Note to the "ladder of force left"

ravi gadfly at home.com
Tue Oct 23 13:52:23 PDT 2001


Kelley wrote:


>
> lord. i don't even know that i support this solution and i'm more one to
> say, NO, nothing, back off, it's not worth it. but good lord, how come
> it's so hard to get what doug is saying?
>

i think the problem in getting what doug says may be that doug was not just saying something, but he was responding to a lengthy post about the rationale behind this line of action. i think doug's post is quite clear in what it says: that insofar as his life and mine (now that he tells me i cannot be exempted! ;-)) are at risk, in a very pragmatic sense, we need to do something about this, etc. it just does not seem to address all the thoughts brought up in the post he was responding to, im-very-ho.

elsewhere kelley wrote:

>

> once you concede that criminals ought not get away with nonsense, no

> matter what the social conditions are that "created" them, then you have

> to start thinking about how it actually all works.

>

do you agree with that? that people (the word criminal itself seems to beg the question, to me, so i will avoid using that) ought not to get away with nonsense, irrespective of the social conditions that led (within quotes if you wish) to them? i realize this is a brand new can of worms that could leave all the way back to the material foundations of intentionality and such esoteric metaphysics, so i will instead accept a sneer as a response. but even to address the question of criminality, isnt the justice system and its processes and outputs, not being a hard science, open to and determined by interpretation? and can we not claim (without bringing in foucault) that the system has definitely shifted to analyzing the "primary" causes of undesirable effects and blaming them? in a simplistic sense isnt that what the successful twinkies defense cases are about?

--ravi

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- man is said to be a rational animal. i do not know why he has not been defined as an affective or feeling animal. more often i have seen a cat reason than laugh or weep. perhaps it weeps or laughs inwardly - but then perhaps, also inwardly, the crab resolves equations of the 2nd degree. -- alasdair macintyre.



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list