Posted on 09/13/2007 8:26:58 AM PDT by Jedi Master Pikachu
Indians seem more benign than their Asian counterparts, the Mohammedans, but the more I read about India the more it seems their culture is equally as twisted as Islam.
The lynchings of Blacks in the South during the first 30 years of the 20th Century was the result of a inadequate or corrupt government? The vigilantism I speak of was certainly not people taking the law into their own hands because the laws weren't being adequately enforced by government, it was hatred, pure and simple.
I’m with you. Vigilantism arises when government breaks down and ceases to perform its proper function. It is not the ideal.
Reading the story, you can see some of the problems with vigilantism. Is the best solution to rampant theft to catch the thieves and put out their eyes, or torture and kill them? I don’t think so.
On the other hand, letting thieves run rampant and doing nothing about it is even worse. The preferred solution is to get a better government. But realistically that isn’t always possible. The second-best solution might be a more just form of vigilantism, better organized, in which thieves are punished but with some reasonable approach to justice rather than uncontrolled mob fury, such as flogging them instead of blinding or killing them. The idea is to persuade them not to do it again, but to go into some other line of business. Repeat offenses might be treated accordingly.
In other words, you need an unofficial justice system if you can’t have an official one, not a lynch mob.
Montana had vigilantes too. They were organized committees of citizens who captured, tried, and hanged criminals. There are those who criticize their conduct and results but at the time Montana was unsafe territory where many suspected Sheriff Plummer of being in cahoots with the roadagente. He and many others were tried and executed.
No system of justice is perfect and where there is no system or a hopelessly inept or corrupt system then direct citizen action is undertaken to safeguard life and property. They do not function as well as a formal, honest system and therefore often commit their own crimes. But they make the bad guys think twice in places where ther is no law.
Having never lived in a truly lawless environment I find it hard to criticize people who take extereme measures to safeguard their community. The government needs to step up and do its job to stop this and this wouldn’t happen.
Yes. I admit that I was thinking and wondering about our own system of justice when I wrote that.
Vigilantism is never the best solution. But systems of justice are always imperfect, too. America has better justice than most nations in history, but it’s very far from perfect. You have rampant political corruption in most states and municipalities, and you have activist ideological judges in most courts, as seems to be the case with the decision you mention.
Since when is the testimony of one criminal against another not admissible in court? The job of the jury and the lawyers is to weigh such evidence and decide how credible it is. But I have never heard of the idea that you can’t get one criminal to testify against another. Preposterous.
All that aside from the beastliness of the crime. No doubt the released criminal will now go into business, with the judges’ compliments, running a preschool service. This is the kind of decision that strongly tempts people to turn to vigilante justice.
The lynchings you speak of had nothing to do with what is commonly understood to be vigilante activity.
I agree that torture is wrong, but I have no problem with executing thieves. They are a plague.
A disgusting practice, then and now...
“When the Mob rules, it lynches” -— Jose Ortega Y Gasset
Sometimes it "is" a good thing, when the only alternatives are worse.
"Justice is something for the government to mete out, not an angry mob."
See above, somethmes the government will NOT do it's job, and sometimes government IS the problem.
"If the government is not doing its job, India has a representative form of government, and they can vote in a more responsible government."
Sometimes that isn't possible, even with a supposedly "representative form of government". To say otherwise is a nice idealistic sentiment.
Some freepers support actual vigilantism. As some here have pointed out, that could be because there is not other reasonable way. But even if vigilantism is inevitable, the group of people should have a set of rules that they follow when hunting down, prosecuting, and punishing criminals.
Minuteman movement.....
If you've read the section, you will see little there which opposes what the Minutemen do, chiefly watch the border and report to the government (via the border patrol) when they spot an illegal alien, which is perfectly legal--vigilantism is not.
As someone who spent some years in remote, sparsely populated areas I can tell you that this was usually the case. When law enforcement was hours away and often not available for anything but major crimes, ad hoc groups would form. I never saw any of the mob mentality that is depicted in movies but usually older and very somber and sober respected citizens would meet to consider the situation.
The deliberations were probably more intense than actual jury trials. Each man knew that he was putting his name and reputation on the line. There would be no legal games and no absolution before God if they were in error. They most often tended to the minimum practical solution to the problem, most often a warning that the transgressors crimes were known and that they would stop immediately or the criminals would face the wrath of the community. Usually that stopped the behavior.
If that didn't work, the subject would have a visit by a group of very serious and very fit men with a final warning as a demonstration of what they were facing. From there things would escalate rapidly. There would probably be a beating. Then there would be a notice that their presence was no longer desirable in the county. Then there would be a 24 hour deadline to leave town. Then...
Rarely did things go past steps one or two. It was efficient and effective and I never, ever, saw it abused.
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