Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: one_less who wrote (77524)	10/13/2003 6:24:51 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 82486

I also still believe the two concepts are incompatible The two concepts may be incompatible as you say. That's not the point. At least that's not all the point. The question for me is not what freedom of conscience is but what the marginal value of it is in a practical sense. Which is why I asked if it would work as a defense against damages. While what Mojo is doing may not be damaging, in and of itself, my question is whether his claim would relieve him of responsibility for something that happened during or as a result of the pursuit of his freedom of conscience. I already gave one example of a contract he refused to honor. In that case, the problem is not the massage or lack of one but the broken contract. Here's another example. Say his client shows up, he has the client disrobe and get on the table, and when he enters the room and touches the client, he discovered that this mannish looking person is actually a woman. He is so shocked by this experience that he reacts physically knocking over the massage table in the process and the client goes sprawling, breaking her collarbone. Now, he'd better have some insurance to cover that. The damage was not in his act of conscience, but the damage clearly resulted from it because the damage would not have occurred but for his beliefs. I'm not trying to make Mojo out to be a bad guy. I'm merely trying to illustrate how the concept of freedom of conscience, while not itself damaging, could lead to damage. And then I'm asking the question if freedom of conscience is a defense. You say it's not. I think that it would have some value, in the case of Leslie, particularly, in that it would show that he didn't have intent to do harm, which would get him some sympathy and perhaps a lesser penalty. I agree with you, though, that it in any way absolves him of responsibility for the damage. In the first case, Mojo would have made a commitment carelessly and then broken it when he realized his mistake or poor judgment, whichever. In the second case, the damage was clearly an accident. Nonetheless, when someone falls in your establishment and gets hurt, you pay. I don't think he'd get much sympathy if he explained why he knocked over the table. It seems to me that the bottom line is that a claim of freedom of conscience doesn't get you any extra edge if there's a victim somewhere in the process. It only gets you an advantage if you're trying to get out of some government legal requirement that doesn't directly involve anyone else.