CZ Talk:Citizen/V1-N1

Really, the death of Bhutto should be called assassination, as she did not "pass away" as the text implies. Martin Baldwin-Edwards 12:40, 31 December 2007 (CST)

I swear, I haven't drunk a single drop yet. --Robert W King 12:44, 31 December 2007 (CST)

Also, I'm not so sure that it should be labeled an assassination yet; there was no autopsy performed of the body to determine if a bullet had indeed been inside of her skull, and the police pretty much seized her after she arrived at the medical examiners. IMO, the jury is still out even though there is video evidence that has the quality of the zapruder film. --Robert W King 12:47, 31 December 2007 (CST)

The NYT said yesterday that an autopsy showed that her skull was fractured by the force of the blast that threw her against the lever on her sunroof. If that isn't an assassination, I don't know what it could possibly be called. "Accidental death"?

As far as I've read today, there has been no official autopsy (the body has not been exhumed), so I would just call it "death"; whether it was accidental (say, an attempt to escape the blast or gunfire), or purposeful/assassination (she was actually shot). --Robert W King 13:20, 31 December 2007 (CST)

A man from Mars, reading "death" could easily think that she passed away peacefully from old age. I think that in this case that there is simply too much causal correlation: there are bullets fired into her; there is a powerful blast that kills twenty people; she dies. As Emerson famously wrote, "If you see a trout swimming in a barrel of milk, there is presumptive evidence that the milk was watered." Hayford Peirce 13:24, 31 December 2007 (CST)

Is there a phrase for implying "caused death" as a result of an event enabler? --Robert W King 13:31, 31 December 2007 (CST)

Sure: "assassination". Or we could ask Larry, the resident Philosophy King.... Hayford Peirce 13:33, 31 December 2007 (CST)

My rationale is this: let's say you're taking photos near a cliff. Happily snapping away, someone opens up gunfire in your direction. You musjudge your surroundings and you fall to your doom. Are you "assassinated"? --Robert W King 13:48, 31 December 2007 (CST)

Yes. Please note the recent case of the 4 ppl in Atlanta who burlarized the house of the Washington Redskins football player. Three broke in and shot in him. He's dead. The dope who's sitting in the car, just being the driver, is gonna be charged with *murder*. Even though he didn't know anyone was at home and had nothing to do with it. Here in the Wild West of Tucson, where there are lotsa shootings like this, the dopes in the car are *always* charged with murder. Generally they cop a plea and turn evidence against the others, but the principle in law (at least in most places) is clear -- if you assist in some ways to someone else's death, you can be charged with a capital crime. Hayford Peirce 15:07, 31 December 2007 (CST)

assassination fits the case exactly. It seems unlikely the killer/bomber was trying to kill her driver and got her by mistake. Richard Jensen 15:12, 31 December 2007 (CST)

I'm not disputing that there is guilt by association; but if you end up doing something that ends your life as a result of trying to avoid dying at the hands of somebody else, is it really that secondary person's fault that you died? What if the would-be killer had missed and you hadn't fallen off the cliff? That certainly would be an "attempted" assassination, but who's fault is it if you slipped mistakingly and died? Is it the would-be assassin's? Maybe the phrase is "assassination by accident" or something to that effect. I'm just not sure it can be described purely as assassination since the original intent (to shoot you) failed. --Robert W King 15:14, 31 December 2007 (CST)