| The Vigilant Heroes |
| By Bad Andy, Feature Columnist and Rant Consultant |
 |
| The views and opinions do no neceissary represent those of the Evil Empire Editorial, please direct your rage at him. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Vigilante justice has gotten a bad rap from the press of late. Sure, I know what you’re thinking, “Did those two guys in Chicago really deserve to get beaten to death just because they lost control and hit three women with their van?” Let me put that to rest right now. No, they did not. I didn’t see all of you clamoring to dismantle the court system when it let the BATF snipers off the hook for shooting a woman carrying a baby and then the baby up in Ruby Ridge, Idaho. So what’s the deal? Why is society outraged by one perversion of justice and not another? If anything, people should be more pissed off abut snipers shooting a baby than a drunk driver being beaten. Don’t tell me that people can’t take the law into their own hands. Who the Hell is running this place anyway? I thought it was supposed to be US and if we’re in charge, why can’t we opt to deal with things the fast way? I’ll have to grant that no system of justice is going to be perfect but take a good look around at the alternatives before you start condemning the whole lot of citizens with more character than you. |
| Vigilante justice is good. Vigilante MEANS “the vigilant one”. So vigilante justice is carried out by people who thirst for justice. Justice is good, right. These aren’t the type to let one slide by once in a while, and in my book, that’s good. Judges aren’t vigilant. Juries aren’t vigilant. Look at all of sickos they set free to prey on society a second time. If some molester gets ahold of your kid and he’s a repeat offender, wouldn’t you wish justice had been delivered a little more vigilantly last time instead of letting one slide by. Get this guy off the streets and into the morgue. In general, vigilante justice is delivered by eyewitnesses. Who knows better then them what really happened. Do you trust twelve yokels who weren’t even smart enough to get out of jury duty more than you trust the people who saw it happen? Remember that the yokels have the “benefit” of listening to opposing teams of trained liars go at each other for days, perhaps even weeks, on end before they have to make an informed decision. |
| Batman, the Caped Crusader, is a vigilante and we consider him a hero |
| Vigilantism is on the rise in our society. I think this is driven by two factors. First, the conviction rate for obviously guilty felons is at an all time low. It is becoming more and more obvious that the official channels of justice are failing us as a people. Second, we are just getting fed up. In the 1970’s we decided that we love our criminals and we want them to be comfortable. We pander to them while they are being “rehabilitated” and try not to tell them how bad they are because it might damage their self-esteem. We’ve put up with this shit for thirty years and we’ve had enough. It’s not like there is any shortage of deserving recipients of swift justice. A few weeks ago, three guys in the Midwest took a hot metal spatula to the genitals of a homosexual pedophile rapist molester. They burned the shit out of this SOB and then they reheated the spatula and did it all over again. I consider it unfortunate that the three vigilantes were convicted at all. These guys got about the lightest sentences allowable under their local laws. These three men were heroes and their community should be proud of them. I know I am. Really, this was mild. The Native American community traditionally dealt with sexual predators far more harshly. The men of the tribe would subdue the offender and tie him up and then the women of the tribe would BEAT HIM TO DEATH. It goes without saying that sex crimes were highly uncommon in that culture and repeat offenders only had the opportunity to do so in Hell. After all this, I have to wonder, why do vigilantes get such a bad rap? Who has a vested interest in discrediting them? Well, obviously criminals don’t like vigilante justice because they’re likely to die in the event of spontaneous justice. We don’t value the opinions of criminals highly so they can’t be behind the plot. |
| Your government hates vigilantes. The government is a supplier of justice and it sees vigilantes as competition. In fact, vigilantes are a lower priced competitor with a lower priced product. The vigilante doesn’t rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal bills to convict one criminal. The vigilante doesn’t maintain an extensive bureaucracy to mismanage the administration of justice. The vigilante doesn’t take years to act. The vigilante doesn’t put your sister in jail for driving fast on the freeway. The vigilante doesn’t care WHY someone drowned a baby in a bathtub. The vigilante doesn’t let the guilty walk. The government, on the other hand, wastes your time and your money doing all of the above and more. This is pretty much what you’d expect from a monopoly supplier. The price is outrageous |
| The Punisher: Psychopathic Killer or Hero? Survey says.... HERO! |
| and the quality stinks. For most of you, this is the same situation with your power company. How many times in the last year have they raised your rates? And what can you do about it, run four hours every night in a giant hamster wheel to keep your AC running and your TV on? Have you ever tried to call customer service? They don’t give a shit. What are you going to do, stop using power? In the absence of vigilantes, the government has that kind of control over justice and they like it that way. Getting your justice from a vigilante would be like driving a Ford if General Motors ran the government. YOU are a potential competitor for your government and if they don’t keep you frightened and dependent, you might realize that you don’t need them anymore. It’s about job security for the establishment and they have to defame the competition or they’ll be out on the streets. If the whole country realized that swift and accurate justice was in their own hands, we wouldn’t need the “justice” system. We wouldn’t have some shitty system, we’d just have justice. Lawyers and judges would have to work for a living. There would be no more decades of appeals; no more arguing that something everyone knows was wrong was really OK for the defendant (but no one else) to do. The lynch mob doesn’t care why you feel cannibalism is morally justified in your specific circumstances. Dance from the rope. (8/23//2002) |