I am sorry, but as a native German I know that in Germany one does not have to register with the police but with the city registration office. That is something totally different. The police doesn’t enter at all.

If you are a foreigner you have to register with the Ausländerbehörde which translates roughly into “office for foreigners”. There the procedure is different for citizens of the European Union and citizens from countries which don’t belong to the EU.

But if I as a German move to e.g. France (or any other state within the EU), I am free to move there any time without, but even in France (or any other state within the EU) I also will have to be registered with the French “office for foreigners” or any other local office which is deputated to deal with this kind of things. I also will have to apply for a working permit, but as a citizen of the European Union that permit will be given automatically.

First, yes, it is I who decided that the polls show a decided level of general ignorance. The primary indications is the “have no opinion” category which all too often tends to be in double digits. Remember, “ignorance” is a form of “ignore” and something people choose rather than “are”. Still, those may be the most honest respondents.

Ignorance would be concluding that this means Americans are foolish to think that government must improve without spending more money.

Not “must” but “could” and I might take issue with “improve” also. More services is not necessarily an indication of improvement but is indicative of growth. Growth takes money.

But if you think the only way to increase quality and productivity of governments is to spend more money, then it is you who are ignorant my friend. Government must be forced to be efficient by reduced bureaucracy and improved processes. Giving them more money to solve problems never works… it just drains the public trust.

I could not agree more. But I do not believe adding services encourages efficiency.

You say “most polls” show a “decided level of general ignorance…” Really? Who decided… you? Or were the questions perhaps designed to point toward a conclusion of ignorance, as many commissioned polls are?

You offer your own example saying, ‘a number of polls show an overwhelming majority of respondents desiring that “government spend less but provide as much, or more, services.”’

Ignorance would be concluding that this means Americans are foolish to think that government must improve without spending more money.

But if you think the only way to increase quality and productivity of governments is to spend more money, then it is you who are ignorant my friend. Government must be forced to be efficient by reduced bureaucracy and improved processes. Giving them more money to solve problems never works… it just drains the public trust.

“Land” is a term of art which, by statute, includes real property and all interests in real property, or estates in land, as we would call them. A very handy word to use.

Despite that, the case law on fixtures is somewhat ambivalent. First, you establish whether an item is fixed to the land in some way: if it is, then prima facie it is part of the land.

The presumption can, however, be displaced. If an item is there for the enhancement of the use of the land, rather than for its own sake, then it is a fixture, even though it is not attached in any way. Conversely, if an item is securely attached to the land for its own sake, then it is not a fixture.

Thus, even though a decorative statue, not being a work of art, placed beside a lake to enhance the outlook, is unattached, it is, nevertheless, a fixture. On the other hand, a Rubens fastened firmly to the wall will not be a fixture.

It is important in practical terms, of course, because only fixtures will pass in a contract for the sale of land, unless express provision is made otherwise.

I cannot imagine that a pet would, under any circumstances, be held to be a fixture, nor would any livestock.

Generally speaking, pets are chattle which is any property that is not real property are otherwise a fixture attached to real property. The traditinal measure of damages is the cost of repairing the item or the fair market value of the item if it was destroyed. (This is not replacement value).

Needless to say, the parties are far apart on what is fair and acceptable in terms of settlement.

(Boy, what a mouthful of blogging jargon that is).

The comment replies were getting way too narrow to be readable, so now, after four replies to one comment, just start a new comment and say @NAME or whatever.

Which reminds me: I should get myself a good old-fashioned paper copy of Alexis. Perhaps even include him in my pantheon of great thinkers?

you have made a connection by revealing the annoying habit of refreshing the screen randomly and obsessively thereby inflating or skewing the hannibal blog statistics… i too do this, so now you must distance yourself.

But the source for first two Alexis de Tocqueville’s quotes is Democracy in America, Chapter XIV, Some Reflections on American Manners :

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~Hyper/DETOC/ch3_14.htm

“In democratic countries manners are generally devoid of dignity, because private life is there extremely petty in its character; and they are frequently low, because the mind has few opportunities of rising above the engrossing cares of domestic interests. True dignity in manners consists in always taking one’s proper station, neither too high nor too low; and this is as much within the reach of a peasant as of a prince. In democracies all stations appear doubtful; hence it is that the manners of democracies, though often full of arrogance, are commonly wanting in dignity, and, moreover, they are never either well disciplined or accomplished.”

“The men who live in democracies are too fluctuating for a certain number of them ever to succeed in laying down a code of good breeding, and in forcing people to follow it. Every man therefore behaves after his own fashion, and there is always a certain incoherence in the manners of such times, because they are moulded upon the feelings and notions of each individual, rather than upon an ideal model proposed for general imitation.”

“It is reasonable to expect that over time the people of America will resolve themselves into two distinct classes: supermodels and everyone else.”

(I am still trying to verify this last quote.)

Perhaps for “readers”, you should have said “visitors”, for I have a hunch that of those who visit any blog, the percentage who actually read it are quite small.

