Vigilante-ism

[crazy ace]

Plz explain your answers below.

[Karst]

I'd go with "generally wrong, but justified under certain circumstances".

[Karekare]

When it comes to this kinda stuff I don't think it's very black and white. I think there's a lot people usually gotta think about when it comes to that, like what are the rules, are the rules corrupt, do they help or hurt people, what about the people enforcing the rules? I think it's okay to break the rules if you're helping someone, I've done that I lot. Of course it comes down to the vigilante's sense of justice and what their own beliefs are, so it's not a one size fits all situation.

[Guest]

Wrong, period.

[Lord Jade Cross]

Considering that alot of "law enforcement agencies" already do highly questionable things as it is and more often than not it's basically under "I am the law so I can get away with it" I'd be all for vigilantes. Unless it's like Dredd, then we would be all pretty fucked as he tends to be absolute. xD

[Guest]

Online vigilantism is a point. Someone says something that offends you. You just have to shut them down, and ruin their life.

 

What happened to getting people to be punished by the rule of law?

 

Vigilantism is wrong, because you can't just say its cool in 4 sub-genre like settings, but wrong in others.

 

As long as it fits your narrative, its cool.

 

I think it sets a dangerous precedent in allowing mob justice. People should be careful what they wish for.

 

I'm from a country where if you're accused of being a witch, just due to being overly weird, people can tie you to a tree and light you on fire.

 

My mother witnessed a couple people burning to their death, because of rumors of witchcraft, which turned out to be false.

 

Ever burn your finger?

 

Imagine the screams someone makes being burned to death. You don't erase those images.

 

In a civilized society, there is no room for it, nor should be.

[Lord Jade Cross]

thing is that "the law" isn't exactly a bunch of goodie two shoes who abide by their own rules and work in the name of the justice but a justice, which is played pretty fast and loose with as it is. So basically all that would be done is playing their game but not under their rules 

[Missing]

(Setting aside that I’m a moral nihilist and I don’t think anything is technically right or wrong...)

 

I don’t have a problem with vigilantism on principle. If “the way of doing things” isn’t working, then I won’t blame anyone (or myself ) for doing what “the way of doing things” failed to accomplish. But vigilantes are also perfectly capable of screwing up or causing more harm than good, and whether you’re working within or without a larger “way of doing things”, what you mess up is on you and I personally don’t think having good intentions (in the vigilante’s case) or just doing your job (in the non-vigilante‘s case) is an excuse for any harm that’s done. But I’m also understanding that no one’s perfect and everyone makes mistakes.

 

In other words, my feelings on acts of vigilantism vary on a case by case basis, as do my feelings on the acts people do when they’re just following the rules or doing their job.

[Mostly Peaceful Ryan]

6 minutes ago, Jade Cross said:

Considering that alot of "law enforcement agencies" already do highly questionable things as it is and more often than not it's basically under "I am the law so I can get away with it" I'd be all for vigilantes. Unless it's like Dredd, then we would be all pretty fucked as he tends to be absolute. xD

So you see a problem with police not having enough accountiblity, so you think the solution is vigilantes with no accountability? 

 

[Epitaph]

It's a superbly grey area, and it all depends on the case.

 

I remember reading about a case in vigilanteism in quebec a few years ago where a fairly predominant mafia man was killed by just some random guy who'd had enough. I mean, in my honest opinion, I can't hold anything at all against that random guy because the mafia are the kind of people who deserve to be shot on sight and given no remorse. But you can read about plenty of vigilante cases where the lines totally blur.

 

At the root of things, vigilante-ism is the result of frustration. Sometimes the frustration is misplaced, but in other cases, I can see it being rational, because the law, in many instances, does nothing or doesn't do enough. Rather than write off whether vigilanteism all together I think it's better to try and understand why people can become so frustrated that they decide they're the only ones who are going to do what it takes.

[Lord Jade Cross]

1 minute ago, Mostly Peaceful Ryan said:

So you see a problem with police not having enough accountiblity, so you think the solution is vigilantes with no accountability? 

 

what would your solution be?

[Lord Jade Cross]

7 minutes ago, Arodash said:

 

 

This is what you get with vigilantes. 

At least with Batman, all they would get is a severe beating, then tossed in jail. With Dredd, well they probably go in the room in cuffs and come out in a coffin,if he let's them live enough to get to an interrogation room anyways. That being said

 

 

[Mostly Peaceful Ryan]

10 minutes ago, Jade Cross said:

what would your solution be?

I would have to look at your local police to see the issue, but I can tell you that going with unaccountable vigilantes is not a solution.

[Lord Jade Cross]

16 minutes ago, Mostly Peaceful Ryan said:

I would have to look at your local police to see the issue, but I can tell you that going with unaccountable vigilantes is not a solution.

