Vigilante-ism

[Skycaptain]

I dredd to think if people really do start to equate comic fantasy with how world really should be run 😋😋

[Kikuhiko]

On 8/5/2020 at 6:32 AM, Arodash said:

Whys that? Comic book heroes and other fiction heroes are regularly many people's inspiratione we have an entire generation of scientists inspired by Star Trek. Firefighters inspired by films like backdraft and ladder 49, loads of kids grow up wanting to help people because of comics and I dare say there must be cops out there inspired by the likes of Dredd, Robocop, so on and so forth

You guys do realise that the point of the Judge Dredd comics was to show us how shitty a totalitarian fascist society really is right?

That's why there's extreme poverty and so much crime because the Judge system is inherently corrupt and doesn't work, Dredd isn't supposed to be a hero but a nihilist asshole who just does what the laws of his totalitarian fascist government dictates without any regard of how it genuinely affects society, unfortunately since people think the character's really cool (And he is) the message got a bit diluted in later comics and practically ignored when it comes to Hollywood adaptations, moreso in the Stallone movie than the Karl Urban one, but I still feel like they depict him too positively there.

 

But yeah Dredd kinda sucks and that's the point of the story.

 

Also, Robocop is also a very harsh critique of policing and how corrupt the system is so it's  also not a great example since the whole point of the movie is that not only is the police likely to abuse their power and that the problem is systematic but also that capitalism is bad and inherently corrupt, which is why Robocop resorts to vigilantism and opposed by the police.

 

 

-Anyway on the topic of vigilantism, it's neither nor bad it's just an inevitability of life, there's no such thing as perfect law enforcement and there will always be incompetent and corrupt ones, so as a result vigilantism will occur whether it's just an unbalanced individual that can't wait for the police to do their job, someone that's frustrated by the incompetence of the police, someone that's frustrated by the deliberate inaction of the police or someone that is trying to punish a member of the police that's not being held accountable for their actions, it's just something that's going to happens, sometimes it's justified and sometimes it's not.

 

As such I don't particularly have a problem with it as it can be on occasions the only solution, to claim otherwise would be to accept the government is always right and that's just naive, corrupt officials will always exist particularly in a capitalist society and as such sometimes citizens have to do what's necessary to protect themselves, in México for example lynchings are things that happen relatively frequently the reason for that tends to be a combination of police incompetence and corruption, so since the people can't trust the police to enforce the law something must be done, and it's not like I particularly condone the brutality displayed in these lynchings but I do understand the frustration and the need to do something to try to solve the problem.

 

As such my stance is that like many things life it's too complicated a problem to simply be treated as either right or wrong.

[Kikuhiko]

9 minutes ago, Arodash said:

I am well aware these are satires on the state of policing, that doesnt mean it doesnt still encourage people to go into those fields

True enough, kinda makes you think of the reasons why people get inspired specifically because of media criticising the police, is it because they think they can make things better or is it because they misunderstood the point and think what they were criticising is cool?

 

Which particularly with Dredd I find to be very common, and he's not really a great role-model for cops if you ask me, there's a lot of judgement calls that have to be made and sometimes it's the best choice to ignore a law, like let's say speeding because you have someone in critical medical condition and it would simply be faster to take them yourself than to wait for an ambulance, which if you're low income you might not even be able to afford either, but if you use Dredd logic you have to stop them.

That being said even someone inspired by Dredd is not likely to be as huge of an asshole, but still it leaves some doubts as I can't help but feel like they might be fascists.

[Kikuhiko]

3 minutes ago, Arodash said:

Judge dredd actually isnt a 2d characted the comics show he has neuance when it comes to the law of megacity one, this is why he respect Judge Anderson because she helps influence him in understanding there is neuance to crime and law enforcement

 

What inspires them? The idea of protecting innocent people and taking on crimminals, yes Dredd is a satire of an ultra authoritarian police state but the Judges are there to protect law abiding citizens of megacity one. And when Dredd lost faith in the Judge system he called for a referendum by the populace for Judge reform

Sure, that's true enough, it doesn't necessarily mean they understood the point of the story though.

 

Maybe I'm just naturally skeptical of the police as in my experience they are asssholes and I just generally don't like them so I tend to assume the worst, it's not like I misunderstand the appeal of being one though, I wanted to be a cop for the longest time but as I grew up and saw how they really were I was simply too skeptical and cynical to be able to join such a corrupt and disgusting organisation, like even if I was able to do some good, I feel like I would be forced too do too many bad things and I'd probably just end up suicidal.

