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Re: The Limits To Growth



charliew wrote:
....
> 
> Fahrakkan is out for Fahrakkan - plain and simple.

I reply:

Then no more need be said on the issue.
......


Later charliew says:

> 
> For once we agree on something.  I'm glad.  Incidentally, I am now raising
> two small children.  I often have to deliberately suppress compassion in
> order to provide justice when my children don't follow the rules.  Justice
> is not always pleasant, and it doesn't always involve spanking, but it sure
> is something that I would rather avoid.  However, (and this is the most
> important point of this discussion) my children decide if justice is
> appropriate - I do not.  Their actions alone either merit praise or
> punishment.

I note:

For the last decade or so (when I had more money than I needed) I made a 
point of occasionally offering people $5 - $20 no strings attached.  I 
probably did this about 200 times.  One girl working at a hotel check-in 
counter took $5, she refused it the first time and said hers was the 
only one in the hotel which could not take tips, so I told her it wasn't 
a tip.  A divorced Mormon woman living at her mother's with her teen-age 
son at work took $20, and asked me four or five times if I was sure I 
wanted to give that much money away.  I'm starting to think that only a 
fraction of the people whom we label criminals are really criminals as 
we like to think of them - most may be very ethical people in their own 
way.

> 
> Why do I look at my children in this way?  Because I view child raising by
> an analogous situation (stay with me here; the analogy will seem silly
> until you think about it).  If you are flying a rocket to the moon, you
> normally have to make a mid-course correction during the flight.  The
> sooner you recognize error and correct for it, the less fuel the correction
> will take.  In human terms, a little bit of suffering now may well avoid
> enormous suffering in the future.  In other words, I am actually trying to
> minimize the total amount of suffering my children must endure.  It's too
> bad that most other people can't apply similar common sense to the legal
> justice system.
> 
> Have a happy thanksgiving.



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