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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Al" data-source="post: 2026862" data-attributes="member: 2486">Never mind the road to hell being paved with good intentions, how about the road to falling from paladinhood being lined with disproportionate punishment.  The chain of causation from the "murder the slavers" side seems to run as follows: slavery is evil, therefore we can kill the slavers.  That's not very sophisticated.  There is an underlying assumption that if someone is committing evil acts, then that's automatic licence to sneak into their house and slit their throat.  I cannot see how anyone can argue that this is either lawful or good.  Good and lawful people, and especially lawful good people, and doubly so for paladins, follow the whole "proportionate punishment" line, which unfortunately means that you can't punish people in an unrestricted fashion for their crimes just because the crimes are judged to be wrong.  The most absurd argument raised is "enslave the slavers"! What?  Would anyone making that point engage brain and then edit their posts? Even the most cursory logic seems to reveal that if slavery is evil always and absolutely, then enslaving people is also evil.  See? It wasn't too hard.  The childish notion of so-called "poetic justice" doesn't really seem to hold any philosophical water.  Oh the great irony!  What a hoot!  Perhaps we could introduce mandatory rape as a penalty for rapists?  Torture as a device against torturers?  Ask yourselves: how can it be unacceptable for someone else to enslave, but perfectly acceptable for the paladin to enslave?  If slavery is evil always and absolutely, then, duh, slavery is evil always and absolutely, regardless of who is enslaving whom.  One of the most important differences between good and evil is that not only are their goals difference but so are their methodologies; using evil measures against evil people is still evil.  Full stop, and despite what the asinine warblings of the BoED tell us (poison is evil - but ravages aren't!)This situation calls for proportionate measures.  Liberating the slaves is the first step, since it both alleviates the suffering of the slaves themselves and simultaneously punishes the slavers (since they get their property taken).  The second is to operate a concerted effort to restrict and eventually move to the abolition of slavery.  But simply going in there and killing them is counter-productive and immoral.</blockquote>

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