The Washington Post hurts my brain

[Kuciwalker]

A) Young person has a tail light out, gets pulled over. Unbeknownst to him, license was suspended and has warrant for arrest. Judge sentences young person to 6 months jail, during which time he will learn how to be a better criminal and has a greater chance to act on it. Therefore, the officer pulling over the youth should instead shoot youth with bullet, so he cannot commit crime.

Do you believe that meets the actual standard I proposed? That the probably harm of releasing the person is greater than the probable harm of holding him indefinitely?

Note, also, that in this case the detainee is presumably a citizen, which is a very distinctly different case.

B) Gitmo inmate released, goes home and is pissed off at westerners, etc. Raises family, has child that does something in the future that benefits humanity in some way. Because of this 1 example, all prisoners should be freed immediately.

Did I make any factual claims about the probability? (Hint: no.)

C) Prisoners should not be freed b/c they may commit a crime, but holding them indefinitely is a crime. However this is not an issue.

That's the silliest of them all. I never talked about crimes. I spoke of harm, evil, 'worse outcomes'.

I assume that Kuci agrees with all 3 above statements.

Only because you can't read. I've mentioned a plausible standard for deciding when to hold enemy combatants (or at the least people we pick up in combat zones whee lots of people are shooting at us) indefinitely. I've specifically avoided making any factual claims about the inputs to the standard, viz. the actual likelihoods involved.



Seriously guys, this is really easy. My only beef with WaPo is that they presented a headline of the form:

"we did X, bad thing happened as a result"

and not once in the article did they muse "maybe we shouldn't have done X"! They didn't address the giant elephant in the room.

[Kuciwalker]

Your very thin argument produces a false dichotomy - specifically that our only choices are keeping locked up people locked up forever or releasing them into the wild again.

Yeah, we've tried them. The popular one was to send the guys back to their home countries, where they'd be put under house arrest for a few years and "deradicalized", then set free. A lot of them promptly rejoined AQ.

And I don't see a substantial difference (from snoopy's point of view, re peoples' rights and whatnot) between indefinite house arrest and indefinite Gitmo assignment.

[Kuciwalker]

I should do this more often. WaPo and NYT print stupid articles like this all the time. Apparently, they work as great litmus tests for intelligence. Just compile a list of the people who don't get it...

[Lorizael]

The Washington Post and New York Times are better than most, really. Clearly you don't read the Gaithersburg Gazette.

[Jon Miller]

One thing you have ignored in your analysis is the rule of law, and what happens when you disregard it.

JM

[MrFun]

I should do this more often. WaPo and NYT print stupid articles like this all the time. Apparently, they work as great litmus tests for intelligence. Just compile a list of the people who don't get it...

Ah, so this is why you read the Washington Post. So you can provide testing material for the rest of us.

[Kuciwalker]

The Washington Post and New York Times are better than most, really.

Oh, I know. You have no idea how sad this makes me.

[Kuciwalker]

One thing you have ignored in your analysis is the rule of law, and what happens when you disregard it.

JM

Degredation to the rule of law is part of the 'harm' of storing someone indefinitely

Obviously, that's a cop-out. The real answer is that at this point, there really isn't any consistent set of rules that apply to these people anyway. We're breaking new ground here, even the courts are. We're making the law right now.

[MrFun]

Oh, I know. You have no idea how sad this makes me.

So read these then, because . . . .?

[Jon Miller]

Degredation to the rule of law is part of the 'harm' of storing someone indefinitely

Obviously, that's a cop-out. The real answer is that at this point, there really isn't any consistent set of rules that apply to these people anyway. We're breaking new ground here, even the courts are. We're making the law right now.

Why isn't there? This isn't this first time that such a situation has been dealt with.

And rule of law >> a handful of lives (or even a few hundred).

JM

[Arrian]

Kuci,

We do things (or allow things to be done) all the time that we think are morally correct in spite of being dangerous. How does this differ?

-Arrian

[Kuciwalker]

Are you blind?

edit: @ mrfun

[MrFun]

The Washington Post and New York Times are better than most, really. Clearly you don't read the Gaithersburg Gazette.

Because sadly, as you have said, the Washington Post and New York Times are still better than most newspapers?

[Kuciwalker]

Why isn't there? This isn't this first time that such a situation has been dealt with.

JM

Really? There have been previous cases where we've held 'foreign combatants' and it's been (arguably) in doubt whether or not they're actually combatants, and that we've done so during a 'war' against an enemy with no nation, one where we can never sign a treaty to end the war and return the prisoners?

[Kuciwalker]

Because sadly, as you have said, the Washington Post and New York Times are still better than most newspapers?

You get a cookie.