Category Archives: Legal Explorations

Interpreting the NHL and the disallowed Sedin goal

Last night’s playoff game had a disallowed goal based on it having gone off a skate. In my arguing over this on Facebook, I decided to put my legal brain to the task, since it’s not completely out of steam … Continue reading

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Laws for the Virtual Universe

What if virtual worlds, no matter their purposes, narratives, unique details, and other variations, could be linked? What if they had borders between them, keeping the right stuff in its place, but in other ways being permeable? Continue reading

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Leadership Qualifications in a Democracy

Power to the people, right?  That’s the rallying cry of democracy. A government of peers, the message of Gov. Sarah Palin, is not a new message.  Stephen Harper rode that message to the Prime Minister’s Office here not long ago, … Continue reading

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Victoria venue to infringe civil liberties

The Save-On Foods Memorial Centre in Victoria wants to take B.C.’s anti-smoking legislation a bit further. Not only will they enforce the existing No Smoking laws, they will also prohibit the innocuous carrying of cigarettes by patrons on the premises.
Possession of cigarettes is neither illegal nor dangerous per se. Searching explicitly for cigarettes, without the pretence (which I assume will be assumed) of searching for illegal or dangerous goods, is trespass to the person, bordering on the tort of assault. Confiscating those cigarettes is conversion; the Save-On Foods Memorial Centre is counting on your complacency and acquiescence as it invades your space and takes what it rightfully yours. Are they going to compensate you for the cigarettes? Return them at your whim? I doubt it. This erosion of civil liberties has gone on long enough. Continue reading

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Servamus – Fearing the Image of the Vancouver Police

Drivers – non-criminal citizens from whom the police derive their power – are having their fear of being ticketed isolated, transformed into a fear of the police, and capitalized upon to drive a policy goal that in and of itself should never pass Section 1 muster.
Could the momentum of enshrining the police vs. citizens paradigm lead to the political annihilation of servamus? In other words, could the potential transformative effects on society of engendering a public fear of police be out of proportion with traffic safety objectives? Continue reading

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Where are you, Bobby Kennedy? The Mindless Menace Continues

I was listening to CBC Radio 2 tonight on my way home, and they played Senator Robert Kennedy’s speech, “On the Mindless Menace of Violence,” about the plague of violence that was making the United States sick, in his view. … Continue reading

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Of Mortar and Wine: A Passover Lesson in Law

Passover, the Jewish holiday that celebrates the Exodus from slavery in Egypt and the emergence of the Jewish People as a free nation under Mosaic Law, is now upon us. The tradition of the Passover seder, the traditional feast and … Continue reading

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What did Fairmont pay for my “protected” view?

I wrote in an earlier series of posts that laws exist as a combination of policy and imperative, operating either to curb antisocial behaviour that can damage the fabric of society or that can alter it. We have some laws, … Continue reading

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After the Shyster: The Mathematical Postscript

In Shysters be Gone, part III, I proposed that law is composed of a policy goal combined with the strength of an imperative: Policy + Imperative = Law P + I = L If we have a law, and know … Continue reading

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Shysters be Gone, part III

In part II, I identified two types of antisocial behaviour which we attempt to prevent, restrain, correct, punish, etc., with law: “those which harm the integrity of society, potentially leading to its collapse; and those which alter the dynamic of … Continue reading

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