In every case without exception vigilantism is an expression of the failure of an inadequate or corrupt government and ineffective or nonexistent law enforcement. Blame these, not the citizens. If the law is "in their own hands" it is because it was put there.
Agreed.
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.