Just Kidding!
The principle is this:
If you deliberately or through neglect put yourself in a position that is vulnerable to a person or persons who have not earned the appropriate degree of trust, then you are foolish.
If you are the person who takes advantage of such a person, then you are immoral and, when applicable, criminal.
Now, there’s a whole other question. Does a foolish person deserve to be fooled (taken advantage of, raped, robbed, etc…) My answer is no. Here’s another principle I offer you to guide you through these sorts of moral dilemmas:
In a situation where a person who has behaved foolishly is taken advantage of, the victim should shoulder none of the guilt for being victimized, but all of the guilt for behaving foolishly. (Naturally, the converse is true when speaking about the con/criminal).
- In the case of the fool dressed as a tramp, she should be thinking: That man should never have raped me, and I should never have dressed this way and then walked into a bar filled with unfamiliar, horny, men.
- In the case of the foolish congregation: The couple should never have defrauded us, and we should’ve done some actual homework beore giving away a house, rather than just trusting that it would all work out.
- In the case of the fool with the Dodge Shadow: Those dudes should never have broken into my car, and I should never have parked it here with a broken window.
There it is. My answer to the “Lady dressed as a tramp” question.
In the spirit of honesty, I scanned my posts and found that I did, at one point, make this statement: “Again, when you throw your money away like that, you deserve to lose it no matter how noble your intentions.”
I’ll have to retract that. No one deserves to be defrauded. However, I will say “You’re asking for it!” when you act on faith.
(It is important to remember that the phrase “asking for it” is not meant literally, and I think the imprecision with which that phrase is used fuels many of the “Lady dressed like a tramp” arguments. One side will say “She’s asking for it” meaning that she’s acting foolishly and making herself vulnerable, but the other side will take it literally and demand that no victim is asking to be victimized. And around and around they go…)
But you can see than when you frame the argument according to the principles I have laid out, the issue becomes much clearer. It’s a case of fools being defrauded by immoral people. And in this particular case, their faith was their folly.
