alt Hacker NewsA lot of very good people have crossed that line, and they did so -because- they were good people. They may have done it in defense of loved ones or strangers. They may have done it in service to the nation or community that they were born in.
When having these conversations, it’s easy to stand on the moral high ground and forget that we also live among monsters, and alongside organizations that turn regular people into the instruments of monsters. There are a lot of people in this world that have chosen to be incompatible with coexistence in civil society, or to be part of an organization that has chosen to be so.
These people actively do grave harm to other people. Sometimes, the only way to prevent more harm to innocent people is to remove those individuals from the world.
That said, I don’t know anything of the veracity or motivations behind the allegations brought against DPR in this regard, and for whatever reason, his legal circumstances were crafted so as to make sure that the public would also remain ignorant of the details of those circumstances.
While I do not know any of the details involved, I am deeply suspicious of the manipulations of the FBI in cases such as this, having been in proximity to some of their other shenanigans. It’s definitely inside the realm of reasonable speculation to imagine that they may have created a situation where not only was it convenient for DPR to eliminate his “competitor”, but he would be doing a noble thing in the process.
As an example , one of their “successful anti terrorist operations” a few years back involved a mentally challenged person was manipulated by the FBI into a “terrorist” plot where he thought he was “saving the world”…. So they -definitely-do that kind of thing. The Walmart judiciously wouldn’t sell him a gun (he is obviously and apparently challenged) so they sent him back to buy a bb-gun and arrested him coming out of the store.
Because of this and many other examples of behavior with depraved impunity, I am inclined to give DPR the benefit of the doubt on this, in the absence of much more specific and reliable information.
I'm sorry. Your argument sounds like it's reasonable but I can't accept it and it is full of strawmen. Very few people confuse 'good people that have crossed the line ... in defense of loved ones or strangers' with killers and murderers. Obviously killing is wrong but most people make moral allowances for such cases where it seems necessary or even for cases where it is mistaken or a so called 'crime of passion'. These are apples and oranges and not the same thing. As for standing on an easy moral high ground, uh yes, I'm reasonably certain that I will never reach the level of ordering a hit on an associate to protect my drug business so I will stand on that moral high ground, as will probably a very large majority of people. I have certainly entertained the thought of strangling quite a few people - past co-workers, strangers to death, and some of them I could even make a reasonable case at least in my mind, that they would've deserved it, but it has never crossed beyond a thought - and that is the case with most people in society, thankfully or we would live in a world of murderous chaos. As for the FBI possibly cooking up most of it or manipulating it to look worse than it is, maybe. But from the transcripts of DPR's emails and online conversations regarding the allegations, it doesn't look very good for DPR either. In fact I think those transcripts was what soured the general public on DPR when many people like myself at first thought (and still think) the punishment seemed really excessive for what he was charged and tried for. That said I do think he has served reasonable time and the pardon at this time is not a bad thing.