LogFAQs > #932881540

streamofthesky posted...

So, when a lone vigilante dishes out extrajudicial execution on criminals without any sort of trial or set of rules, you'll defend it because he's "specifically punishing wrong-doers" (including people already in jail and not a threat to society, and people who are suspects in a crime and may actually be innocent).

But if a democratic government following legal procedures agreed upon by society at large executes a criminal after a trial and conviction based on evidence and witness testimony, and a lengthy period of appeals by the criminal....
It's appalling and wrong.

What the actual fuck?

I didn't say it wasn't wrong or appalling, I said that calling him evil was overly simplistic because his motives were -- at face value -- no different than the order imposed by government. The fact that you somehow believe that government enacting these same decisions is right simply because the decision-making involves extra steps and appeals to an all-powerful central authority is scary, though. Murder by committee has no virtue over murder by individual. Right and wrong is a separate dimension from good and evil.

And pretending that legal proceeding can wash your hands of blood is the same kind of mentality used to excuse horrific atrocities committed by governments.

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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.