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Proboscis

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Posts posted by Proboscis

  1. 9 hours ago, Mr Meeseeks said:

    It should every person's right to be tried by a jury of their peers. 

     

    Some food for thought:-

     

    Juries ensure community representation informs the weighing of evidence and allowing everyday perspectives to be incorporated into judging those accused of serious crimes. They ensure this decision-making is not just the province of elites (like judges) and keeps apace of changing community values.

     

    Jurors in a trial also force transparency into the process by requiring evidence in court to be accessible to the average member of the community.

    There are other advantages – in reaching complex decisions, 12 heads are better than one; gender and racial diversity are intrinsic, albeit imperfectly, in a jury mix; and, as jury deliberations require jurors to discuss, explain and deliberate, there is an airing and accounting of contrary views, in a process that reflects democratic principles. 

     

    https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/business-law/why-do-we-have-juries#:~:text=Juries ensure community representation informs,apace of changing community values.

     

    Lay person participation in the legal system is considered central to a healthy democracy. Lawyers play a major role in making the laws in parliament. Judges then apply the laws. If juries weren’t used, lawyers would have a monopoly over the law. Lawyers have their own specialised language in which they communicate among themselves. Including juries in the legal system forces lawyers to use common language.

    It’s the collective wisdom of 12 that makes a jury. Jurors bring to the trial 12 times more life experience than a judge. Psychological research has established that personal, subconscious biases can be identified and addressed in group discussion.

     

    https://theconversation.com/all-about-juries-why-do-we-actually-need-them-and-can-they-get-it-wrong-112703

     

    It's not a perfect system, nothing is, but juries are the best system we have.

     

    Much like voting governments in is better than military coups. I'm sure you agree, no? 

     

    To stay on topic, what about the Thai judge that recently killed himself over the corruption in the justice system here? That alone should be ringing alarm bells. 

    Unfortunately the jury system is far from perfect. For instance, the the south of the USA, during the part of the 20th century prior to the 1960s, it was impossible get a jury to convict a white man for raping a black woman. There were many other prejudices as well.

     

    In the case of the judges only system, for serious crimes there will be three judges hearing the case. The burden of the judgement rests not on "what a normal average person would think" but on a more precise system of rules that have evolved over the centuries and applied by the judges. Unlike in certain democracies, the judges are not elected but are appointed on merit with plenty of oversight. And they have to give explicit reasons for their judgements, unlike juries that do not.

    • Like 2
  2. 7 hours ago, mr_lob said:

    Build a wall and make China pay! Betterrrrr

    Actually, there may be a problem with this railway, which is that while Thailand and possibly places further south may benefit, as will China, Laos is unlikely to benefit at all despite footing much of the bill (depending on what you read, somewhere between 4 and 7 billion USD). Laos could demand payment for trains travelling over their tracks (a bit like payments for overflights). Something that China and Thailand have not factored into the equation.

  3. 8 hours ago, Taboo2 said:

    It is BS, I live in Nor California....and crime is just as last year....we got our killing, hell, someone was killed in front of my apartment last week, but there is no explosion of crime....everyone is spending their stimulus money and are too lazy and spoiled with free money to go to work.  They are trading bitcoin and stocks on Robin Hood.

    What you say may well be true. But the rise in crime and murder is not because of the relaxing of laws in relation to marijuana

  4. I cannot speak for everywhere in the world but dentists in the UK - half of National Health Dentists in the UK said they wanted to leave their profession because of the pressure of the covid conditions, having to deal with very <deleted> of (and sometimes aggressive) customers and bureaucracy of the health service.

     

    Only when they are gone will be notice how important they were. Dentists. Polish craftsmen in the UK - everyone was keen to get rid of them and now they are gone you cannot get plumbers, bricklayers or electricians in certain parts of the UK.

     

    Even hospitality workers. Some of them were foreigners and they have long gone now. Others were Brits and they found another way of earning a crust during the lockdown. Suddenly, all the chain pubs and restaurants can't find staff. Now you miss them when they are gone (after they have been very badly paid under poor working conditions etc).

