changeling

That's the kind of specific thing that would probably require a lawyer (from your state) to answer, i.e., actual legal advice as opposed to general commentary on patterns in the law.

Check your state's criminal code (probably available online). Some of them explicitly state the purposes of the criminal justice systems. Retribution is the main one in the U.S., followed by deterrence, etc.: http://www.azleg.gov/FormatDocument.asp?in...amp;DocType=ARS Arizona recently added restitution (for economic loss): http://www.azleg.gov/FormatDocument.asp?in...amp;DocType=ARS

Another thing to remember--and this will drive any Objectivist bananas--the courts are really thinking about spreading social costs of negligence when they come up with these tort rules. The employer in a respondeat superior case needn't actually act negligently at all. If he has, then respondeat superior becomes superfluous, because you can sue the employer for his own negligence. The doctrine is all about getting at an employers deep pockets so the plaintiff doesn't go uncompensated, because most employees don't have enough assets or insurance to cover any serious claim. The theory is that the employer can better pay for it (even if through insurance). All employers then have to buy insurance, so the cost is spread out. Basically, respondeat superior is to actual culpability as mercy is to justice. The former in either case is an unethical substitute for the latter. And the "frolic" exception requires something pretty extreme. Courts will hold an employer liable even if someone is driving to or from work, on break, screwing off, etc., so long as it's not something extreme and totally unconnected with the job to be done and with the worksite or anything connected to it at all. I remember reading a case where some guys were screwing around with a pistol while on break (they weren't supposed to have it at work). It goes off and kills a guy. Widow sues. Company liable. That was workers comp., but it's the same underlying principle of getting at deep pockets, even when the employer is not really responsible.

On the criminal side, there are basically two ways. First, some criminal statutes, such as animal cruelty, might say you are guilty of X if you "commit Y or cause another person to commit Y." So you can in a sense be responsible legally for another person's actions, although it requires you to act. This kind of thing is like when a parent tells a kid to do something. If you tell another adult to do something, you don't really have control of the person. The second way is conspiracy. If you're part of a conspiracy, you can be held responsible for the actions of everyone involved (depending on the case law of the state), as long as the acts at issue naturally flowed form the conspiracy. On the civil side, there's a doctrine called "respondeat superior," which means a "master," usually an employer, can be held civilly responsible for the actions of a "servant," usually an employee, as long as the employee was acting within the scope of his employment at the time. Children are actually liable for their own torts. Parents are only liable if the child has some special, known propensity for reckless behavior that the parent fails to control. However, since you're really suing the defendant's homeowners or renters insurance company, and the child is going to be covered, it really doesn't matter. There's really no economic difference in this context between suing the parent and suing the child, but the court will consider the child's actions, not the parent's. Also, in some cases, it may be impossible to tell who actually caused certain damage, but both defendants were equally negligent in all relevant respects (two people fire shotguns at a low-flying bird at the same time and another hunter gets hit). Generally, both will be held liable in these cases. Also, in some cases there may be a "special relationship" that requires you to prevent harm to another person, such as in when a prisoner is in custody (there is a duty to protect the prisoner from attacks from others). The attackers are liable for sure, but you might also be. Also, employers can sometimes be liable for "negligently hiring" reckless people who then cause harm. Note: These are very brief answers to complex and debated legal issues.

Agreed. Separation of powers principles lead to the inescapable conclusion that no majority vote of one House plus the President can be superior to the Constitution, which is much more difficult to change. In fact, it is unlikely a treaty can supersede even a statute, since statutes take both Houses plus the President to pass. If a treaty could override a statute, a Republican Senate and President, for example, could circumvent a Democratic House of Representatives by passing treaties with a complicit foreign nation, or maybe even unilaterally. This would run afoul of the separation of powers principle that requires passage by two separate Houses.

And of course, the Greater Common Good always coincidentally matches the personal whims of the speaker, whether a politician, a judge, or a private activist.

If I used the word "feel," I misspoke, but I don't think I did. I said "sense," which has to do with objective reality. You have experience with wild animals. You realize they are different that domestic animals. You realize they don't communicate rationally or think rationally. You know also that even within the genus of domestic animals, certain species (breeds of dogs) are more likely to attack, etc., and that they might do a lot of damage when they do. This is objective. You might be wrong about the facts, but it's still objective. You therefore calculate based on your past integrations that this breed is intolerably dangerous. So if a wolf is not inherently dangerous, I think a nuclear bomb is potentially even less so. A nuclear bomb takes human volition to go off. A wolf doesn't. The bomb will do more damage if it goes off, but that's not the entire scope of what I mean by "inherent." It has to do mainly with likelihood, not degree. (As an aside, I think tort law probably conflates the issues a bit.) I don't know who wrote that a wolf isn't a threat until it actually attacks, but someone did. I don't know why you say I'm "off-target." We seem to agree on the premises. The wolf has no rights. The owner has a property right in the wolf. And the other man has a right not to be molested by the owner or his property. I said I think there is a conflict when the other man senses a threat from the wolf. I think the way you're resolving what I called a conflict is that until the wolf actually threatens the other man (has immediate access to him and acts in a threatening way such that a reasonable person would sense a threat), the property rights stand with no conflict. But when the other man senses a threat (under the reasonable person standard that a court would have to apply to adjudicate this), then his right to defense stands without conflict. Is that what you're saying? In other words, there is never a conflict. The scope of the property right and the scope of the right of defense meet, without overlap, at the point where the wolf objectively (reasonable person) threatens the other man. So the right to physical integrity that is a corollary of the right to life is greater than the right to property which is also a corollary?

