[JadeNB]

> Feel free to down vote but also reply with something because I think we need to reconsider the inherent value placed on human life.

This is a sentence that I would hope never to have associated with me. We need to re-consider the value of people's lives … on what basis? Because of the harm they have done to others, I guess. And why is that harm so bad? Because people's lives have value, surely. But should we interrogate whether all the people hurt by an official's actions were good or bad people before deciding how much to weight that official's harm to them?

If the principle of life having value doesn't extend to everyone, then it doesn't really cover anyone. To put it differently, if there is a principle according to which a life can be said to have no value, then that principle, howsoever aimed at the powerful it might initially be, will be used against the powerless.

[sitkack]

A civilization should be judged on how it treats the abhorrent and powerless.

[JadeNB]

> A civilization should be judged on how it treats the abhorrent and powerless.

I'm not sure if this is support or disagreement. If it is disagreement, then I should clarify that, as far as I can tell, I meant to say the same thing, though I certainly said it less pithily.

[sitkack]

I was attempting to distill the sentiment to a single sentence. And I completely agree with you.