Reader Ray Eckhart sides with Boja Willy on the prison rape issue, drawing on the authority of no less than Nietzsche:

The active, aggressive, arrogant man is still a hundred steps closer to justice than the reactive man; for he has absolutely no need to take a false and prejudiced view of the object before him in the way the reactive man does and is bound to do. For that reason the aggressive man, as the stronger, nobler, more courageous, has in fact also had at all times a freer eye, a better conscience on his side…

On the Genealogy of Morals

Second Essay, Section 11

“I’m with BW. The thought of humiliating spectacle, as expressed in his original post, is most satisfying as release of the frustration of Ashcroft’s announcement as well as payment for the breaking of the social contract.”

Reader Myria, however, disagrees — adding an interesting hypothetical twist to the proceedings:

Johnny Jihad likely will face such predations when he gets to prison. There’s perhaps an equal probability that he may force those predations on another, too, in the infinite order of prison pecking. These are facts, for better or ill (ones that perhaps we should be paying more attention too, but that’s another discussion), but no matter how much I might wish he were going to hang for his crimes I can’t take any pleasure in them.

Meantime, reader Michael Hunt seems to sum up the spirit behind BW’s candid posts — which Boja insists were directed at Walker, and were not meant to be instructive of all prisoners:

“Ideally, such brutality would be unnecessary; but we ARE hoping to make an example of John Walker, and we’re likewise (many of us) hoping he suffers for his heinous crimes. To suggest we’re doing otherwise is to muddy the ethical waters quite needlessly.”

And thanks to rest of you for your considered responses.

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