How someone treats me does not affect whether or not I commit crimes. I don't try to put one over on a bank that has snotty tellers any more than on a bank that calls me by my first name and gives me coffee. I don't think that's relevant, except to soothe one's own conscience.

I knew any number of ratbags in college who justified criminal behavior by saying they were simply doing it to "the system," or "the man." Nice try, guys.

And I think we have a different idea of what the term "judge" means. To judge someone means to take account of their actions, attitudes, behaviors, and other things and decide whether they are doing something right or wrong.

It does not mean running up to them and pointing fingers at them and announcing our judgment to the world. Nor does it mean stewing endlessly on what rotten people they are. Nor does it imply that by making such judgments, that I am in any way perfect. These things are ideally objective.

What exactly are you talking about when you use the term "judge?"

I write about moral judgments here not because I think I have been set up as the Lord High Inquisitor, but because I am often confronted with situations where people seem to think the very concept of judgment, deciding between right and wrong, is invalid. And then I need to make a point.

If the very act of discerning right from wrong is getting on a "high horse," then we are in serious trouble.

I'm certain that whatever the circumstances, you did not look at those who committed those crimes against you and say they did nothing wrong, or that you were not qualified to say whether or not they did something wrong.

This whole conversation started when I pointed out that keeping unearned money because someone else made a mistake was wrong on the face of it. I was somewhat surprised that you sprang up to defend these people. I would bet a month's pay that you yourself would have immediately returned the money, and not just because you knew the bankers.