On Fri, 19 Oct 2001 22:25:19 -0400 "Dennis Breslin" <dbreslin at ctol.net>
writes:
> > I've been mugged by a black man, but I'm against the "war on
> crimes,"
> > racial profiling, etc. There's no class warrior exemption from
> the
> > point of view of muggers, robbers, rapists, drive-by shooters,
> etc.
> > So?
> > --
> > Yoshie
>
> This isn't a line of argument I particularly like, but your
> opposition
> to a war on crime says little about what a response to _a_ crime
> should
> be - in your case, a mugging.
I think that one possible response that Yoshie could give, is that we should apply to public policy the principle from medical ethics of "do no harm" - that is just because something terrible has happened we shouldn't do things that will make the situation worse just because we feel that we cannot do nothing. The "war on crime" that Yoshie refers to is a classic example of this as is the "war on drugs." And it appears that the "war on terrorism" will be a third example. There are indeed reasonable policy proposals that one can make for dealing with crime, drugs, and terrorism respectively but they have little chance of being adopted and implemented in the current political climate. At the very least, if it is not politically possible to get genuinely progressive policy proposals adopted in the present climate, the least we can do is to resist the adoption and implementation of bad policies that will exacerbate these problems. That too me appears to be the substance of what Yoshie and Carrol have been arguing on this list in recent days.
Jim F.
>
> Dennis.
>
>
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