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You seem to be suggesting that the only way to right past wrongs is to commit further wrongs. Is there really no positive way forward?

• kenjackson 4y ago
  As a society we view “further wrongs” differently. Taking money from someone who stole from you (with the help of the legal system) isn’t considered a further wrong. Criminals rarely utilize the “let’s do no further wrong defense” at sentencing. But maybe they should, as there seems to be a huge appetite for this sort of thing.
  • zozbot234 4y ago
    > As a society we view “further wrongs” differently. Yes, and that includes letting bygones be bygones when we all have terrible injustices in our collective past. This is what a generalized amnesty is all about. The only alternative is a destructive war of all against all, as indeed is often seen in "honor-bound" societies where "the duty of righting wrongs" is taken as an absolute.
  • jl6 4y ago
    There is a big difference between punishing a criminal for a thing they did, and punishing a disfavored-race-person for a thing their ancestor did. It’s both a moral difference (collective punishment is wrong) and a practical difference (unwinding history to determine the true victim and true perpetrator is almost always impossible - as illustrated by the case of “mixed-race” people with both slave and slave-owning ancestors).