Posted on 01/06/2005 12:27:49 PM PST by End Times Sentinel
When it comes to our leaders we like to think that public outcry can still send one packing.
Now, if one is a political official, chosen servant of an elected-officeholder, it only makes sense that he could be fired by the higher official.
Exactly. And who is the highest official? The People. Remember, going to jail is not the same as losing one's job. Concerning the former there is a presumption of innocence. Concerning the latter there is not.
The State is the People . . .
There are some who would like to convince us of that :-). The state is the servant -- and a generally untrustworthy one at that -- of the People.
If they wish to have 24 hours a day command over every facet of that worker's life, including legal activities that the boss simply does not like, then the boss has to pay for a full 24 hours of the worker's time.
In most cases this really doesn't apply for the obvious reason the employer is really not that interested in the employees personal life so long as he shows up for work and does his job. And there are labor laws here, albeit not as bad as in France, that inhibit this intrusion.
There are, however, certain jobs which require the employee to sign a contract restricting his or her personal activities.
You: "Remember, going to jail is not the same as losing one's job. Concerning the former there is a presumption of innocence. Concerning the latter there is not."
But I would expect that one cannot simply take money or other economic interests away from a person on one's own, without going to a civil trial, unless there is a contractual right to do so.
Certainly a man's livelihood is his single most important economic interest, since it is his means of support, and if he loses it then he is very likely to end up a ward of the State and a burden to everyone else.
Now, I heartily agree that a man can sign an employment contract in which he cedes certain private rights, but he must be compensated well for this.
Your comment on the "presumption of innocence" is interesting. Under French law, before property or liberty can be taken from a person, he must be proven to be guilty. Since there is no functional difference between imposing a fine on a person for doing a thing, or allowing another person to impose a fine on him by an award in a lawsuit brought because he did that thing, the standard of proof is the same. Criminal law and civil law are unified in France: it is all civil law, and the same standard of proof is required whether it is the state trying to take your money away or your neighbor who brings a lawsuit against you to try and take your money away. Whoever is trying to take money from you must prove your guilt. If he cannot, you win.
Also, there is no "discovery" under French law.
Indeed, the French find the American concept of civil discovery to be immoral. How can you accuse someone of an offense and then require him to provide evidence against himself by demanding that he hand over his own private papers?! It is a terrible assault on privacy to be able to have access to a person's private papers and effects or to make him speak to you by simply filing a lawsuit against him!
In France, if you want to sue me for something, you have to be able to prove that I did that thing without being able to compel me to help you sue me by giving you my own papers!
It's usually forgotten that the guy paying the salary needs a livelihood too. Further, many fail to note he's ususally taking a much greater risk, working much harder and providing a much, much greater service to the general welfare than the guy he hires to man the register or make deliveries.
In France, if you want to sue me for something, you have to be able to prove that I did that thing without being able to compel me to help you sue me by giving you my own papers!
That's probably the least of the problems with our civil tort system. You'll find few Freepers who are fans of it.
Me: "Certainly a man's livelihood is his single most important economic interest . . ."
You: "It's usually forgotten that the guy paying the salary needs a livelihood too. Further, many fail to note he's ususally taking a much greater risk, working much harder and providing a much, much greater service to the general welfare than the guy he hires to man the register or make deliveries."
That is true.
But it does not explain why, because he takes those greater risks and gets the greater reward that he should, therefore, by the simple fact of paying a register man's salary for 8 hours a day of the man's time, gain the legal power to tell the register man what he may do during the 16 hours when he is not paying him for his time.
It seems obvious, to me anyway, that the owner should be able to tell the employee what work to do and how to do it when the employee is on the job and being paid for that, and that the employer should have a basic claim on the employee's loyalty, such that the employee may not, in the time he is not working, go to use the secrets he learns at one employer working for another. All of this is entirely reasonable.
But it seems equally obvious that the employer's authority must end there. There is no reason to grant the employer the enhanced authority to supervise the employee in his private life and economically punish the employee for legal behavior that is not commercially disloyal to to the employer.
I think back to the motorcycle. It cannot be just that an employer can fire an employee for having a motorcycle at home in his garage. The law cannot permit the employer to exercise such abusive authority over his employee, for there is nothing that the employer does, including creating jobs and making the economy works, that justifies this unrelated and economically irrelevant extension of power of one man over the legal activities of another man in his employ. Possessing capital makes a man an entpreneur, not a noble lord!
You: "That's probably the least of the problems with our civil tort system. You'll find few Freepers who are fans of it."
The US justice system does seem a bit pathological. Truly, if I were innocent of a crime, I would much rather be tried in France, because it is highly unlikely I would be tried in the first instance. But if I were guilty of a crime, I would rather be tried in America, where I would hire Lawyer Johnny Cochrane. Because then I could go free.
You're mixing two lines of debate and misconstruing a point. Firing, or laying someone off, is not a matter for government. Nor is it a legal punishment. If one hires someone to clean his house then learns this person has a motorcycle and stops hiring this person, well, c'est la vie. It's no different than the cleaning person quiting because she learns her employer has a motorcyle. It's called freedom. The expectation is that the wise decisions trump the foolish ones. Most of us here believe that to be the case.
The US justice system does seem a bit pathological.
Our civil court system has problems. When it comes to criminal matters, I suspect that our juries get it right more often than your judges. Now, I'm sure you hear about innocent people being found to have been wrongly convicted by our court system. And I suspect that you really don't hear that much about this happening in your system.
You likely believe that this means it just doesn't happen in yours. My suspicion, OTOH, is that it happens but doesn't get uncovered -- especially if there is a mindset that the accused is guilty at the time of trial because of the depth of the investigation. Further, there would seem to be an institutional interest in ignoring a bad decision.
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