Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stockman_scott who wrote (50852)	10/10/2002 4:24:49 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Respond to of 281500

Does she think we could bring Saddam to trial as we did with McVeigh...To defend him would be playing the devil's advocate, and we'd have to expose the US's part in putting Saddam in power... The Devil’s Advocate by Taylor Caldwell, “Centuries ago the devil was incarcerated in the jail of a Highland village, charged with various crimes against humanity. No “advocate” (lawyer) would defend him. A scrupulous judge finally appointed a lawyer for the defense. The entire hamlet was determined that the devil be condemned, including the advocate who was a very religious man of great probity. He spent many nights in desperate prayer. How could he, while maintaining his integrity as the appointed defender of the devil so present the case to the jury that the devil would be condemned? While “defending" the devil he must also awaken the people to the presence of evil and its horrors which the Devil represented. He finally hit upon a solution. He would reveal the devil in all his power and his terribleness and his infamy while ostensibly defending him! He would gain the admiration of his just neighbors by an open defense, and their respect when he “lost the case." Moreover, they would learn to recognize evil forevermore when it was exposed before all eyes. So, in court, he conducted the defense brilliantly. He subtly revealed to the judge and the jury and the assembled people all the potency and frightfulness of the devil, by questioning the devil and having him condemn himself by his own words. He adroitly brought out the fact to the people that the devil would not be in their midst without their own guild and secret envies sins and errors in their own hearts. He was able to lead the devil to admit that his plot against mankind had no limits and at intervals the advocate would exhort the people to “admire” such vast intelligence and wickedness. Stimulated by the advocate’s eloquence and apparent defense the Devil became ever more excessive in his expressed for the world and all in it. The people listened with dread and guilt and fear. They remembered their sufferings under the influence of evil and how they had contributed to the power of that evil by way of their stupidity and their jealousy of their neighbors and their avarice and lack of compassion. Then the judge charged the jury He said: “Evil is among us because we have invited that evil. We have suffered much, but we brought upon our own sufferings. The devil would have had no power over us except that we gave him the power. We became bondsmen because we willed it; we are in despair because we brought despair to our neighbors. We died because we acquiesced in death. We were silent when we should have spoken on behalf of our brothers. For a moment’s security we looked away when our neighbor was robbed I behalf of a false peace we postponed a war with evil when we should not have been moved from our places. At every step we compromised when we knew there is no compromise with hell. If the Devil is guilty we are not guiltless. In his condemnation we are include in a judgment against him, we our also judged. May God have mercy on our souls.” The devil was condemned to eternal banishment from the hamlet. However, the advocate in his zeal to expose the devil had not reckoned with the obtuseness and stupidity of his fellow citizens. They did not understand his plan at all. On the day the devil was banished, the “advocate” was hanged. (Taylor Caldwell, February 1952)