[Leica] Susan Sontag

[jbcollier at shaw.ca (John Collier)]

My only comment on this wildly OT thread:

We had a local situation where children were being abducted and raped. 
As the children were not being murdered as well, they was a hazy 
description of perpetrator. Naturally everyone including the police 
were outraged. Supposedly a police officer said they did not care what 
condition the perpetrator might be in when he was turned over to the 
police. A pair of earnest citizens captured a man matching the 
description and over the course of an afternoon mercilessly beat and 
tortured him. During a break in the proceedings the "perpetrator" 
escaped by crawling out of a second story window. He was hospitalized 
for a long long time, will never walk again and has severe brain 
damage. It also turned out that they had the wrong man. The right man 
was arrested after some good old fashion police leg work.

It is easy to invent imaginary situations where the outrage builds to 
seemingly justify outrageous acts. However real life is often not so 
simplistic and straight forward. Though I have never been arrested or 
detained, I am grateful that I live in a society where abuse and 
torture are not encouraged.

John Collier


On May 26, 2004, at 6:10 AM, Philip Kokoczka wrote:

> What would you do?
> A group of criminals have kidnapped your wife and daughter. They are 
> known for gang raping, torturing and killing their captives. You 
> happen to find and capture a couple of them. They know where your wife 
> and daughter are being held, and have told you that they have only a 
> short time left before the raping, torturing and killing begin. What 
> do you do to get the information where your wife and daughter are 
> being held? If you just ask them nicely to tell you where they are 
> being held do you think they would tell you?  What length would you go 
> to in order to get them to tell you the location at which your wife 
> and daughter are being held?
> snip