On Letting Houses Burn

Gene at Harry's Place blogs about the fire department of Obion County. They were ordered to allow Mr Cranick's house to burn down because he had not paid the annual fee for fire cover. Gene asks:

But aren’t there other principles involved here– like basic human decency? Like caring for one’s neighbor?

He also goes on to cite some American person claiming that the decision was right according to the Judeo-Christian tradition. Clearly not happy he says:

Fischer can speak for himself about about his interpretation of Christian tradition, but there’s nothing Judeo about having the means to help a neighbor in distress and not using them. Quite the opposite.

First to answer Gene's question - yes it would be good to be caring and generously put out Mr Cranick's house fire. However, if the fire department made it clear that it would always put out fires even for those who did not pay then very soon no one would pay and then no fires would be put out. So while the people involved I'm sure wanted to help Mr Cranick they did make the right decision.

Moving on to the second point. Given that the reason for not helping in this instance was to prevent abuse in the future it turns out that the decision was in fact in keeping with Jewish tradition. The tradition involved relates to the paying of ransoms. As I understand it the Jewish religion places much importance in paying ransoms to release people from captivity. Nevertheless, this is not to be done when it will simply encourage more kidnappings. Thus the notion of not helping one person so as not to encourage further problems is in keeping with the Jewish tradition.

Silent Jokes Don't Offend

Gene, at Harry's Place is not happy about Berlusconi's joke about Jews during the Holocaust. In particular he's not happy about what the Italian PM had to say afterwards:

In a statement, Berlusconi said his jokes had been made in private and were “neither an offense nor a sin, but merely a laugh.” He added: “The bad taste and the responsibility are on the part of whoever publicizes them.”

Gene asks (rhetorically I guess):

"So offensive jokes only become offensive when they cease to be private and become public?"

Am I alone in thinking "duh Gene!". The capacity of a joke to cause offence is not contained purely in the words itself. A joke told to an empty room does not have the capacity to offend anyone.

So in that regard Berlusconi is correct. His telling a joke privately did not offend anyone. People publicising the joke offended people, so it is those people that caused the offence.

Compare it, if you like, to someone firing arrows into an empty field. He has done nothing wrong. If someone else pushes someone in the way after the arrow is shot then it is this second person who bears all the responsibility.