Here's a funny example for evaluation. For a week now while going to work, I've notice two patrol cars  (that's 4 cops in total) in an empty school zone just signaling drivers to stop and given them tickets for apparently driving even 5mph faster than the limit since the road has 6 speed bumps in it so you can't really speed unless your aiming to bust your car.

 

Now schools are not only still out but with the covid issue, they may not reopen for the time being. By your judgement, are thess police officers  doing a good job or are they abusing power in a setting that literally just requires they sit on your asses for their shifts going easy street handing out tickets for a zone in which no kid is in danger and the cars aren't even speeding at any dangerous levels?

[Lord Jade Cross]

15 minutes ago, Arodash said:

Judge Dredd is the law. 

Yes he is XD

[verily-forsooth-egads]

I think it's weird to judge it universally "right" or "wrong," when reasons for vigilantism itself are highly circumstantial. If vigilantism is needed and done well, then it's good. If it's based on questionable politics or taken to extremes, it's bad. There are no blanket rules that can account for every case, and the question can't be "should we allow vigilantes" when vigilantes are by definition breaking the rules out of necessity.

[Lord Jade Cross]

8 minutes ago, Arodash said:

This is called, law, enforcement

Yes but my question was if they are doing a good job, not just by the book law enforcement, which I'll get to a bit later. Are they keeping any citizens safe while sitting and handing out tickets all day long? 

[Epitaph]

7 hours ago, Moonman said:

One of the issues with vigitalism is that they often interfere in ongoing cases that the necessary authorities are trying to build. Sting operations are carefully planned and meticulously prepared for because the intent is to arrest the person on the scene. If they fall for a vigilante sting operation, that's it, all of that hard work is off the table and you have to start that operation from scratch. The criminal can scrub the evidence of their wrongdoing, cover their tracks, all sorts. You aren't helping the police secure a conviction when you interfere with their plans and the evidence they are building to put before a judge.

 

The issue here is that the necessary authorities would have wanted to arrest Mr. Mafia Man so they could work on him, try and get him to turn states witness and rat on his crew. Then the authorities could use his testinomy to build additional cases and thus secure additional convictions. You unfortunately cannot do any of that with a corpse.

All of that is true. But we're not considering what happens once Mr. Mafia ends up in prison. If he does rat on his crew, that's a bonus. If he doesn't, he ends up in prison and stays as Mr. Mafia, because while prisons keep people physically contained, they do absolutely nothing to keep their influence contained, and at best, hinder their efforts of communication. Plus, Mr Mafia stands a chance of being let go within less than a decade. Likely seven years if we're going by canadian law. He's not coming out a reformed man.

 

There's another factor as well. People like to think that police ops and stings are the solution, which they are. But they're solely economics based. A sting or a raid only happens if there's a high probability of an equal or greater payout in seized goods. There's a police officer in the area who've I sat down with and talked to on occasion. Ex-special forces and ex-drug raid. He was very insightful on the workings of these sorts of things.

 

In order to do an op, you need a forwards operation team of something like a minimum of five members. You need a secondary back-up team. You need a surveilance team, and you need the chain of command. To pay for all of that and all of the salaries of the members involved costs something like roughly five hundred thousand dollars a shot. Drug raids and sting operations only usually happen if there's a solid guarantee that the seized goods will pay back that expense.

 

So there's a lot of gang activities that go unchecked because it's simply not economic to stop them. And I haven't even started talking about corruption. That depends on the province or state. But as far as Quebec is concerned? Court officials and police officers to a certain degree are owned by the mafia. The mafia, and many other big name gangs like the Hells Angels are huge in quebec. 

 

So in a perfect world where the police and the law and order system actually work properly, everything you say up above is true, and it still is today. But it's only fractionally true. When you combine all of these traits together, and then drop that into the head of a common person, especially someone who's lost a friend or a family member from gang activity, I can understand why people turn to vigilanteism, because the justice system and the law let them down. 

 

It doesn't condone the actions of the vigilante, but it sheds light on why the vigilante can come to exist. And we can sit here and talk about how disruptive a vigilante can be to operations, which is certainly true, but we haven't addressed how disruptive an inactive or corrupt police force and justice system can be on people's lives either. The inaction taken by the law is just as damning as the action taken by a person who feels that the law let them down, which in many cases, has and continues to do so.

 

It's a complicated issue with a complicated answer, only further multiplied by each case of why a vigilante does what they do, because some of them do it for insane reasons, some of them do it for motivationally emotional reasons, and some of them do it just because they're tired of seeing inaction.

[Skycaptain]

It depends on whether where talking about fighting crime or revenge. 

If, say, people in a neighbourhood are keeping watch on a house where the proprietor is absent, see someone breaking in, and either chase them off, or make a citizen's arrest until the police arrive, that form of vigilateism is acceptable. 

Suspecting that Joe Bloggs broke into a property and taking the law into your own hands and duffing them up isn't acceptable. 

