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post Buffy s3
When the state locks people up it is denying them their freedom. When the state executes someone it's denying them their right to life. If a private person did either of those things they would be committing a criminal offence, why isn't the state liable when they do? If the state can be found guilty of breaking a contract (which it can) why cannot it be held liable for the punishments it inflicts on others?
There are answers, of course, there are answers. John Locke, as a prime example, produced the seminal work on the rights and duties of the state and its citizens. My point is that the state must be justified in the acts it performs against individuals. They must be done for a reason and not as a tyrannical whim. Similarly the police must be justified in the actions they take to pursue criminals and stop crimes. They should not do everything they might wish, they should not send people to prison without trial, they should not gun someone down in the street because they think the person might deserve it.
The example does not need to be so extreme, the police should not come into your house and settle a dispute over who should take the rubbish out. In other words they have a jurisdiction. There are some things that they should be able to do, and some things they shouldn't.
Buffy is in a similar position. Her Slayer powers, her position as the Chosen One gives her the ability to kill things, but she does not automatically have the right to do so. I have the ability to buy a knife and kill those I believe harmful to society, but I don't have the right. However the series does represent that Buffy has the right to do some things, i.e. slay vampires (hence the show's name).
Her rights are limited, she has a jurisdiction. She can slay vampires and demons but she shouldn't slay humans. She can stop the end of the world but she shouldn't become involved in whether or not someone should get a parking ticket, unless it is in her capacity as a private citizen. She can stop a petty thief, because that's her right as a citizen, but she could not then judge him, condemn him and punish him. That would be for the courts.
Where do the state's powers come from? Its citizens and therefore its powers should only be exercised for the benefit of the citizen body as a whole.
Where do the Slayer's powers come from? Joss has deliberately avoided specifying from where the Slayer powers derive. Slayers are called, who by? "The powers that be," is not a satisfactory answer.
For all we know the Slayer powers could come from a demon, a demon who instead of using tainted lackeys like vampires instead chooses its champion from among mortals and uses that champion to defeat its rivals. Why does it allow Buffy to go around saving the world? Well maybe its motives is slightly different from its fellows. Maybe, for reasonable reasons of its own it doesn't particularly won't Hell on Earth, or at least only on its own terms. Maybe it has a monopoly on human flesh down there in the dark dimensions and doesn't want its customers getting a free nosebag. Maybe it owns all the property and is making a bomb on the rent. It's a demon, and as many have demonstrated before, they each have their own agenda and some, like Spike, kind of like the world as it is.
At any rate, we do not know what granted her powers. But it does not stop us from deciding what Buffy should and should not be able to do.
Opinions
Can not be judged 28/1/00
...the slayer is not above the law,
yet cannot be judged in normal terms - the situations
she is in, her and her foes natures are very different
than the natures of conflicts and crimes judged in the world.
A decision as to her being innocent or not can not be properly
made with out figuring out basic rules for her world- as whether
vampires can be killed, what is evil and it's
consequences to other people (such as Ford in Lie To Me), the moral
in "cleaning the world of evil", etc.
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The Jolly Red Giant 25/2/00
The decision to use violence by the slayer should be based more on protection
than punishment. Society uses punishment for five reasons, the ones I can
remember from a sociology class too long ago are deterrence, retribution,
rehabilitation, and protection of the masses. There's a fifth one out there,
but I can't place it.
Deterrrence just doesn't seem to be an effect Buffy has. No matter how many
vamps she dusts, how many demons she slays, and how many plots to
destroy/enslave the world she counters, the bad guys continues to set up shop
in Sunnydale. (Well, I suppose the show would get boring if the baddies were
smart enough to move to Cleveland.)
Rehabilitation? No there as well. Buffy has tried to take the high ground
with Angelus, Faith, Anyanka/Anya, Ethan Rayne, Spike, and more that I'm sure
I can't remember right now either. Every time she let them live they burned
her in the end. By the end of season 3 only Anya and Angel had shown any
signs of rehabilitation, and those were both accomplished by magical means.
In fact, the closest Buffy has come to turning a bad guy to a good guy is the
maturing effect she had on Cordelia.
Retribution? Well, yes and no. On many occasions Buffy has gone after
someone who crossed her, or more likely her friends and family or an innocent
bystander. However, there has always been a secondary reason of "before they
can do more harm."
This leaves protection (and that mystery fifth reason I can't remember. :-)
This is the primary motivation for Buffy's fight. Buffy consistantly acts to
protect specific individuals or society as a whole from supernatural threats.
When she patrols for vampires she is trying to make the streets safer for
other nocturnal pedestrians. When she kills a demon it is typically because
it is either posing an immediate threat or conspiring to commit a crime of
murder, typically mass murder. Buffy is not a racist - she doesn't kill
demons or vampires for what they are, but for the actions they take. Nor
does she kill demons for shoplifting or traffic tickets - she tends to hold
her jurisdiction to murder, attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder,
manslaughter, and slavery. By the way, this motivation answers the Anya
dilemma - she is no longer a threat so Buffy does not take action against her.
Now Buffy doesn't go after human criminals. There are two major reasons for
this. The first, and most obvious, is that the show really lacks any major
human non-supernatural threats. However, in Earshot, Buffy was prepared to
use whatever means were necessary to stop a very human potential mass
murderer. Secondly, the normal law enforcement is sufficient to deal with
human non-supernatural threats, and Buffy does not want her job to intersect
with them.
Faith, the Mayor, Gwendolyn Post, Ethan Rayne; these humans all pose a
supernatural threat. Buffy, IMHO, has as much right and jusisdiction to kill
these people as any vamp or demon. No one cried any tears over the death of
Gwendolyn Post - she was power mad, showed no compuctions in attacking people
to reach her goal, and ended the show with the power to hurl lightning.
Clearly a supernatural threat. The Mayor was invulnrable and beyond Buffy's
abilities to slay, but was plotting to eat the Sunnydale High class of 99.
Again, supernatural threat. Ethan Rayne is typically caught after his
magical schemes have unraveled - supernatural but no longer a threat.
Killing him would be an act of retribution which Buffy was loathe to commit.
(Personally, I think she should wax the sucker.)
So this brings us to Faith near the end of season [three]. Human? Yes.
Supernatural? Yes. A threat to society? Yes. I see no justification to
spare her the wrath of the slayer. The thing that kept Faith up and kicking
as long as she did was Buffy's past friendship with her. A very human
sentiment that nearly cost Angel his unlife.
Ironically, were it not for this same sentiment, Angelus would have died at
Buffy's hands long before the climax of season 2, and thus would be dead
anyways.
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