Dear Marco and Horse,
Marco wrote 10/2 14:56 +0100:
'"Habeas Corpus" literally in Latin means "That
you have the body", but it doesn't refer to a right to life. It's
a "writ
requiring that a prisoner be brought to court to determine
legality of
confinement" (Definition from Webster's Dictionary).'
That's about as far as I had come with the help of my rudimentary
Latin and my English dictionary.
But doesn't this (historically) mean that a prisoner had the
right to not be left rotting to death in a dungeon?
The problem is of course that the dominant intellectual patterns
of values don't recognize a human 'right to life' without
restrictions (unlike Quakers and pacifists generally). 'Habeas
Corpus' is probably the nearest almost generally recognized human
right.
Marco wrote 24/1 22:17 +0100 (privately to me):
'I don't kill posts automatically ... as I've always the hope to
find something of good in everyone.'
Did you know that (trusting the existence of) 'something of good
in everyone' is a favorite expression of Quakers and a common way
for us to justify our pacifism? How can killing anyone be good if
that also kills the good in him/her? It is an argument that
closely resembles Pirsig's: 'The strongest moral argument against
capital punishment is that it weakens a society's Dynamic
capability—its capability for change and evolution.' ('Lila', ch.
13).
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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