Vigilantes - split from Jamie Bulger thread

Hi Biba how odd it is that your post and your signature are so opposed to each other

There's a big difference between justice and revenge dude.

If we're referring to the charges of child pornography, how would killing him bring justice?

Vigilante justice? No, no, no. That can never be allowed. It's almost certain that someone would go that step too far & someone who had only been accused of something could come to harm when they were innocent....

no, vigilante justice is no way for a civilised society to enforce the law or punish the guilty.

Vigilantes take revenge on things that were not done to them, that's not justice at all.

It's not justice, you're right. It's just blood hungry angry people with issues...... They can never be allowed to dish out punishment for crimes.

You too are entitled to your opinion, but I see it like this. Killing a killer only makes a killer.......

Secondly you'll find that many convicts who have been found guilty of serious crimes & given long jail terms would welcome a death penalty........ No more suffering in death........ They keep trying to take their own lives.....

I agree in harsh sentencing for serious offenders to Biba but I would draw the line at putting justice into the hands of the mob. History tells us this is a terrible idea.

Vigilante groups are the product of a healthy society.

Let me explain why...

A vigilante group concerns itself not with the law but what is morally right and wrong. The morals on which they base their judgement are the morals generally adopted by society as a whole. VWhen vigilante groups pop up they are therefore an indication of a society who have a very clear idea of what is considered right or wrong.

I think that whilst I probably disagree with the actions of vigilantes I can't help but be pleased that these people exist. Sometimes the law really isn't adequate...We do see lenient sentences, we do see people people get off on a technicality. Only the other day the policeman responsible for the death of Ian Tomlinson at the G20 protests has escaped trial completely because of a technicality - the length of time which has elapsed since the incident.

Examples such as this indicate the public can never have 100% faith in the system. Law an order is a man made concept and is necessary for a modern society to function. However, ultimately, mankind is a species driven by instinct and emotion rather than edict. When edict fails; that is when emotion will once more reign.

That is a brilliant post Guapo, it almost made me believe you but then I remebered one minor detail.





Burn the witch................





I'm sure the residents of Salem would have an equally poignant counter-argument.










P.S The Ian Tomlinson case, the police officer was spending the day containing protesters, what sentence would you like to have seen him get? What sentence would have been the right sentence to teach him not to do it again?

i heard the police officer in the tomlinson case was a bad apple.....refused posts ....suspicion of violent conduct etc etc etc.........i'll make my usual statement........

THE LAWS AN ASS........that seems to put more weight in favour of the criminal........when we get hold of child killers and the like.........i want them removed from this life.......not playing playstations in a cushty little micro climate....with warders calling them sir and shit......and claiming thousands of pounds in compo cos a fellow inmate beat them up....as in ian huntleys case recently........the cost it takes to keep that scumbag alive is enormous......then he sues the taxpayer for him not getting his (right) of duty of care.........i say give the little girls relatives half an hour with the cunt hogtied to a chair........if hes still alive after that then burn whats left of him at the stake.........ive got no beef with becoming a killer to kill child killers......im a father......god knows how parents of murdered children cope.......THE LAWS AN ASS..........officiated by twats in wigs that dont seem to have an idea about the real world.............they are like a messed up version of a politician..........in fact burn them all......child killers,politicians then judges in that order...........f**k em.

Okay er, morning munchkin

shite i think i officially had a rant......calm now.....JUST NO_ONE PISS ME OFF RIGHT.......

That's cool man, let's just all stay cool here yeah There's no need to get all skwinky n stuff

sorry LP....profanity zero tolerance zone......soz

LP wrote:That is a brilliant post Guapo, it almost made me believe you but then I remebered one minor detail.

Burn the witch................

I'm sure the residents of Salem would have an equally poignant counter-argument.

P.S The Ian Tomlinson case, the police officer was spending the day containing protesters, what sentence would you like to have seen him get? What sentence would have been the right sentence to teach him not to do it again?

Ahhh but the residents of Salem weren't actually breaking any of their laws by burning "convicted" witches at the stake. I'm not really sure they qualify as vigilantes.

