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by danenania 4702 days ago
That Bradley Manning is in prison while many of the depraved murderers and corrupt officials he blew the whistle on remain free and employed is a disgrace.

It's not a question of law. It's a question of basic morality and humanity. Laws that put people of conscience in prison while protecting murderers are not laws worth following, respecting, or defending.
2 comments
anigbrowl 4702 days ago
We also try and imprison people for war crimes, although this process is slow and uneven, for a variety of reasons. It is a question of law, because there's no universal standard of morality. The Nidal Hassan trial is a classic example of that: by the fundamentalist religious standards that he adhered to, his actions were perfectly justified, but people who are not adherents of his religious or less extreme adherents of it think the exact opposite.
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lmickh 4702 days ago
News flash: Laws are not about morality. They are about behavior.

Being a "person of conscience" only means he was doing what he thought was right. Doesn't have anything to do with legal behavior. Many violent people are "people of conscience".

If you don't want people to legislate morality, then don't be surprised when there is no morality in your legislation.

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fnordfnordfnord 4702 days ago
>News flash: Laws are not about morality. They are about behavior.

Well, they do call it the "Justice" system. They could change the name I suppose.

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lmickh 4701 days ago
Many people like to have justice in their legal system, but it doesn't make so just because you called it that.

Laws and morality are not mutually exclusive, but the presence of one doesn't require the other. Justice is where laws and morality meet. Did we apply the laws and was the outcome morally fitting? But if you don't have both, you can't have justice.

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vowelless 4702 days ago
Does "justice" really imply morality?
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fnordfnordfnord 4702 days ago
A lot of people think it does.
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mpyne 4701 days ago
A lot of people think the Earth is 6000 years old. Of that a fan left running in a room with the windows shut can kill you.
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fnordfnordfnord 4701 days ago
"Justice is a concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion, equity or fairness, as well as the administration of the law, taking into account the inalienable and inborn rights of all human beings and citizens, the right of all people and individuals to equal protection before the law of their civil rights, without discrimination on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, color, ethnicity, religion, disability, age, or other characteristics, and is further regarded as being inclusive of social justice." [1]

There are many dictionaries which define "justice" as having a component of fairness or morality, as opposed to a merely mechanical sort of rules-based accounting of the Law. They are not hard to find, nor is it challenging to find reasonable (non-YE Creationist) people who might agree with those definitions. Even Websters, which does not mention morality, does include fairness. And, here [2] is a thing that calls itself "Law.com" and cites "The Peoples' Law Dictionary" and also includes "moral rightness" in its definition of "justice".

Do you enjoy these little time-wasting sophist nit-picks?

[1] Really just a link to the Wiki article, (and others) which of course has sources. https://duckduckgo.com/Justice

[2] http://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=1086

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