[Northkeep] And from CNN this morning...
Marc Carlson
marccarlson20 at hotmail.com
Thu Nov 13 08:14:23 PST 2003
Alton,
First, I think your idea that we might find a way to show some support to
the shire that this is happening definately deserves discussion (i.e it's a
good idea, but I'm not sure what we can do really).
Second, and this is just my take on these things - while I am myself a big
proponent of "innocent until proven guilty" I have observed that our
societies (both SCA and mundane) don't believe in this. We, as a whole, are
quick to judge and condemn based on nothing but the accusation that
something has been done. [As an aside, this is a -very- medieval
perspective :) ]
Now, I admit I may be a bit sensitive to this sort of thing since witchhunts
are a major area of reserach for me (it's just not as sexy as "shoes") and
in the past I have been falslely accused of "stuff" (not stuff of this
caliiber, thankfully, but stuff nonetheless). Sometimes people are
mistaken, sometimes people misunderstand what they are seeing, or what they
a re doing, sometimes people do bad things to other people -- these are
pretty clearly demonstrable facts. Now, since I'm not God, and all knowing
in who's naughty and who's nice, I would prefer to rely on evidence to see
whether someone's guilty. It's a flawed system admittedly, but is less
likely to screw over someone who might be innocent than the "kill 'em all,
lGod will know his own" approach :)
Finally, you are right - no matter what the truth, these situations do make
the group as a whole look bad - particularly since people as a whole ARE so
quick to condemn. I'm not sure what can be done to minimize the dangers of
this ever happening again - unless we want to mandate that all children's
activities whether official SCA ones, or even unofficial ones by people
connected to the SCA have multiple adults present at all times, for the
protection of the adults as well as the children (which has its own flaws
when it comes to day to day practice).
Marc/Diarmaid
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