Academic dishonesty

[delwynmarch]

No: HPFGUIDX 139636

Eggplant wrote:
"If a petty crime gets more and more petty eventually you get to the point where it is so extraordinary petty it's just not worth bothering with anymore."

Del replies:
Absolutely not true in most judicial systems, thankfully. Very petty crimes are being tried every day, simply because they are crimes. While a serial killer is being tried in one court room, a petty thief is being tried in another one. Even people who just drove through a red light are not given a pass simply because there are more horrible crimes being committed and tried out there.

Eggplant wrote:
"Any prosecution would cause a judge to thunder "My court does not deal in trivialities!" I don't think Harry committed any crime, but if he did it was a very very very petty crime."

Del replies:
First, cheating isn't a crime.

Second, just because there are many many things that are more wrong than cheating, doesn't mean that cheating can't be considered wrong anymore. If I had two sons, and one killed a classmate while the other only cheated on his exams, I wouldn't punish them the same way, of course, but I wouldn't give a pass to the cheater either under the pretense that "what you did isn't anywhere as bad as what your brother did, so let's just forget about it". What is wrong is wrong.

Third, considering the stance of moral relativism that you are taking, I fail to see how you can condemn Snape so strongly, considering that his one murder isn't anywhere as bad as what LV and some of his other DEs did...

Del