I’ve looked at site meters of some blogs with large numbers of visitors, and at least half come in because they clicked on images (from Google or Bing images) contained in blog posts. So these visitors only want to see pictures.

If you are relying on WordPress stats to get numbers of “visitors”, I have reason to think they are inflated by as much as one quarter. So, for one reason and another, it may be that your regular readers are a small fraction of your “visitors”.

Therefore, the percentage of your readers (the real ones) who deign to leave comments, may be much higher than you suppose.

you’ve made me very, very happy indeed.

I know from WordPress’s Statistics feature that only a tiny fraction of the Hannibal Blog’s readers leave comments. (Perhaps some find it intimidating. I wish I knew how to change that!)

So I’m thrilled that you’ve jumped in, and ecstatic that I’ve been able to stimulate your thinking from time to time with my posts.

As I’ve said many times before, blessed is he who has sophisticated readers!

Your thoughtful and personal comment also leads me to another observation: Many of the posts here on the Hannibal Blog are not about answers to something or other, but about understanding why the answer (to whatever) is so difficult to find and elusive. It’s possible that, by personality, I tend to be more interested in understanding dilemmas, differences and conundrums than in solving them.

But doesn’t drive you mad when a poll reports “and 12% had no opinion”?

Instead they gave us a recipe, the Constitution, that structures the discussion so that even “the dumbest guys in the room” are heard. Of course, sometimes it’s the “stupid” ones who have the answer.

I am wary of polls that suggest people are ignorant. Don’t these “ignorant” people do almost all the work in the country? They built the country and keep it running. No mean feat. 

I want to thank you for one of the most wide-ranging, erudite and consistently interesting blogs on the internet. I often find personal meaning even in your posts addressing wide or abstract issues, and this post is one of them.

I’m British, and always fascinated by the position of my country between America and (continental) Europe. It took me a while, but I eventually worked out how this ambiguous position relates to me personally. My conclusion is that generally I’m culturally European but politically American. It may seem difficult to separate culture from politics, but having been forced to do it I find myself by turns confused and enlightened by the distinction.

On the question of privacy vs dignity I find myself personally drawn to the European position. I would never discuss my salary unless I was left with no polite alternative, and I happily make the sacrifices to self-expression needed to preserve control over my public image (to the modest extent that I have one!) I find the American tradition of public confession (as pointed out by the commenter Douglas) deeply discomforting.

Politically though, I can only embrace the American system. I happily make sacrifices of self-expression to preserve my dignity because I believe the consequences of legal protection for dignity, in that sense, are unacceptable. I support the various efforts to reform Britain’s libel law to remove the bias in favour of the claimant. However unpleasant I find it to see the private affairs of politicians exposed, I fear more the consequences of allowing public figures too wide a private space, and the risk of them hiding other, darker, secrets there. I hope that we will eventually find a balance, and I recognise there are some areas in which a right to privacy is beyond dispute, if not always adhered to, such as the lives of politician’s children. Still, politically the presumption must be that what happens in the public sphere is public, however culturally unpleasant I find that.

Multiculturalism, as a reality rather than a doctrine, if forcing us all to reconsider the relationship between culture and politics. This is my starting place.

Thanks again for the blog, and all the thoughts it provokes.

It is interesting that most polls show a decided level of general ignorance on the part of the average American citizen about current issues and events. This in spite of a tradition of press freedom and competition in the business of news reporting.

If I recall correctly, a number of polls show an overwhelming majority of respondents desiring that “government spend less but provide as much, or more, services.”

Americans have been voting for a quarter of a millennium. For a vote to be cast meaningfully the voter needs accurate information: hence, John Peter Zenger’s acquittal (1735), the First Amendment (1791), the Pentagon Papers Case (1971), and so forth.

In Europe as a whole, voting is a comparatively recent right, in some instances imposed by military occupation (as just recently happened in Iraq and Afghanistan). The attendant traditions of free speech and free press are, perhaps for that reason, less strongly rooted, less jealously guarded, and less well understood. Europe recognizes a broader right of privacy, but what you don’t about a politician can hurt you — just look at history.

(Also, many politicians in postwar Europe wanted to put their past behind them; one cannot rule out that this may have encouraged their comfort with privacy rights.)

Incidentally, are you calling the experiment off, then? I’m still sitting here naked but for my sunglasses….

I’ll have to go back and check my photos of all the nudists on the lawn, there by the river in the Englisher Garden District.

And Phil, come on!

At times, wearing sunglasses is considered rude because one cannot look you in the eye and tell if you are being honest.

Oddly, we have no problem with Secret Service agents wearing sunglasses at all times (outdoor and in) as they guard the president, his family, and lesser luminaries.

It seems that what I said does not apply in most US states, which regard a pet merely as property. Hence you can sue only for the market value of the animal.

However, in Oregon Washington and Illinois, pet owners have successfully sued for emotional suffering on the wrongful death of a pet. The damages in 3 cases were respectively: $27,000; $30,000, and $136,000 (this was for for 4 dogs, working out to $34,000 per dog).

