Intention
Intentional property damage may be considered a form of violence, albeit one usually (but not always) less reprehensible than violence which does bodily harm to other living beings. For example, allowing a pacemaker to fail or a well to become poisoned may qualify as both property damage and lead to bodily harm. On a similar note, certain forms of property damage may prevent bodily harm, such as breaking a piece of machinery that was about to injure a person. Some argue that property damage signals a willingness to do bodily harm or otherwise intimidates the free flow of communication in political or economic debates. Mohandas Gandhi was of this opinion, but nonetheless differentiated doing bodily harm from property damage, even if he thought both to be violence, which also he thought admissible in certain dire circumstances.
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Famous quotes containing the word intention:
“I would say here something that was heard from an ecclesiastic of the most eminent degree; “That the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how the heaven goes.””
—Galileo Galilei (1564–1642)
“Laws should be interpreted in a liberal sense so that their intention may be preserved.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)
“The powers of the federal government ... result from the compact to which the states are parties, [and are] limited by the plain sense and intention of the instrument constituting that compact.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)