     

    Nurses in the UK. Yes, we clapped like hell for them but gave them a miserable 1% increase on top of what was already a devalued salary in the first place. Again, it will be harder or impossible to hire the European ones now. And many of the non-European foreign ones find the spiteful pay-special-extra fees for this and that, including for their health care, a bit much. And so they are going to other countries where the welcome is nicer.

     

    I think we are beginning to see a pattern here.

    • Like 2
  5. 8 hours ago, Bundooman said:

    The headline screams - 'Thailand to tighten border controls after detecting South African COVID-19 variant'

     

    You would think that after the returning prostitutes saga last year, the saga of 'unwanted' immigrants from Myanmar and Laos, etc., and the current surge of Covid  from the Songkran free-for-all, that all border controls have been and presumably are, tightened already.

     

    Would you not?

    Indeed you would. The Lao have tightened their border along the Mekong. River patrols by the Lao army can be seen during daytime and night ever since illegal crossing by Thais set off the second wave in Laos, leaving the country in lockdown since mid-April.

  6. With all the cops out there who can catch all sorts of overstayers and falang who fail to wear their face-masks, you would think they could deploy a few to catch Miss. Un, or to give her full name, Miss Un Derstand Ing. That lady causes so much trouble, creating problems with the police, hospitals and even with ordinary citizens. The government should make catching her a top priority!

  7. 1 hour ago, GreasyFingers said:

    Why did they not give his full name. Maybe an immigrant aussie (not PC but) and it would have given him away.

    At a guess, they don't have any actual evidence for his being "mixed up" (whatever that means) with drugs and prostitution and therefore if they give his name they could be done for libel/slander, which is a criminal offence in the Kingdom.

     

  8. 7 hours ago, daveAustin said:

    aka, if you don't like it go home lol

    Perhaps when all those expats told me when I went to Laos that it was too expensive, that I would die of boredom etc might want to rethink their lifestyle in the Land of Smiles. In Laos, as a foreigner I am on the same standing as a local when it comes to the vaccine. I have already received the first jab (AstraZenica) and will receive my next one in a few weeks.

  9. 6 hours ago, Don Chance said:

    4,000 homeless is nothing. In Toronto there are at least 10,000. Thai's can be thankful they don't have a globalists PM who imports 100,000's  new immigrants ever year.

    In Thailand they are never called immigrants because they are not given rights. But be assured that hundreds of thousands of people come into the kingdom to do the work that locals don't really want to do.

  10. 8 hours ago, gunderhill said:

    BY far the bulk is Thai men.

    Indeed. I have seen several situations where a woman with a real job but not high paying and with a kid or two but husband gone went on a "date" and certainly did not say no to the money at the end of the night. In such circumstances, there was no massage parlour, beer bar, website or whatever. In one case, it was the friend ("sister") of the wife of a foreigner who went off with a visiting friend of the foreigner. Money expected, of course. If you include such women, I guess you would be well above the million mark.

    • Like 1
  11. 4 hours ago, Scouse123 said:

     

    He won't do either, Despots never do!

     

    Also, when the US gave aid for humanitarian reasons and if it is correct what he alleges, that Lon Nol used it for weapons, directed against the terrorist group, namely, the Khmer Rouge when he was an active member, then good!

     

    He only switched sides when the writing was on the wall. His government still has plenty of them in senior positions.

     

    Hun Sen is right up there alongside Saddam Hussein, Gadaffi,  the Kim Jong dynasty, Stalin and the rest of them.

    Actually Lon Nol and the Americans took the war to the part of Cambodia near Vietnam as they believed that the Viet Cong were infiltrating. Having bombed the hell out of the local farmers, those farmers allied themselves with their enemies' enemy, namely the Khmer Rouge.

     

    Now I do agree that Hun Sen does not have the nicest record for human rights but lets be realistic - he is far less evil than the Saddam Husseins, the Kims, Stalin etc.

     

    There are ways of getting benefits out of forgiving debts - getting Hun Sen to change his tune with respect to a certain large neighbour, for instance.

    • Like 2
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