 

Also it turned out I can't handle the idea of killing someone either so I'd rather not put myself in a position where that is more likely to happen than in regular everyday life.

[Alawyn-Aebt]

Usually wrong, but qualified exceptions remain. I like law generally. It provides someway for a society to organize itself. In order for law to work there needs to be enforcement and a giver of laws: AKA government (in some form). The role of the law-giving and law-enforcing is so intertwined as to be inseparable and together are the basis of all governments ever.

 

I do not have faith in my fellow human beings for anarchy to work in practice (although it is fascinating in theory).

 

The time when vigilantism is fine with me is when it is a revolution. Vigilantism is only vigilantism when it fails to establish a new government and therefore fail to legitimatize its actions, otherwise it is a revolution overturning an old government, not 'illegal vigilantism' but 'upending tyranny'.

 

When Vigilantism lacks any revolutionary spark it is inherently destabilizing but, until its revolutionary cousin, does not offer a new structure upon which a future society can be built.

[Kikuhiko]

2 minutes ago, Arodash said:

I grew up the child of a police officer and I have had to directly work with them in the past, I like them. They keep me safe, even interactions with bad ones doesnt hinder my love for them. I have a thin blue line on my Jeep for my dad and on the other side a thin red line for my brothers and sisters who have lost their lives in the fire service. 

That does explain why you're view of the police would be more positive, after all they do protect their own regardless of whether that's a bad thing or a good thing, and I do understand your respect for them, however that doesn't change the fact that the system doesn't work and is corrupt, they may have protected you but there's plenty of people that they not only have failed to protect but actively oppressed, now I'm sure there are good cops out there but making it clear that the police is bad is necessary when you're advocating for change, and even if it is the majority that are "good" or "nice", the simple fact that they protect the bad ones and allow them to operate with impunity is more than enough to warrant criticism for the institution as a whole, if that means the good ones will get dragged down through the mud I'm afraid that it's a necessity. 

5 minutes ago, Arodash said:

You may also wanna refrain from like, generalizing all police officers, you have no idea if some avenites may be LEO. Just saying you dont want to indirectly offend a fellow avenite.

Fair enough, it's not my intention to offend people, I was simply stating my opinions on  the matter, so I guess I'll use less harsh language in the  future, though to be clear while I don't believe that all cops are bad, I do find #ACAB to be useful in making people aware that the institution itself is bad, which it is.

 

Let's look back at RoboCop for a bit, there's a group of cops that are clearly great people, they seem caring, they criticise the bad practices of the police and they object when ordered to shoot RoboCop, but they still shoot because that's their job, this doesn't necessarily mean they are bad but whatever is causing them to make those bad decisions must be changed, so that's why I say the police is bad, though I have met a few individuals that were police officers who were pretty bad too.

And going further Murphy is  a cop, and he's definitely a good guy, but he's unable to do what's right until the organisation that runs the police approves it, and they only approve it because at that moment it's what's most convenient for the CEO or otherwise he'll die, so Murphy gets to kill the bad guy but his boss and the rest of the people that allowed that guy to be such a corrupt figure go unpunished and still get to keep their jobs, so even a good cop is limited on how much good they can do, sometimes by restrictions that were put in place by the system.

[Kikuhiko]

3 minutes ago, Arodash said:

Its not. When departments defunded their departments they saw crime sky rocket its not bad. It has some bad people

Are you so sure that was the reason?

I mean it's not like we're currently in the middle of a pandemic and as a result many people have lost their jobs, a lot of them their houses too and were left impoverished, the recent rise in crime is likely to have more to do with this than anything else, but we must also keep in mind that the crime statistics come directly from the police and the government who have a vested interest in keeping things as they are and as  such cannot be trusted, not to mention that this operates under the assumption that the efforts are simply to defund the police and do nothing else, which isn't neither the objective nor the real goal.

 

The point of the movement is to defund the police that much is true, but obviously they should still exist to handle violent crimes which is the vast minority of their work, so we should still have a task force to handle that but it shouldn't be as ubiquitous and instead we should expand mental health care, and open up new civil agencies with people trained specifically to deal with problems such as marital disputes, homeless people, drug addicts. etc in a more compassionate and civil manner to reduce the amount of violence used by the police that often attack these people for no real good reason, which I mean I kind off understand they are trained for violence not this kind of stuff, which is why it's being proposed that we get specialised personnel to deal with these kinds of non-violent crimes.

