Student Loans & Bankruptcies (was Re: creative financing)

Gordon Fitch gcf at panix.com
Sat Apr 21 06:42:21 PDT 2001


Catherine McDonald:
> I must surely be in the wrong place, if murderers, rapists
> and pedophiles are defended here.

I think one thing you need to think about is whether you merely want to suppress the objectionable acts, or you regard the acts as inherent in a certain class of persons. Your present language, which being customary may only indicate habit rather than conviction, is cast in the latter form. But I doubt whether there are classes of persons who are intrinsically murderers, rapists, and so on, although I agree there might be. If there were, the progress of science could surely lead to finding them out as children or even in the womb, and we could kill them (or "treat" them) in advance -- indeed, there are people who are working on projects to do just that. However, if there are not, then we should probably direct our attention towards the acts, rather than the persons; and then we will be concerned with such questions the conditions under which they occur and the history and genealogy of practices which led up to them. The three crimes you mention, for instance, are often exercises of power against weaker persons, which resonate an overarching social organization based upon the same principle. That social organization should be questioned as an accomplice, should it not?



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