Which means that they deserve a beating. Of course, then we get to beat up the ones that beat them up. I suppose for the sake of fairness, we’d have to beat those people up, too. I wonder what we do when we run out of people.
I’ll answer, just for the hell of it.
#1. Probably they could have. Why should they though? We live in a world where punching a man who steals from you is a reason for you being charged with a crime. That’s fucked up.
#2. Like I’ve said before, I would have.
#3. Nope. HE committed the crime, and he must deal with the consiquences of that act. If that means that the friends of the person he robbed get in on it, well then, he shouldn’t have robbed the person in the first place. If you and I were out together and someone started to beat you because you are gay, wouldn’t you expect me to pitch in and defend you? I absolutely would. Why is it that your sympathies seem to lie with the criminal in this case and not the victim?
Yeah, that would be defense of others, you can read about it here!
CMC fnord
Why should they restrict the force they use to that which is necessary to detain the thief? Because we have a little something called a social contract. Part of that contract is that we have police and courts to deal with people who break the law. We don’t mete out punishment to lawbreakers on our own, and if we do then we must be prepared to suffer the legal consequences. Battery has been illegal in the United States pretty much since it was founded. Ar you suggesting that we as a nation have been fucked up since we were founded?
And if you were arrested for aggravated battery, what would your defense be? “He deserved it”?
This is actually question 4, but I’ll grant that your answer to #2 will also serve as your answer to #3. Your suggestion that five people beating up a wallet thief is the equivalent of your stepping in to stop an attack on me (for whatever motive) is invalid. In the case of the five, they are recovering property. In your hypothetical, you are acting to stop an ongoing assault. In the case of the five, they used more force than was necessary to recover the stolen property. In your hypothetical, you would be free to use the force necessary to stop the assault. If the attack on me ended and you continued to beat the person, then you would have overstepped legal and ethical boundaries and you would deserve to be arrested and convicted for using the excessive force, and I’d be the first one to testify for the prosecution at your trial, just as soon as I got done testifying against the man you beat excessively for his attack on me. You would not, however, deserve to take a beating from the basher or the basher’s friends.
What if, after the soldiers finished beating Bennett, a bystander or two had decided to get some licks in? How would you feel about that? What if instead of fleeing the scene, the soldiers had called in some more of their soldier friends and they’d taken some cracks at Bennett? Would that be all right?
A couple of additional questions:
Say instead of beating Bennett, one of the soldiers shot him in the leg instead? Would that be all right?
What if the bystanders, who presumably knew nothing of Bennett’s alleged thievery, had beaten the soldiers near-unconscious to stop the assault on Bennett. Acceptable or not?
“Where have all the flowers gone?”
No Otto, I am not saying that. But I am also savvy enough to know that up until recently (like the last 20-30 years), American society would have expected a wallet thief to be punched in the nose if caught and called it nothing more than what he deserved. I also note that crime has exploded in the time since that attitude changed. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.
Yup.
You keep rambling on and on with all these what ifs and how comes, while ignoring what I have been saying and what I’m defending. Let me state it simply: If a person is caught by his victims during the commission of a crime, than he should expect to be, and his victims have every right to, beat the snot out of him. That’s it. That’s all. I said nothing about beating someone and injuring him badly (there’s a big difference between that and simply beating someone up). I said nothing about meditated revenge. I said nothing about bystanders pitching in. Throughout this entire thread I’ve said nothing except that a thief got what he deserved because he was caught in the act by the people he was attempting to rob and they thumped him. The fact that you and people like you are so eager to criminalize what is simply an appropriate response by a victim to a criminal is, as I’ve said, one of the big things that’s wrong with this country today. Let me ask you again a question that you haven’t answered yet: Why is it that your sympathies seem to lie with the criminal in this case and not the victim?
The soldiers were also criminals. A criminal is someone who breaks the law. They broke the law. That you don’t think the law they broke is important for a civilized society to have doesn’t make their alleged behavior any less criminal.
Are you sure you want to stick with that timeline?
According to every statistic I’ve ever seen, the crime rate in the mid-70s and mid-80s was higher than it is now.
according to the FBI, crime rates have declined since 1973 - both property and violent of course, I’ve not seen evidence that facts deter you, Dave
A legal right? CITE?
So, what exactly is the difference between “beat the snot out of”/“simply beating someone up” and “beating someone and injuring him badly”?
