Subject: Help us Dan Dorry, Esq.
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To Big Dan the Lawyer Man:
Now that you are the self-proclaimed savior of this list ("this list is
dead without me"), and perhaps are feeling a little put upon by having to
shoulder such a burden all by yourself (though, no doubt, as an Esq., you
are more than capable of doing so), we figured we should try to help
lighten your load just a bit.
It amuses some of us that you are claiming the ability to "prove"
what is essentially a moral debate, but we decided that if you have the
power to give life to this list, perhaps you are in fact a miracle-worker,
or at least a really good lawyer. As such, maybe you can help us with a
debate we have been having on our own, here on the side, while we watch
you vanquish your small-minded foes.
The issue as we see it can be parsed into two questions:
1) What deters?
2) Whom does it deter?
Answering Question 1 is straightforward. The truth is, as you have so
eloquently put it in your inimitable way, the prospect of being killed
does deter many if not most people. In particular, as the certainty
of death increases, the deterrence effect grows correspondingly. That's
why fewer people are flying USAir today than, say, two years ago.
Indeed, if we knew that by boarding a USAir flight today we would
certainly die, chances are that very few people would fly on that airline.
Some might, just for the thrill of it, but we wouldn't call them rational
people. But of course we can't hope to deter the irrational folk.
That's where we get confused, Dan, and seek your wise counsel (presumably
you won't bill us for it, even though you are an Esq.). Last time we
checked, murderers, hijackers, arsonists, et al. were not the group most
likely to be named "rational". While they might not all be willing to
hop on board our fanciful USAir flight, it is clear that something
"larger" than the law was motivating them. Why is it that these people
-- precisely the ones we hope to deter -- are going to be moved to
rationality (i.e., deterred) simply because _if_ (and Dan, that is a
mighty big "if", so big that it may well be the undoing of your fine
argument) they are apprehended, they _will_ be executed?
Help us Dan, like no one else can.
-- members of the Anti-Obscurantists Society at HLS
