Originally Posted by TSGracchus

Accidentally. As you know very well. By that reasoning, anyone who drives into a telephone pole and kills himself is a murderer.

Originally Posted by TSGracchus

I thought about that, but they weren't setting fires. Arson's a pretty specific crime.

Originally Posted by TSGracchus

Vandalism isn't necessarily a petty misdemeanor, since it covers anything from writing graffiti on a wall to destroying a whole building. But there might be a better word for it.

No, it was certainly not a petty misdemeanor. Again, I'm saying that it's being blown out of proportion, not that it wasn't a crime even if you take it for what it was.

Originally Posted by TSGracchus

I can see why it might look that way, but all I'm doing is countering some irrational demonization. Let me put it this way: it was an unacceptable action in service to a noble cause.

There is a whole spectrum of civil disobedience in protest against government policy, from protests that stay within the law, to protests that violate the law nonviolently, to the kind of violence against property committed by the Weathermen, to the kind of violence against persons committed by Timothy McVeigh. I would generally draw the line between the second and third: trespass and obstruction of traffic can be morally acceptable even if they're illegal, but destruction of property, especially by explosives, to me carries too much risk of someone getting hurt. No one actually DID get hurt from any bomb planted by the Weathermen, but someone could have, if the warnings failed to be delivered or if someone didn't pay them proper attention, or if a bomb had gone off prematurely. I find that risk unacceptable.

However, people here (including yourself) seem to be treating this as if it were the fourth item on the above list -- violence against persons, mass murder of innocent civilians -- when it was nothing of the sort. I'm just trying to insert a little perspective and balance, and a view of the reality without the hype.

Originally Posted by TSGracchus

Clearly, the judge in the case had more sense of perspective on it than you do. Let me put it this way: the responsibility of a group's leaders for the accidental deaths of their followers, when the only actions the leaders took which led to those deaths was to form the group in the first place, is purely a technicality that can be USED to punish people severely when their actual deeds don't allow that. But by itself it doesn't JUSTIFY doing so, and the only reason to argue in favor of it is because you would like to punish them that severely for the things they actually DID, and can't.

Originally Posted by TSGracchus

What they actually did, however, was to plant bombs that destroyed government property. I'm not sure what the penalty is for that, but it certainly doesn't equate to what one would receive for murder. If they had been found guilty of murder on that technicality, it would have been a complete miscarriage of justice.