> Ravi:
>
> "Your answer to them is, effectively, to create, offer and support
> a system that tortures the few of these guys you manage to catch
> *after* they commit these crimes"
>
> Well, that is better than catching them *before* they commit these
> crimes. The record of anti-social profiling is well-established now:
> the crapulous prejudices of probation officers.
>
> <...>
> It might seem wrong to wait for people to commit crimes before
> punishing them, but that is a condition of individual liberty: to be
> free to choose what you do, you have to be at liberty to do wrong,
> as well as right.
Yikes, my point was not to suggest that you try to predict such things and grab people off the street. I guess that wasn't obvious despite the context of my message? I agree with what you write. My reference to "*after* ... the crime" is to note that doing something to the fellow after he has inflicted a particular affront upon your property (the sort of thing that has been raised here) is not of much use to you (unless you are Andie and have a theory of retributive justice, which I will leave out as a special case since nobody else arguing here seems to be keen on it).
Where I differ from you, if at all, is the notion that all those who commit crimes are making a free choice.
--ravi
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