Comment by leobg

> the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”

Criminal law often does the opposite. There seems to be the illusion that “to understand all is to forgive all”. And so prosecutors and judges often feel like they should not understand the perpetrator too much, lest they cannot punish him.

It’s a remnant of “guilt” being defined as “acting in one way when you could have acted in another”. So it becomes imperative to prove that the perpetrator really “could have“ acted in another way, but inexplicably chose not to.

In other words, the people who put up the fence must have been stupid (ideally not human) for us to be able to say that it should be taken down.