From: parker@eehp3 (Robert Scott Parker)
Subject: Re: The Gardener story (and relevance)
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 17:39:35 GMT

margoli@watson.ibm.com (Larry Margolis) writes:

>In <1992Dec9.031925.14312@ncsu.edu> dsholtsi@csl36h.csl.ncsu.edu (Doug Holtsinger) writes:
>>In article <1992Dec09.021915.20244@watson.ibm.com>
>>margoli@watson.IBM.com writes:
>>>dsholtsi@csl36h.csl.ncsu.edu (Doug Holtsinger) writes:
>>>>margoli@watson.IBM.com writes:
>>>>>dsh@eceyv.ncsu.edu (Doug Holtsinger) writes:
>>
>>>>>> A person may use lethal force in self-defense only when they
>>>>>> believe that their life is _immediately_ threatened.
>>
>>>>> Now Doug, you *know* that's not true.  You've admitted as much previously.
>>
>>>  "the victim is justified in using deadly force against their attacker,
>>>   regardless of the victim's actual feelings."
>>>      Doug Holtsinger, <1992May3.195230.21388@ncsu.edu>
>>
>>Right

>Nice to see you admit (for a change) that you were wrong.  It would be
>*really* nice to see you refrain from repeating the same old lies that
>have already been disproven.

Alright, I'm not real fond of Doug either, but I think you are a bit out of
line.  The quote you give does not disprove his other statement.  First of all
they are both *interpretations* of law, and thus either of them could be wrong
independant of the other.  Secondly, the quote you give does not indicate the
context (victim of what? what is the situation?) in which he intended the
statement to apply, so it is not shown that the quote was even intended to
apply to the same situation as his other statement.  Third, to give him the
benefit of the doubt, I see the quote as saying that he feels that what the
victim *should* or *could* be feeling is more important than what the victim
actually *was* feeling.  I'm not sure if that is reflected in law (everywhere)
or if it is merely a statement of his *opinion* on the matter.  (He says it's
"justified", he doesn't specifically say it's legal.)  His oppinion may not
agree with fact-of-law (which the other statement alledges to be) without either
one having to be incorrect.  (His oppinion is subjective, so it's hard to say
it's "incorrect".)  There is no glaring contradiction apparent, given the
evidence at hand.  Sorry.

He is guilty of being unclear and of omitting potentially important qualifiers.
It is the lack of the qualification "... victim can reasonably feel that ..."
that is cleared up by the (older) quote you give, which he agreed to.  The
lack of qualifiers in the quote can not be argued since any qualifiers of
context were omitted from the quote.  His other statement emphasizes the
qualifier _immediately_ so I interpret that as the *important* content of the
statement.  (since most of what Doug says doesn't seem very important to me?  ;)

Remember the boy-who-cried-wolf?  Let's not call him a liar until he actually
*does* lie.  It lessens your own credibility, and that of those who believe as
you do.  (And you wouldn't want everyone discounting anything a pro-choice
person says just because some pro-choice people "constantly" call Doug a liar
without clear proof.  We want them to *believe* us.)

>Larry Margolis, MARGOLI@YKTVMV (Bitnet), margoli@watson.IBM.com (Internet)