The Dark Knight wrote:Cutting in below...
Asheleyo wrote:I know I may be behind, but I was reading and couldn't resist anymore not commenting. I'm a math major, so I know a few things about logic. And here's what's wrong with your example situation with the meth lab. If Edward were the dealer giving the meth to the market, in this comparison, he would not have slipped the anti-freeze in himself. The more comparable situation would be Edward-the-meth-dealer selling a perfectly clean batch to his distributers. One of the distributers purposefully slips something lethal in to the drugs and then sells them to individuals. Edward-the-meth-dealer is responsible for the meth being there, but he is not responsible for the poison within it because someone else took the situation out of his hands.
***Let me see if I can connect the dots for you better. Edward manufactured the drug pain and created the revenge that Victoria used to kill the 30+ kids in Seattle. As we all know the drug that is pain and revenge is powerful and should be forseeable but missed. Edward missed how much Victoria cared about James twice. He didn't read her at the baseball game and later he didn't question Laurent about it after leaving Bella in New Moon. Does this help clear up how Edward would fit in the drug analogy?
It's like saying that because a parent has a gun in the house and a child knows where it is, then the parent is responsible for the kid grabbing the gun and shooting someone with it, no matter what warning the parents may have given about the dangers of guns.
***Yes I agree the parent is responsible in this case. Even the courts agree with this. Although Victoria is not Edwards minor to take care of so this does not track as well.
I think the only place Edward and Bella would have had responsibility in deaths would be if Victoria came in the name of revenge and managed to take out one or more of the Cullens. Sure, Edward killed James and Victoria feels vindicated in her attempted retribution. So if Edward lets someone else get in the way of that retribution, if he doesn't face it head on and someone else gets killed in the process of protecting him and/or Bella, then he can hold some responsibility. But Victoria went so far out of the way as to bring in people who had nothing to do with the situation, completely innocent people. That decision is no responsibility of Edward or Bella's. Victoria takes full responsibility for their lives the minute she decides to change them against their will and use them to get even.
***I get your point but I don't buy it. I guess it comes down to this, do you believe in persoanl responsibility for your action or not. If not, then why have any laws at all? Off topic a bit, would you give the Devil the benefit of law?
I got your drug analogy just fine, but it wasn't appropriate for the situation. Because Edward didn't have a direct hand in the newborn thing. Yeah, he had a direct hand in Victoria's desire for revenge, which is why I say if she had killed one of his family he could feel responsible. But the fact is that she brought in a different, innocent party against their will all on her own, and Edward can't be held responsible for that, hence my analogy to one of his distributors, unknown to him, putting poison in the drugs.
Yes, I believe in personal accountability, but what you're asking Edward to be accountable for is the same as asking any person who has invented something and put it on the market to be accountable for what consumers do with their products. There's a right way to do revenge, and there's a wrong way. I know that sounds silly, but Victoria had no right to drag innocent lives into this. If she had enlisted the help of some of her vampire associates, who agreed to help out knowing full well they could die, it would be different. But she stole people's lives to create an army. There is no personal accountability in that particular action for Edward.
He handled the situation the only way he could. He had no intention of killing James, he just wanted to run until James gave up. He did the right thing by not killing them right away, not that he had the chance. But James made it clear that it was war and the only way he'd stop was when Edward came after him. Even in the law there are times that killing is ok. Edward was killing in defense of Bella. So yes, intentions do matter sometimes. It wasn't cold blooded murder. If James hadn't died then Bella would have. And after Bella was safe from James, it was too late to catch Victoria. Even if they had known about her love for James, it's unfair to expect them to have immediately gone out to try to kill her. They had to handle the situation of Bella having run off from her dad. And interrogating Laurent? What could he tell them? He told them that Victoria was not to be underestimated, but he said he'd only been with them for a little while, he wouldn't know where she'd run to. Laurent had already been helpful and now he was with the Denalis. Edward tried to track Victoria, but lost her. I don't know how you could expect more. And no one would expect that Victoria would want to kill Bella, not Edward who actually killed James.
Yes, I would give the Devil the benefit of the law, because I know the law does take into account the situation. The Devil doesn't kill to save lives, he kills to end them. And the law would see justice delivered.
Precisely because death awaits us in the end, we must live fully.
Stars did fly toward each other, irresistibly, as if they were falling in love. And millions of years later, lovers on Earth drew together and fell in love, watching the stars fall.