Very few jurisdictions allow people (other than zoos) to own tigers and such. I disagree with your analysis. There is clearly a conflict. If we agree you can kill a wolf that is a potential threat in the woods, there is no good reason the same threat can't be dealt with the same way simply because someone says "that's my wolf, so leave it alone." The conflict doesn't go away by noticing the property rights involved. If we were to insist there is no conflict, I would say it is because no one has the right to own property that is a threat to someone else. We're just arguing about facts, really. You say the wolf isn't a threat until it attacks, but that ignores the nature of a wolf. Live animals are meaningfully different than inanimate property because part of their nature is self-sustained action; in fact, self-sustained action without ethical calculation. For animals with the capability of seriously harming or killing a man, I think a good argument can be made that this amoral self-sustained action makes these animals inherently dangerous. Man is totally free to tolerate them, but he need not do so if he senses a threat. The owner of the animal cannot change this no matter how much he wishes it weren't so or how much he loves his pet or the value of his property. A is A. And it's not the same as killing a man because he might be a threat. A man's right to life is immeasurably greater than a wolf's. I've never read any Objectivist literature arguing for animal rights, except that they shouldn't be tortured or something. Another man is presumed to have ethical capacity until he shows otherwise. He is expected to act in his self-interest, which means not killing anyone. That is part of his nature. A wolf doesn't have the reasoning or ethical capacity to know what his self-interest is vis a vis attacking a man. He moves on instinct, which very well may lead him without rational calculation to attack a man.

I mainly agree with your analysis above. Actually, Amend II does now apply to the States, at least within the Ninth Circuit. Nordyke v. King (9th Cir. 2009): http://volokh.com/posts/1240247034.shtml. Of course, the incorporation is arguably dicta, because the city won anyway, so incorporation wasn't absolutely necessary to the holding except as a "even assuming" kind of reasoning. SCOTUS reverses the Ninth Circuit 60% of the time because so many of their opinions are crazy. That says nothing of the value of any individual opinion. The reasoning used in Nordyke is constitutionally airtight based on SCOTUS' incorporation jurisprudence. If SCOTUS took it and said "no incorporation," it would be the first time in the incorporation era that SCOTUS has ever held that a right from the Bill of Rights applies against the federal government but not against the states. The Seventh Circuit is also possibly going to incorporate it in McDonald v. City of Chicago. www.chicagoguncase.com. The lawyer in the Chicago case is mainly arguing DPC, of course, but he has preserved the Privileges and Immunities incorporation issue for plenary argument in SCOTUS. Cruikshank is simply bad law because it's pre-incorporation era. It's no better than defending segregation by arguing Plessy. The Tenth Amendment isn't actually a source of power, it's a recognition of a limit on federal power. Anything not granted to the U.S. is reserved to the states (if the people have ceded that power to a given state) or to the people (if they have not--this part of the Tenth Amendment is like a reiteration of the Ninth Amendment in my opinion). Owning a particular breed is almost certainly not a fundamental right under the due process clause, so a federal court isn't going to stop a city from banning them. This would have to be fought on state constitutional grounds, or better yet, it should be fought politically in state legislatures or city councils. They should crack down harder on dog fighting and abuse. I think we all agree a city can constitutionally do this. I think we disagree on whether pitbulls are dangerous enough to justify this based on Objectivist ethics. Let me ask this: should people be able to own bears? What if they were for a trial period, and the bears turned out to be dangerous, causing several unjustified deaths in the first few months? Would it be a proper use of the police power to ban bears? If yes, then I think we're just arguing about facts (how dangerous are pitbulls). If no, then I think our argument is deeper. We agree it is moral for a man to kill a wolf that he thinks is a threat to him, yes? Why does the right diminish if the wolf becomes a pet? In other words, it seems there is a conflict between a property right and a right of preemptive self defense. Should everyone just carry 44 magnums in case a pitbull charges him? Does self-defense always have to be reactive. Dr. Peikoff seems to indicate it can be preemptive (war on terror).