- There are societies of people, who would be called “primitive”, who don’t at all like it when visitors from overseas take photos of them. The photographees consider that the camera is stealing their souls (dignity).

Perhaps Europeans intrinsically feel the same, so this is why European law protects peoples’ rights to images made of them (dignity). Perhaps, then, primitive peoples and Europeans are on to something which Americans aren’t.

- In the US, if you shoot dead someone’s pet dog for no good reason, the owner can now successfully sue you for $50,000 and upwards, even though he had only paid $100 for his dog.

US law is therefore beginning to recognise the validity of mental distress at the death of a pet, and this is reflected in the increasing amount of damages awarded in pet death cases. This is related to the concept of dignity.

- I’ve read that in many schools in the US (perhaps mostly in Californian ones?) students are given mandatory courses in self-esteem (dignity), the better to recognise instances when they are treated in a way which robs them of their self-esteem (dignity).

If what I’ve read about this is true, then es scheint mir this will eventually be reflected in US law.

Therefore in matters of dignity, US law and European law may be converging.

If one starts from the presumption, however, that the main purpose of a free press is to protect the private citizen against the excesses of the state, one wonders why there is all this fuss. The public interest defence has already been extended, and so it is clear that the press wishes to attack private reputation with impunity.

One can see the cultural influences at work here in the way that Phil describes in his comment.

Myself, I earned a gross total of $24,072.49 in 2009, and I currently pull in $375/week in unemployment benefits.

The fact that I have no problem sharing this information with the world proves that I’m a lot more of an American at heart than you are. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you clearly pitched your tent on the wrong side of the Atlantic.

Temperature concerns aside, of course people would be shocked to see a bunch of naked guys with sunglasses walking around in public. That’s my whole point: we consider our bodies (or at least certain body parts) to be “private,” yet no one seems to mind the public display of our eyes as if people’s souls were the least private parts of all.

We will both wear sunglasses to veil “the windows to our soul” … and nothing else. And we will record the reactions of society.

Should we inadvertently meet during the experiment (and assuming there are no others who fit our description) we will simply pretend not to see each other and carry on….

I suspect that both the Chardonnay European and the NASCAR American will be contested as archetypes here…..

Re Libel law: that seems to be an interesting one in the UK. In this area, British law falls clearly into the “dignity” camp, which sees the press as the potential threat to the honor of high-status persons. The Economist is at special risk, because we are read all over the world but, unlike our US rivals, are based in Britain, so regimes and people are often tempted to sue us first, knowing that the British courts are more likely to be in their favor than American courts might be.

It also strikes me that “egalitarianism” may be very different from “equality”.

Credit reporting: The relative (not absolute) lack of it does in fact mean that consumer credit flows less abundantly and easily in Europe. This is fine with most Europeans. In fact, this shows you the implicit trade-off: European law has, as Whitman shows in several ways, an anti-commercial undertone.

“… disrobing in public just doesn’t seem to resonate as dignified to me…”:

That’s exactly the sort of culturally determined statement that Whitman wants to examine.

Vernon School District v Acton: I will try to find time to read the whole opinion. I used Whitman’s considered summary.

Your conclusion — ie, your defense of the US against alleged charges of unshophistication — seems out of place here. Nobody — neither Whitman nor I in this post — lampooned the US. Or Europe. Well, on this blog I like to have juicy language, but that’s another matter. What Whitman did was to dig to the historical roots of deep and fascinating differences in relative emphasis on distinct values. That’s great scholarship, not lampooning. You will note that all traditions — the US, French and German ones — were “fair game”

applause

Americans, in general, are a paunchy, squishy, pale lot. There isn’t much dignity apparent in the exposure of that. I once, when much younger, had little problem with being naked. But as time and gravity advanced, that changed. Andreas’ picture of leisurely nudists seems to be bereft of the older citizens.

Humans, and Americans in particular, act as if their bodies from the neck down were the windows to their souls. In reality, our bodies are more like the windows to our diet. I conclude, therefore, that the human soul must be located in the stomach.

Domestic Tranquility, common defence, general Welfare, Blessings of Liberty. No mention of privacy in the Preamble nor in the rest of the Constitution. Only a few veiled references, such as no unreasonable search and seizures, the right to deny soldiers shelter during peacetime, and the right against self-incrimination.

Having lead a bi-continental life, I just want my dignacy.

Il me semble that European culture is more introverted; and American culture more extroverted, being arguably the most extroverted of all cultures. Thus, while the European may spend his Sundays reading Proust with a glass of Chardonnay, or going alone to an Ingmar Bergman film; the American may spend his Sundays watching NASCAR racing with a pitcher of Bud, or going with his many friends to a James Cameron film.

Hence European law tries to protect the inner (introverted) self, in the form of feelings (dignity); and American law tries to protect the outer (extroverted) self, in the form of freedom of action (liberty).

The Common Law approach is to my mind, the less intrusive and more human. Whichever is to be preferred, this, I submit, is another major source of the differences between jurisdictions, alongside differences in culture.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/22328155/The-Dignity-of-Humanity