Hell no. No way. And I’ll be honest with you-- aside from the loftier reasons, which are all well and good, I am a small woman, not terribly strong, with arthritic joint problems. I’d need to acquire an equalizer in a society like Deadwood. That is to say, a gun, or a relationship with someone (probably a man) who could protect me or whose wrath was feared enough to scare off all but the most determined attackers.
The social contract very much benefits people like me, who really could not go mano a mano in a “fair” physical fight with another adult. I have br and some sense, and that’s mostly enough to get me through life. If people could go around punching each other or hitting each other with sticks any time they were angry, I’d be screwed unless I took precautions that would seriously screw with the lifestyle to which I have become accustomed.
I still have a certain amount of fear anyway, mostly about living alone. I have a big dog and some weapons, but overall, I feel safe enough to go about my business mostly unimpeded. I hope I never have to give that up and I’m grateful pretty much every day to be part of a society where I can be this free and safe. I’m sorry it’s not like that everywhere.
Being legally permitted to defend yourself from a threat isn’t what I’d call vigilanteism or a disturbing trend. Though it does sound like the law needs to be refined a bit more.
As someone who is terribly out of shape, and unlikely to win a fight, I very much oppose this idea. However, I’m thinking of joining a gym, so ask me again in a few months.
Seriously, though, ask yourself this: would you rather be called an asshole, or attacked with an axe? Thank God we live in a society where we can afford to be rude. The alternative is almost unthinkable.
I think the US has become too violence-phobic and safety mandated as a whole. That is odd because there is so much in the media. I am only 32 and we could bring rifles to school during hunting season (in our cars) and we had a maximum knife length that we could carry. Nothing ever happened anywhere around us as far as I know. People that hunt and carry utility knives routinely are normally pretty well raised, conscientious, and responsible. OTOH, my younger brother of 9 years was a true victim of the zero tolerance wave and was expelled his junior year of high school because one of his friends left an old rusty machete that he found in the back of his pickup truck (my younger brother is a college senior and a police officer now oddly enough).
I would never advocate true abuse such as engaging in violence against someone that you have true power over but I don’t like the sanitized society that we have become. I never liked fighting in high school but I got in three big ones and the final one, I was extremely proud because I stood up to a gang member and was giving a good fight while his fellow gang members were breaking out pipes and handguns. It is a long story but the police were hiding in ambush because this was an announced fight and swooped in to make big-time arrests as soon as the fight got out of hand enough. Those people never messed with me again.
I like the messages sent from the Andy Griffith show and other shows from the 50’s and 60’s. There is a time and place for violence and a responsible person knows how to use just enough of it to get the message across without any long-term damage. From my experience, they are likely to become semi-friends. I don’t think that responsible adults should have firm lines on what they can and cannot do. That promotes aggression in other ways that never goes away.
But who decides who’s “responsible?” There is no objective way to measure that, and you cannot have something be acceptable for some people and not for others when the determining factor is subjective.