trusting the AFP's reporting of statements by Swedish prosecutors.

I believe that most Slashdoters, including myself, favor Wikileaks. It is my understanding that Julian Assange's primary job is to promote Wikileaks. At the present time it would appear that he is doing an excellent job! I hope it stays that way.

EdIII (1114411) writes:
On a serious note, I keep hearing that the next World Wars will be fought over resources.
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And fighting wars uses a fair amount of resources. Is that ironic or what?

Constitutionally, the U.S. Jury is not about a Judge's view of fairness. It functioned as a citizen check on the power of government. I will not comment on the actions of the individual Juror in this case, but I wonder if her paper will include some background on the original constitutional function of jury trials.

The Constitutional Relationship Between the People and the Law

So you just discovered that Adam Smith's "invisible hand" can pick your pocket?

RE: Political Party names

In most other nations ( other than the U.S. ) the significance of a ballot label's "imagery" can be limited by the ability of a political party to enforce party platforms.

In the U.S.(in general) the name of a political party is just a ballot label, and any individual politician can run under it in a primary (nominating) election. In most other democratic nations, a political party is a private member based organization that "owns" a ballot label and chooses politicians to run under that label. Since politicians are responsible the their party, a member based party can, and sometimes does, write a political platform, containing specific issues that it's individual politicians can be required to support.

The U.S. has not ratified the Copenhagen Document of the Helsinki Accords which states in part: (7.6) - respect the right of individuals and groups to establish, in full freedom, their own political parties or other political organizations and provide such political parties and organizations with the necessary legal guarantees to enable them to compete with each other on a basis of equal treatment before the law and by the authorities;..

Can You Define What a Political Party is?

Our Glorious National Committees: Ever wonder what they do?

I assume this peoples Senate is some political body in the Peoples Republic of China. Had you been from the U.S. you would never have used such a term.