But that is not your argument - your argument is that justice does not “belong” to the people, or the government, or one person, but is a principle beyond society. If we must render unto Caesar, then you must not take the law into your own hands; in a democracy, the people are Caesar, and you are failing to render what is theirs.
Or, that particular quote does not apply, in which case you can’t use it to make your argument here.
Ah, then your position is not only that you are wiser and of better judgement and perspective than the majority of people in your country, but also that you are braver and more courageous of character.
Consider that I disagree with you on this point; I don’t believe that your particular belief is the logical extension of that. To continue on logically, either I am a liar, or I am not within “most other people”. And if i’m not within “most other people”, then you must have a reason how you know that “most” people are so certainly cowards and don’t simply disagree. Perhaps I should turn my question around; not why you consider yourself to be so much better than most, but why you feel most are so much inferior to you?
How on earth is a “guaranteed pardon” just? That part of the hypothetical bothers me quite a bit. Having the Pardoner giving a wink and a nod to a criminal act before the fact is an utter failure in any concept of justice.
Nevertheless, the hypothetical is asking what we would personally do and a guaranteed pardon is very specifically included, so the larger issues of justice are irrelevant. I suppose a hypothetical could be phrased: “What if there were one or more extra-legal death squads that enacted justice when the conventional system failed?”
As far as I know, such squads are commonplace throughout history and they tend not to behave in the manner Curtis suggests, even if they started out that way.
Sure. I have no doubt Curtis’s views are shaped more by comic books and TV shows than detailed readings of the repercussions of Miranda v. Arizona. Heck, starting in the seventies or so, the whole “he got off on a technicality” thing was featured in approximately one billion movies and TV shows. I saw a Law & Order: SVU episode recently that had a particularly absurd variant with the requisite “true justice” ending:
Guy kills three “anchor babies” (American-born children of immigrants) and though he admits to it on the stand and although the strangle-chain with victim DNA was found in his possession, his lawyer (a painfully-fake-accented John Larroquette) argues that the real perpetrator is the Limbaugh/Beck/Hannity/Dobbs character who routinely broadcasts anti-immigrant rhetoric. The guy is acquitted (! - not even committed to a mental institution) and in the final scene, is revealed to have been shot dead by his own lawyer, who feared he’d kill again
I wasn’t taking the show all that seriously before, but now I can never do so again.
Isn’t this the sort of mindset that lead to Emmett Till’s murder? Eventually, you’re going to have hate crimes “pardoned” because the killer will simply claim it was “justice”.
Ah, but it’s not. Not at the individual level. A soldier shoots another soldier, unprovoked - because he’s told to, because the other guy has the wrong uniform on. Doesn’t really matter : it’s still an undeserved kill, since the other guy is just a soldier from the other side, who possibly never shot his weapon. Or possibly did - but nobody ever checks.
Besides, if you’re a Christian, you should know that the commandment doesn’t say “Thou shalt not kill, except for…”. Now, you might try and fiddle around with that killing interdict, by adding clauses to it such as “unless it’s self defense” or “doesn’t count in war, that would just be stupid”, or even “unless the bastard *really *deserves it” as you seem to, but by then it’s not *absolute *anymore, is it ?
I’m irreligious. I was raised a Christian, but even as a kid I was just going through the motions. I do believe that only the Sith deal in absolutes, though
And yes, I know most religions have moral diktats of one sort or another. How does that contradict the notion that we make them up as we go along ? Justice is just an idea, it’s not a law of physics. The Universe doesn’t seem to care overly much whether a murderer dies or lives to a hundred. Only we do. Which is why we come up with stories that tell us that even if the murderer does get away with it in this life, he’ll pay for sure posthumously. It’s neat and all, but…
I said I would only kill a murderer if I saw the murder happen. If I didn’t see any murder happen I wouldn’t kill the suspect.
Only if the government, the justice system, and the people fail to enforce justice. Just because they do not dispense justice does not mean that no one else can dispense it,.
I do not think think most people are inferior to me.
They’ve joined the military and there is war so it’s their jobs to do so.
The Bible also depicts the Israelites fighting in various wars. Also I would wish for Jesus’ ideal of “Turn the other cheek” to be true however that will simply result in the triumph of evil in the world and unjust massacres, genocides, rapes, murders etc.
Even without a religion if humans have evolved to be sapient and intelligent than we should know the difference of right and wrong and of the evils of murder.
So ? That makes them deserving of a bullet ? What about conscripts and press-ganged folks, how do they fit in your nice little system ? How about soldiers who kill civilians in what’s so lovingly called “collateral damage” ?