I don't think a third-party trainer should generally be held negligent if not involved in the incident. I don't think training it to kill is negligent per se, unless you train it to attack everyone it sees. In that case, the trainer has actually made it inherently dangerous. There are legitimate reasons to use a dog to kill, just like a gun. But if the owner knows it will go for the throat as opposed to the arm, he should be guilty of murder (or attempted murder), instead of just assault, if he sics the dog without justification or in order to stop an assault where he doesn't legitimately fear for his life.

So assuming pitbulls aren't inherently dangerous (I'm not really willing to cede this, but let's assume it for the sake of argument), would it be a better solution for the government to just up the penalties on those who train dogs to be dangerous when those dogs then attack someone (not in defense of the owner)? Maybe make the penalties the same (or close to) what they would be if the owner had committed the act himself?

Traci Lords. She made cameo appearances on Married with Children and Roseanne. Normally, completed statutory rape is a strict liability crime (doesn't matter what you thought her age was), but an attempt to commit it requires a belief that the girl is underage. I'm not sure how it works with possession child pornography. It's probably strict liability with respect to the age of the child, so long as you are aware you possess the items. But different states probably have different knowledge requirements.

I think "manslaughter" is actually a good example here. That's usually when you intentionally assault someone, not intending to kill the person, but the person dies as a result of your attack. The question seems to be: does Objectivist ethics allow the manslaughter defendant to be punished more harshly than the assault defendant simply because of the outcome, when his intentions were the same? I think yes. The manslaughter defendant has evaded. Maybe he misjudged his own strength, some physical vulnerability of the victim, or the surrounding circumstances (wet floor, etc.). He ignored or failed to assess reality properly before assaulting his victim (which he shouldn't have done anyway), and the result of this evasion was someone's death. I think the additional harm resulting from the evasion justifies a greater penalty. If the person just wanted to harm, and not kill, he should have been more careful about judging reality before acting. Is this a sensible application of Objectivism? (I'm a newbie.)

But in tort-law speak, "inherently dangerous" really just means "very dangerous." Dynamite, etc. It doesn't mean no one has ever gone near the thing and lived to tell about it. I would argue that a pitbull is more dangerous in itself than a gun is. Part of the identity of a gun is that it is not harmful absent a volitional choice being made by man. Part of the identity of a pitbull is that it can be harmful absent any volitional choice by any man. If the standard is that something has to harm everything it comes near, without exception, in order to be inherently dangerous, we're going to have to narrow the category down to black holes or something. Even then, we have to pick a standard for "near." Even a black hole is no threat to Earth if it's in the Andromeda Galaxy. The context in which we evaluate the danger has to include those circumstances (and no more) under which we normally come into contact with the thing. The context in which we should evaluate the threat from a pitbull would be walking past in in the street, when it's in your own home, or when it's in the neighbor's backyard. This is the normal context in which we interact with dogs. The context in which we normally interact with guns is when a police officer walks or drives by, or when we go to the shooting range or hunting, or cleaning one in our own home. I've been around guns my whole life, and I've never even had one pointed at me (except in Afghanistan). Like you alluded to, owning a particular breed of dog is almost certainly not a fundamental right under the 14th Amendment, so it would only get rational basis scrutiny. I think the government act of banning a particular breed, if it can show the breed is dangerous, is a proper exercise of the police power in order to protect people from force against them. I think it is analogous to culling wolves. But I still think the government should compensate owners for economic loss. They bought the animals thinking they could keep them, then the government bans them. It should compensate them so they can buy a new dog or just keep the spent money (maybe prorated for the length of the dog's remaining lifespan). Do you think the government should be able to ban anything as a part of the police power? Need the police power always be purely reactive? If not, under what circumstances can the police act preemptively?

Yes, but the Court has held that only things that are in commerce, are an instrumentality of commerce, or which affect commerce can be banned under the commerce power. The 10th Amendment bars federal regulation of anything outside these categories (under the commerce power). That's why SCOTUS struck down the Gun-Free School Zone Act in U.S. v. Lopez. Homegrown MJ can be banned, Gonzalez v. Raich, because it (allegedly) affects interstate commerce in the same way home-grown wheat did in Wickard. I think there's no way to know how the court would come out on a federal pitbull ban, because those two cases were 5-4. There has been a two-justice turnover since these cases, and justices tend to make dubious distinctions in these kinds of cases. I think a State can properly ban pitbulls under the police power. So long as pitbulls are inherently dangerous, they are like an automatic threat to others. Everyone knows they are dangerous; let's not kid ourselves. Sure, most of them are OK, but the same is true of burning leaves in your backyard. Most fires cause no property damage, but they are inherently likely to. Just because a pitbull doesn't attack everyone it meets doesn't mean it's not an inherent danger. I think, however, that under the Takings Clause, the government should absolutely have to compensate pitbull owners for their economic loss.