Resistance is Futile
There's always two sides to a question. David Adesnik at Oxblog finds this creative analysis of the situation in Darfur.
IS OPPOSING GENOCIDE BAD FOR DARFUR? That's a real question, not some sort of perverse black humor. In a recent NYT op-ed (pointed out to me by the lovely SC), Prof. Alan J. Kuperman of the University of Texas argues that:
Darfur was never the simplistic morality tale purveyed by the news media and humanitarian organizations...The rebels, much weaker than the government, would logically have sued for peace long ago. Because of the Save Darfur movement, however, the rebels believe that the longer they provoke genocidal retaliation, the more the West will pressure Sudan to hand them control of the region
The solution? Kuperman writes:
This is no job for United Nations peacekeepers...Rather, we should let Sudan's army handle any recalcitrant rebels, on condition that it eschew war crimes. This option will be distasteful to many, but Sudan has signed a peace treaty, so it deserves the right to defend its sovereignty against rebels who refuse to, so long as it observes the treaty and the laws of war.
Adesnik comments on this proposal in his understated way. "How can one possibly expect the government of Sudan to observe the laws of war if it has already sponsored one genocide? That's a little bit like saying that since Slobodan Milosevic signed the Dayton Accords, we should've trusted him to implement the accords as well, instead of sending NATO peacekeepers."
Commentary
It's also logical to argue, and the British authorities have apparently done so, that a robbery victim who resists the criminal causes his own injuries. The Scotsman wrote in 2004 about the dilemmas faced by people whose homes were being invaded:
The murder of John Monckton and the attack on his wife, Homeyra, during an apparent burglary in their London home has once again highlighted the true dangers and indeed the legal and moral dilemma members of the public face when they are confronted with intruders on their own property.
From a police perspective, the advice to potential victims of burglaries is unequivocal and clear-cut and you should never "have a go", so to speak, but for the victims of crime this is a very difficult thing to put into practice, especially when your natural instincts are to defend yourself, your family and your own property - the very pillars of your life that are being violated and potentially destroyed by criminals. ...
As a law-abiding individual confronted by an intruder in your home you face a catch-22. If you attack the burglar, or react in an "over the top" manner, as was recently illustrated in the case of Tony Martin who shot intruders in his Norfolk farmhouse, you will inevitably end up on the receiving end of a prison sentence that will far outstrip that imposed on the intruder in your own home. This situation has resulted in a lack of belief in the law among the public or rather a belief that the law isn’t exactly on your side when your home is broken into. ...
When individuals are confronted by intruders there are some actions they should follow. Direct contact should be avoided whenever possible. If unavoidable, the victim should adopt a state of active passivity. In most cases the best form of defence is always avoidance. If this isn’t possible, act passively, be careful what you say or do and give up valuables without a struggle. This allows the victim to take charge of the situation, without the intruder’s awareness, through subtle and non-confrontational means. People can cooperate but initiate nothing. By doing nothing there is no chance of inadvertently initiating violence by saying something such as "Please don’t hurt me".
Anyone who thinks the quotation above is a parody should follow the link. It's real. Just like the NYT op-ed.
posted by wretchardthecat at 6/05/2006 06:00:00 PM
8 Comments:
You missed the blurb at the end about the idiot who wrote this mess:
• Dr Ian Stephen is an Honorary Lecturer (Forensic Psychology) at Glasgow Caledonian University and has worked in a number of prisons with long-term prisoners and young offenders. He was a consultant to forensic psychology television series Cracker.
He definitely sounds cracked.
With your evidenct today, W, you have little need to state your position with my assessment that the vision of the annoited is not, in foobarista's word, cracked.
Based upon the wealth of evidence in other "failed" government programs, Walter Williams once wrote: When the political process is taken into account, government policies that any reasonable person would call a failure are nearly always a spectacular success.
In a world deemed overpopulatable, what is the vision of the annoited is hardly surprising. It's merely to retain the cooperation of their < s > victims < /s > sheep that forces them to deny -- reluctantly -- where that vision leads them.
Funny thing how even in the light provided by the evidence (even as dramaticly stark as the two tonight) presented here at Belmont Club, so few seem to ready to openly discuss what that vision really is.
"This allows the victim to take charge of the situation..."
I have already told y'all about Ben, in Columbia, S.C. who responded to a burgler who had emptyed a 9MM handgun at him by shooting the crimminal with a single .22 round. He was sued by the 17 prior felony convictions crimminal and lost his house in the settlement. I guess he should count himself lucky by not going to jail. But that .22 single shot rifle did enable him to "take charge of the situation" better than his first attempt which merely involved asking the guy what he thought he was doing.
So maybe Dr Stephen is right. Don't talk to them.
But perhaps worst of all in Dr. Stephen's sage advice is the apparent belief that some sort of cosmic order is being preserved by a homeowner losing his life's savings to a burgler by the simple act of self defense. The order is not cosmic in nature but is the imposition of people like the good doctor himself.
Don't talk. Shoot.
And shoot to kill.
rwe:
Not trying to play the race card here but, what the hell, there's no trouble in asking, is there?
Now if I were a guessing man I would bet that the "victim" that Ben shot was black and that Ben is white. Am I right.
Plays right into gokart's comment - no?
OK, you can all call me a racist now.
Now where can I buy some of those pigs?
enscout:
You got it!
Ben is "white." (Of course, there is no such race, but that is how he would be labeled.)
The career crimminal was black. And just as important, so was the jury; apparently all of them.
But how racist of you to bring that issue up!
dave bennett:
Your defense of the judge and jury in Ben's Columbia, SC civil case??
I know we don't have all the facts, but if the intruder did, without a reasonable doubt, break into Ben's house and, for whatever reason, empty a 9MM pistol at Ben, before being taken down by a superior marksman and an inferior weapon....
If that's what happened, how can you defend the intruder?
DB and Enscout: Note that Ben's case was a CIVIL case. He was not subject to crimminal prosecution by the state; he was sued by the crimminal he was defending himself, his home, and his pregnant wife against. By the way, the crimminal grabbed a .357 Magnum and was no doubt going to open up with that as well but Ben got him first.
If the jury is willing to award the plantiff such damages, what can be done? The judge apparently ensured that Ben "merely" lost his home and was not in hock for the rest of his life. The agreed to settlement "just happened" to exactly match Ben's bank account combined with the equity in his house.
But other people who have encountered burglers in the dead of night have not been so "lucky." A few years later in S.C. a man responded to TWO young men breaking into his house at 1AM by shooting and killing one of them. In return he was tried by the state and received a lengthy prison term. The family of the teenager who died during the act of burglery was OUTRAGED that the homeowner did not get AT LEAST life in prison without possibility of parole - and preferably the DEATH penalty - and tried to get the case retried!
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