I was referring to the first part - the part where you admit not feeling you win when the government's stolen property is recovered. THAT needs some deep reflection.
I agree. There certainly are a lot of good workers, but not all and some people just cannot handle being in power. That said the nature of any large organization generally leads to the more things change the more they stay the same.
Agreed. The worst part is that those in the safest seats tend to become leaders, almost automatically.
I've always maintained that the double eagles case has been one of the worst examples of people trying to make a career out of an issue that really just is not important, that fact seems to reinforce that
If ignoring the theft of government property is a good idea, what message does that send? And what incentives does it produce?
Not anti-government just anti-Bureaucratic infringement at every turn in an individual's life. It may be hard to understand being in the midst of the bureaucracy of government control of everything.
I don't think anyone has taken an anti-government stance, well maybe some did during the trial. Simply valuing individual rights isn't anti-government, a lot just feel that they should have better been serving the people then wasting money and time on the double eagles and don't like the precedent that was set that can now be applied outside of coins as well
We fundamentally disagree on whether or not a theft actually occurred. At the end of the day the gold was right, records from the mint in those days were spotty at best and for all we know a legitimate sale could have occurred where the proof was just not retained since it did happen with another one
The value of the precedent is extremely limited. It applies only to stolen U.S. Government property per se, that to which title is clear. That implicates VERY little else. It requires a high standard of CONSTANT history of seeking to recover such property.
A jury trial found otherwise, and facts as found by the jury are almost NEVER the subject of an appeal. Judges just don't DO that. Appeals are STRICTLY about misapplication of LAW, not a rehash of jury fact-finding. Trial judges sometimes issue a directed verdict and even set aside a jury verdict, but not Courts of Appeal.
Possibly for now, it's to early to see the full impact that precedent will have in other areas. I think we have both agreed before in other threads on the double eagles that the fundamental issues of the case will likely resurface and eventually end up in the high court if nothing else to clarify what else it applies too
Patterns, especially recent ones, are the next most likely candidate. If I owned a Martha pattern, I'd go quiet with it.
Not necessarily, the burden of proof seemed to be on proving that they were legal not to prove they were stolen which imo was wrong. Regardless your favorite person doing what they did could have swayed their opinions which we will never know how it would have turned out without that happening. No, but they do have heavy influence as they decide what can and cannot be admitted. Exactly. It is always an uphill battle to get the initial court overruled.
Which is my fundamental issue with how the DEs have been treated. It's a crap shoot whether or not they go after something and appeared that they were just covering their own interests in the legal DE. The existence of the patterns in the market has served we the people better generating tax revenue from auction sales ect, and has showed that the system doesn't crumble allowing collectors to collect them.
Most folks don't realize why the Supreme Court petition got into the "weeds" about the Forfeiture Act. It was the only issue relevant at that point, in fact well BEFORE that point, down at the 3rd Circuit.