Stirling Newberry wrote:
[snip quoted argument]
Which is a distinction without a difference.
Perhaps you need to go back over the difference between malum prohibitum and malum in se, and why your formulation doesn't work very well in light of that difference.
Having encountered Mr. Newberry on several other forums, I would urge that people not waste their time arguing with him. He generally resorts to attacks on his opponents rather than attempts to make coherent points [1]. The unexplained use here of several legal Latin phrases in passing is characteristic of his typical "vocabulary-dropping, but doesn't know what he's talking about" style.
(And yes, this counts as an ad hominem attack as well, but sometimes one must point out the obvious.)
-Mark
[1] See, for example, this representative exchange with kuro5hin.org founder Rusty Foster: http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2004/10/15/212724/90/4#4