Date: Tue, 23 Jul 91 12:20:22 PDT
From: nelson@BOLYARD.WPD.SGI.COM(Nelson Bolyard)
Subject: File 2--Response to "The Terminus of Len Rose"

In article <1991Jul19.033544.11623@chinacat.unicom.com> "Craig Neidorf"
<C483307@UMCVMB.BITNET> wrote one of the first articles I've read that
actually gave facts about what happened to Len Rose after he moved to
Illinois.  I appreciate that.  But then he wrote (about the law
enforcement folks who were involved):

>A Few Words About Law Enforcement and the Len Rose case...

>[...] These people are decent folks just like you and me.  Despite the
>highly publicized incidents of the past couple of years, the vast
>majority of these people are not out there trying to destroy someone's
>life just to make a name for themselves or to put a notch on their
>desk.  They believe in their work like a sacred religious mission.  At
>the same time they have families, hobbies, like to go to the movies,
>play video games, take vacations during the holidays, and everything
>else.

> [...] I believe that the prosecutors
>acted in the way they thought best and were not out to deny Rose of
>his constitutional rights, [...]

>     While I believe that the prosecutors involved with his case are
>honest, hardworking, and highly motivated people, [...]

>As a group in general, the law enforcement community has
>earned my respect and appreciation.

This is sad.  During World War II, millions of innocent and
less-than-innocent people were put to death in concentration camps by
"decent folks" who "believe in their work like a sacred religious
mission", who "have families, hobbies, like to go to the movies, play
video games, take vacations during the holidays, and everything else."
They were just soldiers in a war, who did what they believed their
superiors expected of them, without questioning the morality of their
actions.  Some of them actually believed the pseudo-religious Nazi
doctrines that the jews were the cause of all their people's problems.

The lesson we and all the world's inhabitants should have learned from
WW2 is that each of us is responsible for the consequences of his
actions, and it is up to each of us to be sure that our actions are
moral and just.  None of us can hide his actions behind the excuse
that his superiors, or some recent and hastily-enacted law, justifies
an immoral act.

If the law enforcement community of the US has failed to learn this
lesson, then we are doomed to repeat an awful history.

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