Brennan Dunham

This post is an excellent litmus test for understanding of just war theory. Despite the fact that I can see how effective this would be, I must oppose it because the damage it would do to my enemy (who bashes in my mailbox) would far outweigh the good of saving my mailbox. Its disproportionality is opposed by our duty in charity (and even justice) to watch out even for the good of our enemies. (Yes, by the way, I have had my mailbox bashed in by random vandals.)

Criminal law students should attempt this.

There’s no trap or any intent to harm at all. It’s just a mailbox, albeit a sturdy one. If they didn’t hit it, they wouldn’t get hurt just like if they don’t stick their hands in a fire they wouldn’t get burned. Should I not lock my door so they don’t get hurt kicking it in?

For human society larger than a couple hundred people to survive, it's (regrettably) necessary to treat some people in some circumstances as instrumentalities. You break the arm of the guy who smashes your mailbox, not because that's proportional but to show the other people who might play mailbox baseball that it's not a good thing to do, thereby preserving countless other mailboxes.

This post is an excellent litmus test for understanding of just war theory. Despite the fact that I can see how effective this would be, I must oppose it because the damage it would do to my enemy (who bashes in my mailbox) would far outweigh the good of saving my mailbox. Its disproportionality is opposed by our duty in charity (and even justice) to watch out even for the good of our enemies. (Yes, by the way, I have had my mailbox bashed in by random vandals.)

This post is an excellent litmus test for understanding of just war theory. Despite the fact that I can see how effective this would be, I must oppose it because the damage it would do to my enemy (who bashes in my mailbox) would far outweigh the good of saving my mailbox. Its disproportionality is opposed by our duty in charity (and even justice) to watch out even for the good of our enemies. (Yes, by the way, I have had my mailbox bashed in by random vandals.)

In 1995, 45% of British milk was delivered to the doorstep before seven in the morning by a milkman in an electric float. In 2026, it is 3%. The milkman has been effectively abolished inside one human generation. The supermarket walked in, undercut the cost by a few pence per pint, and the daily ritual of British household life, glass bottles clinking on the step at half past six, was gone by the time the children of 1995 had finished secondary school. The cost to the customer was a few pence per pint. The cost to the system was, in rough order: the glass bottle that was washed and reused hundreds of times, replaced with a plastic bottle that is used once and recycled imperfectly. The local dairy that supplied one town, replaced with a national processor that supplies half the country. The milk that arrived four hours after milking, replaced with milk that arrived three days after milking after a journey of 200 miles. The conversation on the doorstep, replaced with a self-checkout beep. The milkman himself, incidentally, had the lowest recorded rate of heart disease of any male occupation in Britain. He walked approximately 12 miles a day, finished work by 10am, and ate a cooked breakfast. He has been replaced, in the same delivery role, by a zero-hours Amazon Flex driver sitting in a Ford Transit. A small piece of British daily infrastructure was quietly demolished. Nobody was consulted. The milk is still being produced. It is just being produced further away, transported further, kept in plastic, and sold at a different margin, by a different business, to a customer who never sees who milked the cow. The milkman knew your name. The self-checkout does not.

I'm always flummoxed when mainstream news sources describe a lawsuit, indictment, or pertinent document without actually linking to it. The SPLC indictment isn't linked in New York Times, AP, BBC, The Guardian, or any of first 10 sources I checked. Just have to take their word for it.

Sketches used by USSR police to identify suspects based on their ethnicity.