From jcowan@reutershealth.com Tue Jun 13 07:36:29 2000 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 582 invoked from network); 13 Jun 2000 14:36:28 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.142) by m4.onelist.org with QMQP; 13 Jun 2000 14:36:28 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mail.reutershealth.com) (204.243.9.36) by mta3 with SMTP; 13 Jun 2000 14:36:27 -0000 Received: from reutershealth.com (IDENT:cowan@skunk.reutershealth.com [204.243.9.153]) by mail.reutershealth.com (Pro-8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id KAA23605; Tue, 13 Jun 2000 10:36:25 -0400 (EDT) Sender: cowan@mail.reutershealth.com Message-ID: <394646E6.C198AB06@reutershealth.com> Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 10:36:22 -0400 Organization: Reuters Health Information X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (X11; I; Linux 2.2.5-15 i686) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Alfred W. Tueting (T|ting)" , "lojban@onelist.com" Subject: Re: [lojban] le/lei/la/lai ... Brutus & the rest References: <8i5dqt+k7o3@eGroups.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: John Cowan X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 3036 "Alfred W. Tueting (T|ting)" wrote: > I'm wondering if there is a (concise?) Lojban way to be precise with > regard to legal purposes (I'm thinking here of criminal law): > E.g. Brutus and the rest killed Caesar. Using /le/la/ implies that > the one or all I have in mind (i.e. each single one) committed the > crime of stabbing a person named C. (from context here: the same > person in one event). That's okay here, because each one was > using his own dagger ;) But even if not, it wouldn't have mattered legally: aiding and abetting is just as criminal, in both (English) common law and (Roman) civil law, as actually stabbing. > Using /lei/lai/ instead implies that there was a party that committed > the murder (yet not stating whether or not each member of > the group really stabbed him, actively or only mentally supported the > action in some way/degree - or (involved in the plan or not) > just stood aside on the forum or did not even go there. "lei" is a red flag that specific deductions cannot be made. To say that the Romans (lei latmo prenu) killed Jesus, for example, does not imply that Numerius Negidius of Londinium killed Jesus. -- Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis um dies! || John Cowan Schliesst euer Aug vor heiliger Schau, || http://www.reutershealth.com Denn er genoss vom Honig-Tau, || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan Und trank die Milch vom Paradies. -- Coleridge (tr. Politzer)