To: cnyndwllr who wrote (134622 ) 5/27/2004 4:57:21 PM From: Neocon Respond to I am glad to see that you are not simple minded, but your answer is insufficient. The question I posed was whether we should prosecute the persons responsible for killing SS personnel, right after liberating a death camp. I did not say that "moral outrage" was in and of itself a reason not to follow the rule of law, in fact, I said that it was, in a cooler mode, essential to our application of the law, in the form of punishment. I described particular circumstances, and they define the parameters of my initial query. Again, the moral question entertained is what do we do in response to the breakdown in discipline. By your description, my officers would be well within their rights to regard law as a blunt instrument, and to refuse to bind the offending troops over to trial. It is as good as the case of the young woman, that is, it revolves around whether we think an equitable result can be achieved, or would prefer to protect the party against an overzealous penalty. So the attempted distinction fails, and we have to go back to the specific case.
