Replies

Xzins, I think I can sum up your position as this:

You have no sympathy for the students because they caused their own troubles.

If so, you should be consistent and also have no sympathy (and that includes civil matters) for those who are being sued, because like the students, they also engaged in actions which brought about severe consequences.

That being said, I followed this from early on, and many of us also agreed that the students should never have hired the stripper. We understood too that what followed wouldn't have happened because they did hire them. But we moved on pretty quickly because we also understood that what was emerging was terrifying and despicable. It's filth went far beyond anything the students did, and decency and justice required it to be addressed and opposed.

I have read enough of the positions of the other people I pinged to understand that none of us believes that if someone makes a mistake, that it is permissible for them to be penalized far beyond what is normally imposed for the mistake, and that it is also permissible for the persons administering that punishment to disregard the laws and procedures they took oaths to uphold.

This is where I perceive your core position seems to be. The students did something you didn't support. Therefore, any punishment, no matter how unfair was warranted. And any person administering that punishment was justified, no matter how corrupt.

And one last thing. If the students had not hired the stripper, the events following would have not occurred. And, Nifong might still be DA (assuming he won the elections) and none of those who have been exposed would have been disciplined. And most likely, many many people, like the students, would continue to be railroaded by a devastatingly corrupt system. Would that be a reasonable trade off to you?