Miles Jackson wrote:
>
>
> Why set the bar so high? Can we really provide a quantitative,
> operational definition of crimes against humanity? Should we?
>
> I consider the murder of the Sikh fellow in Arizona to be a
> crime against humanity. Morally, I just don't see the distinction
> between the loss of one innocent life and thousands. If the
> loss of life is a human tragedy, we don't need to whip out our
> metaphorical dicks and see who has the longest body count.
>
I won't vigorously disagree. But my point was partly or even mostly about language. And if one death is as much of a crime against humanity as 10 deaths or 10 million, what real use is that phrase? It becomes sort of empty.
I think we're both in agreement that we don't want to trivialize very real horrors -- such as the murder of the Sikh you mention. And I agree that merely quantitative criteria are probably unsatisfactory. But there has to be some way of demarcating "crimes against humanity" if we are going to use the phrase at all or we trivialize all "crimes."
Carrol