Cause the Georgia Code says,
[
](http://www.legis.state.ga.us/cgi-bin/gl_codes_detail.pl?code=16-5-23.1)Can ya “beat the snot out of” without doing damage capable of being perceived by a person other than the victim?
Cause it is a crime?
The Georgia Code says,
[
](http://www.legis.state.ga.us/cgi-bin/gl_codes_detail.pl?code=16-5-23)
I see 2 victims and 6 criminals.
I have sympathy for the victims, and want to see the criminals punished, why don’t you?
When come back bring cites,
or pie!
CMC fnord
Funny how, if American society as a whole felt that it was hunky-dory to beat people up for stealing, that there’ve been laws against it across the entire nation for pretty much as long as there’s been a nation.
Enjoy prison.
I have understood from the first time you posted this exactly what you’re saying. The simple fact remains that American law and American society say that you’re absolutely wrong. Catching someone in the commission of a crime is not a license to beat them up. You have the right, should you find someone committing a crime, to use exactly as much force as is necessary to stop the crime. No more. You use one bit more force than what is necessary to stop the crime then you’re a criminal.
Can you quantify the difference between “beating someone up,” “beating the snot out of” someone and “beating someone and injuring him badly”? Is it OK to punch someone in the nose, as long as you don’t break the nose? Is it all right to cause blood loss, as long as it’s not too much blood? And how much blood would that be? Exactly how many times may one hit someone committing a crime after the crime has already been stopped? Once? Twice? A half-dozen? Is the number of punches proportionate to the amount of property stolen? Does he get more hits if there’s $200 bucks in the wallet than he would if there were only $20? Did each of the soldiers in this case deserve one free pop above and beyond the minimum, despite the fact that four of the five of them were not crime victims?
Well now that’s bullshit. What is beating someone more than is necessary to stop the crime if not “meditated revenge”?
No, but you have said that four people who were not crime victims have the right to attack a criminal because the fifth person was victimized. It’s a perfectly logical extension of your argument to allow non-victimised bystanders to pitch in with the beating, because those bystanders were exactly as victimised as four of the five soldiers you’re applauding for beating a man. You don’t want to admit to that, because it might force you to retreat from your lauding of four men who beat a man who did not steal from them.
Wrong. He was allegedly caught in the act of robbing one and was beaten by five. And even if he had stolen all five of their wallets, the civilized nation of which you are AFAIK a citizen has made it clear for hundreds of years that punishment for crimes is to be meted out by the criminal justice system, not the individual victims of crime.
Four of the five people who beat Bennett were not victims. Four of the five of them had no right to attack him. And I am not at all eager to criminalise the behaviour of the five thugs. Their behaviour has already been made criminal, and has been criminal for hundreds of years.
I’m sorry the guy had his wallet stolen. I had something of value stolen a couple of months ago so I know exactly how he felt. My sympathy for the victim ended when he took it upon himself to use force against Bennett in excess of what was needed to stop the crime and recover the wallet. And I have no sympathy whatsoever, and never did, for the four others who beat Bennett despite not having been victims of crime at all.
But crime has not “exploded” since “that [legendary] time.” Crime rose pretty much with a strong correlation to the percentage of the population that was male between the ages of 15 and 35 and began to fall (almost fifteen years ago, for those who have not been keeping up) as that demographic reduced in size. Most of the apparent rise in crime in the last fifteen years (based on prison cenus) has been the result of incarcerating more people for drug use. Actual violent crime has been falling for quite a while.
Well, as that flower grew larger, it started hanging its little head over the property line into my yard, and that’s tresspassing. Naturally, I beat the snot out of the little daisy.
dave will be along shortly to worship you
Drat, I was hoping someone would recognize that little bit from a folk song which I last heard sung by Peter, Paul, and Mary.
This guy would probably prefer the beating to the punishment. In Virginia for example if you take greater than $5 (or some low number like that) off the person of someone else that’s a felony and results in jail time.
Most con men would take a few lumps versus months in a regional jail any day of the week and twice on sunday.
…when will [DEL]they[/DEL] you ever learn, when will [DEL]they[/DEL] you ever learn… 
CMC fnord!
Pete Seeger > Kingston Trio > Peter, Paul, and Mary
I graduated h/s in the early 70’s - of course I recognized that line. (bit of trivia, either Peter or Paul, can never remember which, spoke at the graduation ceremonies since they, too, had once graduated from that h/s).
If that’s the case, then jail probably is the better option-it would be more of a deterrant, don’t you think?