Jeez, Monty, you’re no fun. Why can’t you just let me make blanket statements and get away with it? What, do you think this is a discussion board or something?
No, that would be a perfect world, not perfect justice.
I’m a decent person as long as (and usually longer than) the other guy is a decent person. My decency does have its limits. I guess I should have qualified how decent I am.
OK, let me try this a different way, but I’m sure you’ll be no fun and beat me up again. Person A starts a fight with Person B, during the fight B intentionally pokes A in the eye, blinding him permanently. Now, should I feel sorry for A? Hell no, he started the fight and bad things happen during a fight. If he didn’t want to be blind he shouldn’t have started a fight. Is B a little bit of a duochebag for intentionally blinding the guy? Probably. I personally wouldn’t hang out with a guy who intentionally blinds people. But I still don’t feel sorry for A. He started the damn fight!
I know this analogy isn’t perfect, thats one of the defining characteristics of analogies. Let me go through it a little. The rapist (A) is in prison, where bad things happen. The tattooist (B) intentionally tattooed him (which really isn’t permanent, but we’ll call it the same). Now, again, should I feel sorry for A? Hell no; he kidnapped, raped, and mudered a 10 year old girl. Now he’s in prison, where bad things happen. If he didn’t want to be tattooed he shouldn’t have gone to prison. If he didn’t want to go to prison he shouldn’t have kidnapped, raped, and then murdered a 10 year old girl.
I guess it goes back to my, admittedly limited, decency. The rapist quit being decent, so now I’ve quit being decent.
To my mind the justice of the act comes from the lack of punitive element in the state punishment meted out to the killer. If I felt he had been adequately punished by the state and justice had been done by the state I’d be inclined to condem the Cousin’s actions. In the absence however of sufficient punishment by the state I find it hard to blame the Cousin for attempting to level the balance.
If there are enough thinking people who believe in a system of laws and a reversible system of justice, and they believe in their goals strongly enough, they may prevail in a republic over the majority of cruel, reflexive bastards who are fortunately mostly too self-absorbed to act about it.
Which is one good thing about not being a pure democracy.
That’s a good question. I’ll bet a forehead tattoo doesn’t change this guy from a child killer to a model citizen, though. It does, however, close the distance between the good guys and the bad guys a bit. Do we really want that?
I think the phrase you are looking for is “assumption of the risk” In today’s society a child molester has to realize that there is a pretty large prison population that were the victims of child molesters and therefore assumes the risk that just about anything can happen to them. We can only do so much to protect everyone when we segregate those members of society that have violated the social contract. There is likely to be a high concentration of violations of the social contract going on within that segregated community.
The part that bothers some people is that A) it seems like there was probably an opportunity to stop this at some point but someone probably looked the other way and B) a lot of people on this board would have looked the other way as well (if not actually held the fucker down).
Then you need to lobby your congressmen for some form of punishment greater than life imprisonment in these cases, either support the death penalty or branding or something. It does violence to our system of justice to condone vigilantism. Process is important.
Condoning summary justice does violence to a legal system not to a system of justice. The two are very frequently distinct. Legality may be unjust the same as justice may be illegal. Personally I favour justice over legality and am happy to condone an act of justice.
William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!
Perhaps. Lynch mobs, blood feuds may be just or may be unjust. I have little moral problem with a lynch mob that get’s it right; by the same token I have serious problems with one that get’s it wrong.
Applying your reasoning however I could equally well reverse the arguement and suggest that you don’t care if laws are just or unjust. I’m no more advocating a mob rule situation than I anticipate you are advocating a 1984 or Facist system.
Of the two I’d place more emphasis on justice than legality.
That’s it. That’s the answer. My decency has its limits. He quit being decent, so I no longer feel the need to be decent toward him.
I don’t necessarily condone the act, I just don’t feel bad for the tattooed. “Assumption of the risk” and all that (thanks **col_10022 ** for the nice terminology).
