On 02/06/2015 11:37 PM, Adam B. Levine wrote:
> Juan, if you are blackmailing me and I kill you, that's murder not
> self defense. Nobody was coming at Ross with an ax, they were
> threatening to expose his illegal business and he wanted to avoid the
> consequences so much he was willing to pay someone to kill him, do you
> not see a difference between that scenario and "Axeman breaks into
> your trailer in the night?"

By glossing over "the consequences" you're handwaving the necessary
context to judge the situation.

"The consequences", for DPR, equaled a life of humiliating torture at
the hands of the state, coupled with the random acts of violence against
him by fellow inmates.

"The consequences", for the people DPR served and sought to protect,
were lesser or equal measures of the same, multiplied by several
thousand human souls.

If you think that killing the person making credible threats to inflict
those harms is unjustified, then you and I are clearly playing for
different teams.

"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude
better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace.
We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand
that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity
forget that you were our countrymen."

-- Samuel Adams