[LINK] bin Laden is dead

[Karl Auer]

On Wed, 2011-05-04 at 09:31 +1000, Darrell Burkey wrote:
> On Wed, 2011-05-04 at 02:26, Karl Auer wrote:
> > not kill them either. And before we stick them in jail, we make sure
> > that they actually did do the things they are accused of doing - even if
> > they accuse themselves.
> 
> You imply strongly that the US was not willing to do this and simply
> went in and murdered him.

They may have had some intention to attempt capture, but the end result
was an illegal and unethical killing, without due process and outside
the rule of law.
 
> You go on and on about due process etc but you simply are not willing to
> apply that to those who the made decisions in this situation regardless
> of having very limited information.

I don't know what you are getting at there. Those who made the decisions
in this situation will probably never face due process for their crime,
but I'd be all in favour of that happening.

>  It's the US Gov so it must be wrong
> and evil. 

Never said that. Never implied it. Don't believe it. That's your words
in my mouth there.

> I never thought I'd consider someone of your calibre a hypocrite but
> that's certainly how it's coming across to me. Hopefully that's a
> shortcoming on my part as I have the utmost respect for you.

I'm pretending to be better than I am? I'm feigning a belief I do not
actually hold? Certainly not the latter. As to the first, maybe if push
came to shove I would fail the test. It would be nice to think that the
government, the rule of law, would then protect others from my failure.
That's what it's for. That's why we don't allow vigilantes - because
their judgement is the flawed judgement of the emotionally involved.

> Total dribble that has nothing to do with the topic at hand. I'm
> surprised again you would stoop to such silly debating and logic. You
> know better.

You made a statement about how the thought of a hundred or so people
making phone calls as they faced death reduced you to an inability to
find my statements "meaningful". So I suggested you consider some of the
other major killers of innocent people and try to put into perspective
your concern for the very, very few who have been killed by terrorists.
It would certainly help if the US government, not to mention other
governments, including the Oz government, did that.

> > I certainly never advocated "allowing self-confessed murderers [...] to
> > hide".
> 
> Really? Because that's exactly what your approach accomplishes and I'm
> simply amazed that you aren't willing to take responsibility for that.
> You just can't apply values to a sociopath no matter how much we would
> like to.

So sociopaths,don't have rights? I was always under the impression that
a cornerstone of the rule of law was equality before it. If we start
saying that this or that group of people have no rights, we will slide
straight back into barbarity - oh, wait...

Regards, K.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)                   +61-2-64957160 (h)
http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer/                   +61-428-957160 (mob)

GPG fingerprint: DA41 51B1 1481 16E1 F7E2 B2E9 3007 14ED 5736 F687
Old fingerprint: B386 7819 B227 2961 8301 C5A9 2EBC 754B CD97 0156
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