On Aug 28, 2:07*pm, ian batten wrote:
On Aug 26, 12:38*pm, The Real Doctor
wrote:

On 26/08/11 11:28, 1506 wrote:

It is nonsense. *Until now, in civilized countries, we have tried
people for actions not thoughts and speech.

"The standard common law test of criminal liability is usually expressed
in the Latin phrase, actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea, which means
"the act does not make a person guilty unless the mind be also guilty"."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea

Ian

The standard example would be manslaughter vs murder, where the mens
rea is the only difference. *And I'm not sure which "civilised
country" is being propounded, because English Law (and by extension
most common law countries) has had a long history of crimes like
sedition, incitement, scandalum magnatum, criminal libel, conspiracy
(which in English, as opposed to US, law doesn't require an overt act)
and so on which precisely criminalise speech. *And it's not as though
the huge pile of legislation repealed by the Roman Catholic Relief Act
1829 was dusty and unenforced, was it?

ian

So if you "conspire" to do something a bit mischevous but not illegal,
like, I don't know, putting a whoopee cushion under someone's seat or
something equally trivial, you're technically breaking the law?
Bizarre.

Nick