----- Original Message ----- From: "J. van Baardwijk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Brin-L" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2002 3:49 PM Subject: Re: Treatment Of Prisoners (was RE: Tragedy in Israel)
> 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. > > Exactly why the analogy is appropriate. xponent rob
