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Well, perhaps civilization could be defined as the rule of law. The stabbing, for one, sounded quite unscripted and spontaneous - definitely wouldn't happen in my dictatorship! The moment the officials lose control of the course of events is when we move from civilized behaviour to barbaric IMO.
Even in Britain public floggings and hangings really haven't been gone for that long in the grand scheme of things. Most of our notions of human rights and modern concepts of 'civilized behaviour' are very very new really and thus the idea that they hold some kind of inner truth is still a bit of a leap of faith IMO.
[ 03-30-2005, 06:18 AM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]
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