 

The other objective is to increase police accountability, you claim that the system works, then do you think it's fine that the bad policemen can literally get away with murder?

Is that a good example of the system working as intended?

 

Obviously not, the system is inherently corrupt and these issues must be addressed otherwise what's currently happening in Portland will happen everywhere and that can't possibly be a good thing.

[Kikuhiko]

2 minutes ago, Arodash said:

I suggest going through the various threads as we have provided mounting evidence about all this stuff. But hey, you do you

Oh, I see so all we're acknowledging here is the crime increase, rather than the actual problem, even if the crime increase is true that doesn't change everything else, what is the counter-proposal to fix all those problems?

 

Or should they just stay in place and allow murderers, rapists, thieves and other opportunists to continue operating with impunity within the police?

 

Should we continue to send the police out to beat the shit out of the homeless?

 

Is arresting drug addicts and sending them to prison really going to help them get over their addiction?

 

What's the counter-proposal all these problems are real too, and the police itself has released reports that reveal the vast majority of their work are things like this and not violent crimes.

[Kikuhiko]

1 minute ago, Arodash said:

No im saying I am not available to debate this right now. I'd be happy to anothee time but right now, I cant I apologize

It's fine, you don't have to answer if you don't want to, you're not obligated to have an argument with me or even have those counter proposals, you're free to do whatever you want.

 

Sorry if I'm coming off rather strongly I'm not trying to be an asshole, it's probably just my nature, but I do think I'm right about this obviously, otherwise I wouldn't be saying it.

[Still]

21 hours ago, Arodash said:

And when Dredd lost faith in the Judge system he called for a referendum by the populace for Judge reform

Dredd may have called for that referendum, but the he did so is because he had sabotaged a protest march for democracy, which he later felt guilt over. He did defend the referendum against some of his fellow Judges, who wanted to rig the referendum in their favor. Dredd thought the people deserved to choose for themselves, even if that'd result in the Judges being voted out of power - it didn't, but the result was pretty close.

 

Overall, I think you're right about Dredd's character not being two-dimensional, and it's a much harder character to write than most people realize. Most people think Dredd is someone who kills people for minor infractions like jaywalking, which is totally incorrect. Some of the people to write for the comic in its 43 years (!)  haven't understood the character at all, and have written him as either a comedy character or a completely inflexible fascist, and in my opinion both of these approaches are incorrect. Dredd may be beholden to a system that is inherently terrible, but he is at least fair and never corrupt, unlike many of his fellow Judges. Too many stories have him acting like an asshole for no reason at all, which is totally out of character for him: there is a human side to Dredd, even if he always tries his best to hide it.

 

Damn, did I really write that many words in response to a relatively short post about Judge Dredd? Well, yeah...it's my favorite comic, can you tell? 😄

[Still]

9 minutes ago, Arodash said:

i cant wait for the megacity one tv show....

Yeah, me neither. Dredd was such a great movie (only movie I've seen in a theater twice), and the fact that it'll never get a sequel is a travesty.

 

9 minutes ago, Arodash said:

 

I just..... oh my god yes. And I swear Anderson is my favorite judge, and whenever Dredd goes hand to hand with Judge Death is just so cool

I'm kind of shocked, because you have to be the only American I've ever seen online who's actually familiar with any of the comics 😱

[Still]

11 minutes ago, Arodash said:

A true travesty really because its so goooooood. 

 

2000AD is not very popular here. Most people I know who like the comics are either British or Australian. It doesng help that in the 80s we had a film based on Dredd that was.... well its fun but its not Dredd in any way shape or form. 

1995, actually. That movie is just...terrible.

 

I'm a huge fan of 2000 AD, and it's ironic that Americans aren't, since what would American comics be today without Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Neil Gaiman, Dan Abnett, etc., etc., who all started their careers with 2000 AD?

 

If you haven't already, I recommend watching the documentary Future Shock! The Story of 2000 AD.

[Still]

I was supposed to go to sleep now, but instead I spent some time making this picture:

 

Spoiler

 

Just some of my collection of Dredd graphic novels, as well as said documentary on Blu-Ray. Because if anyone ever accuses me of not being a massive nerd, it's important to have evidence to the contrary.