At 13:58 13-1-02 -0500, John Giorgis wrote: > >>these are violations of > >>human rights of the most minor and insignificant sort. > > > >And therefore they should not be condemned? Let's say one of your > >neighbours gets murdered, and an other neighbour's car is stolen. We will > >all agree that both are crimes, but that the first one is significantly > >more severe than the second one. Just because the car theft is a relatively > >minor and insignificant crime, should your local police force only handle > >the murder case, and ignore the car theft? > >I would actually consider both of them to be major and significant crimes.
I do not, but feel free to replace "car" with "bicycle" if it helps you understand my argument. >A much better example would be a person who's friends suffered a fall in a >rock-climbing accident. This person then drives at speeds well above >posted speed-limits to get the friend to an emergency room vs. murder or >grand theft. No, that would be a very bad example. No matter what reason you give for murdering a person or for stealing a car, it will still be considered illegal and you will be punished for it. Not so in your example. First, exceeding the speed limit is a misdemeanour, not a crime. Second, the need to get someone to the emergency room asap justifies exceeding the speed limit. No decent police officer will give you a speeding ticket for it; rather, s/he will probably give you an escort. Jeroen _________________________________________________________________________ Wonderful World of Brin-L Website: http://www.Brin-L.com Tom's Photo Gallery: http://tom.vanbaardwijk.com