The truth is, we give them all a pass, because it’s convenient. If we didn’t, we couldn’t wage wars, and wars are damn convenient to wage. So, since we made all that shit up anyway, it was a given we’d make it up in ways that exclude wars from the crime/punishment paradox (to a point. The losers are usually guilty of a heap of war crimes, 'cause that also is convenient).
Rationalize all you want, brother. That doesn’t make my statement re:absolutes any less true. Besides, won’t the massacrees, genocidees, rapees and murder victims go to a martyr’s Heaven, doubly so if they turned the other cheek ? Or do you only hark Jesus’ words when it suits you ?
As a sidenote, I can’t help noticing your sentence implies you believe there to be *just *massacres, genocides and rapes. Just sayin’, because it made the linguist in me smile.
Why ?
OK, that was a trick question. But if you study anthropology, you’ll find that societies ancient and present treat murder very differently from one to the next. So what is justice, then ? And, for that matter, what is right and wrong, besides a consensus ? It’s all arbitrary lines in the sand, when you get right down to it. Even if you back them up by “God said so !!!”. In fact, possibly even more so in that case ;).
Consider this : I hear -though it might well be apocryphal- that in feudal Japan, any crime was to be punished harshly. However punishing the culprit was secondary. A bonus and a goal to strive for, certainly, but not the end all, be all of criminal affairs. In a pinch, a scapegoat did just fine. What really mattered was that the societal problem had been fixed quickly, or appeared to have been, so that everyone could go back to their lives.
Obviously, to our sensibilities, this is Wrong. To theirs, it was good and proper. Who’s right ? Answer : neither, of course. It’s not wrong within the context of possibly-apocryphal-ancient-Japan, where people accept this conception of justice, and it’s not proper outside of it where people don’t. Crimes come and go : we don’t stone adulterers to death anymore, and we now throw drug users in prison when they were perfectly accepted back in Moses’ time. See what I mean ?
Once again to reitereate Jesus’ statement “Do unto Caesar’s what is Caesar’s”. If Caesar or the President conscripts you into the army than you ought to fight. Also Jesus said that until the Second Coming a perfect society would be impossible so we have to do what should be done to make the world a better place.
Of course not.
Well Western Civilization has been successful in it’s system of justice and the civilization itself is quite successful.
Obviously. He might run you through if you don’t. That’s neither here nor there when the question is whether killing someone in war is morally morally wrong. I also note you dodged the thorny civilian issue. Figures, considering you screen name ;).
I know. Semantics are tricky that way
And that means… what, exactly ? That non-Western civs are irrelevant ? That the Western justice system (as if that even exists :)) is the only one that really counts ? A civilization’s power is a measure of its righteousness ?
Nevermind that the assertion “Western civ has been successful in the justice departement” itself could be hotly debated… and it’s the root of your dang OP.
Not that other civilizations are irrelevant but the Western Civilization has estabablished the ideas of human equality and democracy so it any civilization is “most” correct it is this.
Yes, it does. If you murder someone, you will be brought to trial. Why? Because they feel you have no dispensed justice. It’s your opinion against theirs, where “theirs” is that of the majority of the country.
Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. If that includes governance of the law, then you must accept that governance. If it doesn’t, then you should leave all up to God, him being the ultimate and perfect arbiter. If you choose neither, then you respect neither the people nor God. It’s as simple as that.
You’ve explicitly called yourself more brave than them, since you consider them mostly fearful of doing something that you are willing to do. You have implicitly called their opinions inferior, since you are not even willing to judge millions of opinions as being as worthy as yours; literally, that your opinion is over a million times more worthy, more reasonable, than theirs. How is that not considering them inferior?
I’ve played along (and even defended) your hypothetical because I think it raises some interesting questions regarding the concept of righteous/justified but not legally sanctioned (arguably until after the fact, with the pardon) killing. I did so in hopes that we would eventually explore the real difficulty in applying the standards arrived at in exploring this hypothetical to the non-hypothetical "real world.” Namely, the hypothetical’s premise (as quoted above) is so unlikely that ultimately the hypothetical is useless. I was hoping we would explore the idea of hard facts making bad law. Unfortunately, you have stubbornly fought (in some cases against an equally stubborn foe) an uninteresting fight. You’ve accomplished nothing. The arguments against “vigilante justice” as a rule are so obvious as to not require recital. That’s why the hypothetical, as initially proposed, was attractive to explore. To use the hypothetical as a platform to defend vigilantism is, well, boring.
I do respect the government and the people but if they fail should I not attempt to lobby for change? For instance if I thought the taxes were too high would it be not respecting the people by campaigning for lower taxes?
No, I said in the OP public opinion was behind me and generally agreed with me.
