say what you mean and mean what you say

One of the things I like about being in law school is that you get exposed to a lot of different opinions. For me, this is a good thing, because in the years leading up to law school, I started spending a lot of time with people who had similar political and social views as me. I don’t think this is anything extraordinary – we all tend to spend time with like-minded people, right?

So I’m sometimes fascinated with the different views expressed by fellow students. Other times, instead of being fascinated, I’m disturbed. Yesterday in Sub Crim, for example, we were talking about a case where two guys were fighting and one died later in the hospital because he pulled the tubes out of his arm while having an involuntary spasm. A student raised his hand and said something I never thought anyone would actually say, which was along the lines of “screw the victim because he had it coming.” So this guy wasn’t interested in debating whether the defendant (the other fighter) was responsible for the death or the chain of events that caused the death. Instead, he things (this is a direct quote) that “if you fight you consent to what happens to you” and “‘but for’ keeping his mouth shut, he wouldn’t have gotten his tubes taken out.”

I mean what can you possibly say in response to that kind of logic?