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this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2024
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Do we really want vigilantism though? Because that's where this leads.
Maybe the police should do their job for a change.
Not defending the cops here but the guy was arrested. The justice system set him free again.
Fair enough, the courts didn't do thier job. The courts and the police work for us. If they fail us, we have to take over. That should be the defense.
You literally just described vigilante justice.
Yes, I did. Sadly, it's time.
Just a thought: what happens when that "we" is people who - say - think the courts and the police are not doing their job in sending home all "these illegal immigrants" or something like that?
This is not even a slope, it is the application of the same principle applied by people who have different views and morality.
Edit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative
That is supposed to be the motivation for the system to do it's job... preventing groups with minority opinions from taking matters into thier own hands. But that doesn't seem to be enough anymore. I don't suggest this path because it is a good choice. It's a horrible choice. Innocent people will be hurt or killed for sure. But that is already happening in larger and larger numbers from the systems inaction. And the cost of inaction is past the tipping point with the cost of action. And I see no other choice. But I am open to suggestions.
Then we have a nice little civil war again, kill a few million of them, and this time when they surrender for the second time, we do a hard reset of their entire culture - no monuments, no statues, no memorials, no representation or voting for any of them or any who aided or abetted them, or their children, or their children's children.
Right, violence works usually works to eradicate ideas and standardize morality!
Which is true, and also doesn't address the point. (Also, obligatory ACAB.)
The problem with vigilantism is that the vigilante both decides whether an offense has been committed, and what the punishment should be for that offense. If I've been hit repeatedly by people speeding in my neighborhood, and cops aren't giving the speeders tickets, no one in their right mind is going to say that I should start shooting at people driving in my neighborhood. (Or, I would hope no one in their right mind would say that.)
She knew whether an offense had been committed.
That doesn't prove it to anyone else, of course, but it doesn't seem like anyone is (now?) contesting the the offense in question was committed. Just that he got off free and she had no recourse. This is not a one time event, either, it's a pattern where the law fails to protect people in this situation and then throws the book at them if they take matters into their own hands. If she had not, do you think this dude would still be free? Or would the law have eventually caught up to him, after who knows how many more victims?
You don't get a license to kill just because the justice system failed you. I'm loving how everyone is screaming about how bad the justice system is with this case yet they think a bunch of pissed off ppl thirsty for revenge is a somehow the more measured and practical solution.
What if after she set the house on fire it burned down the whole block? What if the guy had a victim in the house with him when it happened? Another person pointed out she could've destroyed evidence from other victims. Two wrongs don't make a right
I'm not saying it's more measured or practical, I'm saying it's inevitable when the system doesn't serve the people. I'm saying chaos is preferable to tyranny.
Even if she didn't harm any other people - the criminal justice system in the US doesn't allow for the death penalty for cases of rape. (And in point of fact, part of the reason that we don't do that any more is because it tended to be disproportionately applied against black men accused of assaulting white women.)
There's still answers out there that are "more right" than others.
Jill, what do you think the price of this bag of rice is? $8.50? Unfortunately, not correct at all. Bob? The 1950s Hall of Rock and Roll on VHS? That's a thoroughly nonsensical answer that barely even respects the question! The answer was $11.
Sentencing judge, what do you think this man's punishment for rape should be? Nothing? Oh, wow, that's a very obviously wrong answer! Vigilante, your go. Well, we were looking for "A life sentence with chance of parole after 30 years", but I will say, "Shoot him in the head" is closer to correct.
I feel like some people there's a "magic light" applied to courtrooms with judges, that makes their judgments more fair by implication. But it's absolutely possible for three people in lawnchairs discussing matters over beer to make a more fair judgment than some judges.
That's certainly true if "fair" in your view isn't the same thing as, "consistent with the law and precedent".
Let me pose this a slightly different way: a person murders a baby. Should the person be arrested? Should they be tried for murder? Should they be executed? What if the 'baby' is actually an 8 week old fetus, and the person is a doctor performing a legal elective abortion? Religious zealots and right-wing misogynists are going to argue that killing the doctor is morally justified and "fair". Should each person get to apply their own moral code?
We need to change the precedent so that rapists get life in prison.
Precedent can be shit too. Remember when “separate but equal” was precedent?
Ah, yes, so that rape is treated the same as murder. Which will result in more murders. Because if you go to prison for the same amount of time either way, why not go all-in an murder your victim?
This isn’t a case of fighting moral codes. This is a case of battles of safety.
There are many issues of safety that affect all people, including food safety, mental safety, economic safety. All of those have resulted in court battles, as well as court failures. Safety from violence is the basic one, and people will often need to make their decisions around it on a faster basis than courts can proceed.
That’s the practical analysis, rather than the idealistic view where every single disagreement of any kind would receive a protracted court debate with all evidence present.
People are all capable of in-the-moment vigilantism (heck, most murderers feel this way). Society can still evaluate their cases afterwards to say whether they were warranted or not. I argue people should feel some safety from repercussions if society can agree their actions demanded some form of immediacy beyond what courts could provide, and did something good for society or were necessary for their own safety.
A zealot would get no such votes unless they were given a jury of their fellow zealots, and if that’s possible then I can think of no fair justice system in such a society.
Anti-choice zealots argue precisely this: they are protecting babies from premeditated violence.
It's not what I believe. But it's the justification that they use to bomb reproductive clinics and murder OBGYNs.
That's the risk we run when we accept vigilante justice; we normalize it so that other people can use it for other reasons that we may or may not find morally acceptable.
Isn't that what happened here? She was charged with murder, and she took a plea deal since it's likely she would have lost a court case; she had no reasonable claim of being in fear for her life, and as a matter of law, her attorney wouldn't be allowed to make the argument that her abuser/victim deserved to be killed.
When the official justice system fails people, some of them will take matters into their own hands. Frankly it's surprising there isn't more political violence targeting police and corrupt judges.
And remember, jury nullification exists.
ahem Yes, surprising. And, yes it does.
In this case? Absolutely yes.
Are you willing to universalize that though? Are you willing to allow all people that believe that they have been treated unjustly to take justice into their own hands?
Absolutely not.
That's your risk though. You let this person administer their own justice, why shouldn't someone else?
Where, exactly, is the line? How do you keep that slope from getting covered with oil and grease?
I mean you talk like it isn't already a vigilante based system.
Everything you are arguing is already happening. Except the vigilantes are state sanctioned.
Cops pick and choose what laws to both follow AND enforce all the time. And the judges protect them.
By definition they aren't vigilantes if they're state-sanctioned. You can't be both a vigilante and state sanctioned.
Yes, cops pick and choose which laws to enforce (and I'm not addressing which laws cops follow, since it's not directly relevant here). But cops are also supposed to be disinterested parties; the idea with having cops enforcing the law rather than a person that feels wronged is that cops ar supposed to be more even-handed, even if that's not the way that it always--or even often--works out. Accepting vigilantism means that we throw out any semblance of impartiality, and make everything subjective.
If all you wanna do is argue definitions sure, but this ain't rocket science. The end results are the same.
...Except that they aren't even remotely the same.
Vigilantism results in lynchings. That's the end result.
So you think lynchings are a different than being shot 15 times in your home while complying.
Gotcha. You wanna be a 'rules lawyer'.
That's not how it works.