Quote:
Originally Posted by David Sklansky
There is a second rebuttal to the argument that people who commit misdemeanors have their children taken away so why is this different. Besides the argument that these people are not criminals, there is the perhaps stronger argument that it is wrong to incarcerate the non dangerous small time criminals if it will harm their children.
That will be countered by the argument that such a policy allows people to game the system. To which the reply should be "that is a downside we must endure. Just like when terrorists use children as human shields. When they do that we don't bomb.
The general principle is that people should not be as concerned as they appear to be about getting scammed. Whether it applies to this issue, when be approached by a down and out appearing panhandler, or when considering my proposal to give amnesty to criminals who could get an innocent person out of jail when they in fact were the actual perpatrater.
Like with so many issues that are moral rather than political, the issue about gaming the system/etc is so dominated by the moral issue that it's not even worthy of consideration.
That bit is trivially easy. The difficult bit comes when someone like trump is trying to 'game the system' by using the kids. If he offers to release them in return for something he wants then, like kidnapping, it can come down to very difficult choices.