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Originally Posted by silveroak
Hiring an assassin is a much more direct course of action than telling someone about an affair. it is specifying an outcome and taking direct action to cause it. Telling someone about an affair is setting something in motion and hoping for the outcome you wanted. Intent does not trump common sense.
Even if you took a much more direct approach- for example telling someone with severe depression that nobody likes them, they are worthless, they may as well let the world be rid of them, and they commit suicide, there is no such thing as killing someone with words. Words are not a deadly weapon.
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Of course there is. In my country, encouraging suicide is a criminal offence.
Telling someone about an affair is also a direct course of action. It is perhaps 'less' direct than hiring an assassin, but hiring an assassin is also 'less' direct than doing the killing yourself. Where do you draw the line? Is it ok to ask someone else to hire an assassin? What about feeding someone aggravating drugs and handing him a loaded gun before you tell about the affair?
Quote:
Originally Posted by silveroak
I also notice that in your cries of straw man you also ignored the real life example I gave above of my first wife's mother- would you care to answer that question before you start insisting that you are right because you are right and we just need to understand that?
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You did not provide sufficient information. Like I said, if you supply her with more cigarettes than she would have bought herself and encourage her to smoke more than she otherwise would with the explicit intent for her to die sooner, then yes, I consider it a criminal offence.
If you simply provide the cigarettes she asks for without discouraging her smoking because you secretly hope she dies from it, then no, I would not consider it criminal offence. Despicable, amoral and pathetic, but not criminal.
I must admit I haven't made up my mind about the voodoo example. On one hand, the intent is there, on the other hand, if they keep to just dolls, their actions are completely harmless. Someone could also pray for their god for someone to die. I'm inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.