RE: Tomlinson

I think you're jumping the gun a little. Before there's any discussion on sentence I would have liked to see the officer tried. We've all seen the video evidence and it's pretty compelling stuff. Whether there were any legitimate mitigating circumstances should have been put before a jury. The fact that the family have been denied any form of justice proves the system is far from perfect which is all I was using the example for.

RE:

Quite wrong, El, to suggest that the 'residents of Salem' weren't actually breaking 'their' laws by burning "convicted witches at the stake,' and then trying to qualify it by hazarding, 'I'm not really sure they qualify as vigilantes.'

The killers of Jamie Bulger, and for that matter the unlawful killers of any innocent have 'their own laws', and the death of other innocents may not qualify any 'laws' being broken, in 'their' - your words, not mine - being broken.

I'm with Shine on that Salem point (not sure I understand the next sentence fully ). In terms of the legality of drowning and burning women in 1692 I have no real knowledge but the principle is the mob mentality reacting with fear to something they don't understand.........."When vigilante groups pop up they are therefore an indication of a society who have a very clear idea of what is considered right or wrong. " .............I know that with hindsight the Salem witch trials seem ridiculous but what's to say this wont in 400 years. Isn't the whole point of life, and evolution, to learn from your mistakes?

Morning LP :-)

TBH I'm not too knowledgeable on the Salem witch trials other than what I can find on Google. To call them "trials," though would indicate some form of legal process wouldn't it?

Putting the issue of the legality of the witch trials aside for a moment do you not agree that the witch trials support my original post? In that particular society at that particular time those were the morals people subscribed to and they felt strongly enough about them to put you to the stake for it.

As I said I don't agree with the actions of vigilantes per se but I nevertheless feel that they are the inevitable product of a society that subscribe to a set of common values. They are inevitable because law and order can only ever cover the general current sociological consensus of what constitutes right and wrong. It cannot provide, ever, for every opinion on every issue from every individual.

I agree with the final part of yuor post regarding evolution and will leave you with this to ponder:

How can we apply the lessons learnt from past mistakes to deal with future unforeseen circumstances? In other words...what lessons can we possibly learn now to deal with (in 400 years time) the crimewave from the Planet Zog?

The trials were pretty far from a legal process from what I've gathered, hold a woman under water for 10 minutes, if she dies then she wasn't a witch, if she lives then she gets executed for being a witch

I don't think this was supported by the morals of the time, I'm guessing that by referring to them as pagans and witches it would have been a purely Catholic venture. In which case it would have been those in power manipulating the will of those without the knowledge or understanding to come to their own conclusions. Using fear as a motivator, much the same way the press do now.

We can't say what lessons we can garner from this in 400 years time but we can look at a situation and say what do we know about this. What does history tell us will happen if we continue down a given road. You can't really get into specifics until faced with the situation.

Vigilantes may be an inevitable product of society as it currently stands but I don't feel that it a necessary product and I think with more responsible reporting from the media it could be dampened down considerably.

Morning Guapo

This is an interesting link..

http://school.discoveryeducation.com/schooladventures/salemwitchtrials/life/religion.html

The residents of Salem were apparently Puritan rather than Catholic. What's interesting in this link is the sentence "Since Puritans were expected to live by a rigid moral code..."

In other words, the society of Salem had a very strong moralistic foundation :-)

Also this sentence stands out "Witchcraft was one of the greatest crimes a person could commit, punishable by death..."

In other words, burning a "convicted" witch at the stake was perfectly lawful in Salem at the time.

I think you're perhaps dismissing the legality of the Salem witch trials based upon modern standards. The trials were indeed farcical in the sense that you were pretty much dead once accused no matter what you said or did but they were nevertheless within that particular society's set of common laws. As far as I know none of the people responsible for the death of any "witches," were ever held accountable for murder, or were they?

We're deviating from the topic at hand a little now and I don't want to spoil the thread for others. I like this subject, however, and I might start a different thread elsewhere to chat in more detail :-)

You got lucky there

lol

Here's a good one too! much more in depth....

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/SAL_ACCT.HTM

The last paragraph is rather interesting:

The witches disappeared, but witchhunting in America did not. Each generation must learn the lessons of history or risk repeating its mistakes. Salem should warn us to think hard about how to best safeguard and improve our system of justice.