[Lord Jade Cross]

7 hours ago, Arodash said:

Speeding kills a lot of people

Going 25mph? or less

[Lord Jade Cross]

1 minute ago, Arodash said:

Speed limits exist for a reason, and yes you can kill people going 25

Unless you have really bad breaks and/or have hit someone already, you can stop a car, almost instantly if you go 25 or less. Now 50, 60 and so on can be a different story. 

[Lord Jade Cross]

Just now, Arodash said:

Communities have slow speed limits because children can run out into the street and your reaction time may be too slow, been there, done that. Not fun, so I support PD enforcing speed limits even the slower ones 

Yes but in this particular scenario, there aren't any children. The school zone is empty and save for the cars that pass through, that are already going at a moderately slow speed because of all the speed bumps that would mess your car up if you were going faster, it isn't exactly a very busy piece of road.

[Lord Jade Cross]

1 minute ago, Arodash said:

Does that mean police shouldnt enforce the law in that school zone? In case these drivers become complacent with being able to go a little faster in that area and forget that when schools open back up and theres kids about? When people drive the same route they do develop tendencies and habits on that route, they become less cautious. Police continuing to enforce the speed limit there (and other places) is to prevent that

You would notice if the school reopened a mile away even if you hadn't heard any news because parents tend to park their cars in the middle of the road basically and more often than not tend to cause a traffic jams because they don't just go to drop the kids off. They stop the car in the middle, get out, get the kids backpacks out, walk the kids to the gate, get back in the car and then then move out of the way. Anyone who is looking straight will notice the change instantly, because its literally like running into any traffic jam. The cars aren't exactly just going to appear out of nowhere.

 

[Lord Jade Cross]

19 minutes ago, Arodash said:

My point and reasoning still stands, dont wanna ticket, dont speed, no matter how mundane 

this sounds more like wanting to exacerbate what little infractions (if any because I've measured my speed passing and it's withing the limit and I've still seen cars going the same or slower than me getting pulled over) to claim your doing something. But let's forget about the techninical aspects for a second. 

 

Even if I agreed with you, what is the need of having 4 people doing this? In an empty piece of road where most cars can't really speed, a single cop can hand out tickets. And even if you say that for safety reasons, you have a pair of them, that still leaves 2 more than aren't really needed or doing much of anything

[Lord Jade Cross]

15 minutes ago, Arodash said:

Because things are slow right now, people are staying home so our officer's beats are, well, not as needed. So they will find something to do. Would you rather they sit in their cruisers playing Galaga? Or, lay them off? Leaving more people without work and less people to protect the citizens

Curious that out of all possible games,you would pick Galaga (not complaining, it's a frustratingly fun game) 

 

And things may be slower in places like shopping malls or even out on the main streets. But for instance, in my neighborhood, you have still the usual gang wars. You can literally sit down and hear the gunshots off in the not so far off distance. But do you see a cop patrolling the area, because I seldom see a unit come around even though the shootings are rather common. 

 

And it's not just here, plenty of places have a pretty recurrent crime activity but why aren't cops doing daily patrolling in these places, especially with more free time with the covid issue keeping people indoors? So there's plenty of work that is supposed to be addressed by the police but isn't it curious that they seem to be so conveniently missing from the places they should be most at? Or in this case all over places such as empty school zones.

[Lord Jade Cross]

33 minutes ago, Arodash said:

Because many cities have removed the teeth from police departments, that may be why, I dont know your local PD

 

And you can thank Avengers for the Galaga refference

 

 

 

Can't deny that's a factor but it's still one factor. I've heard cops (funny what you hear when you're quiet) say that if they hear if a shooting being reported, they will wait 20 or 30 minutes or more, depending on the location and then respond.

 

And true to this, an incident some years ago proves just that when a kid that lived right in front of of my house was gunned down at 5 in the afternoon. There were rumors that he was operating in the local drug point. It took 45 minutes for the first patrol car to get here  when there are nearby stations that don't take 45 mins to get to, and there already like 20 people around the kid, flabbergasted that they had gunned him down in broad daylight. 

 

The whole warriors of Justice (not not the SJW idiots) story might be cute for the kiddies and movies but you certainly won't have a Batman of Judge Dress out here. You learn to watch out for yourself. 

[Marrow]

There is a very, and im mean VERY, fine line to vigilantism. Helping and officer catch I criminal trying to escape? Ok. Waiting around for a criminal to show up just so you can shoot him? Not so much. It comes down to the question of "why are you doing it"? Are doing it because its the right thing to do or are you doing it to become famous?

[Marrow]

3 hours ago, Jade Cross said:

The whole warriors of Justice (not not the SJW idiots) story might be cute for the kiddies and movies but you certainly won't have a Batman of Judge Dress out here. You learn to watch out for yourself. 

the vigilante that stops fashion crime

[Lord Jade Cross]

3 hours ago, Marrow said:

the vigilante that stops fashion crime

Damn autocorrect XD

[GingerRose]

I'm making a citizen's arrest!