This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I would take the opposite view.
If the justice system has found a person not guilty, that person must be entitled to the full protection of the criminal law. We can't allow vigilantes who disagree with juries to take matters into their own hands and go after people our justice system is unable to prove actually committed an offence.
To do the opposite would impliedly be saying: "despite or because of all our criminal procedure rules and constitutional protections designed to ensure consistency and fairness, we have been unable to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that this person guilty. Nonetheless, we'll look the other way if different judge decides they probably were guilty anyway".
By what process could this second judge make the decision? Would they hear representations from advocates in advance and declare people found not guilty to be outlaws? Or retry the original allegations a second time as a trial within a trial once vigilante justice has been done, but without the testimony of the newly deceased? And by what evidential standard should this judgement be made? If 12 disinterested strangers were not sure beyond a reasonable doubt that a person was guilty, how sure must a judge be to declare them an outlaw after their deaths?
However disgusted we may be when our justice system lets a guilty man walk, we must remember that it was set up in this way on purpose: "it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer".
I think the most forceful justification for Blackstone's ratio came from John Adams while defending British soldiers charged with murder for their role in the Boston Massacre:
"We find, in the rules laid down by the greatest English Judges, who have been the brightest of mankind; We are to look upon it as more beneficial, that many guilty persons should escape unpunished, than one innocent person should suffer. The reason is, because it’s of more importance to community, that innocence should be protected, than it is, that guilt should be punished; for guilt and crimes are so frequent in the world, that all of them cannot be punished; and many times they happen in such a manner, that it is not of much consequence to the public, whether they are punished or not. But when innocence itself, is brought to the bar and condemned, especially to die, the subject will exclaim, it is immaterial to me, whether I behave well or ill; for virtue itself, is no security. And if such a sentiment as this, should take place in the mind of the subject, there would be an end to all security what so ever."
To be clear, my stance only applies when (a subcomponent of) the justice system is clearly and obviously corrupt. If you have a corrupt local judge/jury that can simply try murderers and declare them not guilty, which with double jeopardy makes them not guilty permanently, then what you have is worse than there literally being no local justice system, because it actively protects murderers from higher courts. I don't think prosecutors have an appeal process to higher courts when they get an unjust "not-guilty" unless there's some clear explicit corruption beyond "hopelessly racist jury".
Now, obviously there are better solutions to the detecting and ousting of corrupt local courts than just allowing vigilantism. But, conditional on someone finding themself in a situation in which the courts are clearly and obviously corrupt and the higher courts have not yet noticed or cared enough to fix the issue, then vigilantism might be the trigger needed to make them care. And, if the higher court finds that "whoops, this guy was obviously guilty, the court was negligent in finding them not guilty, and we should have stopped this corruption a long time ago, sorry", then it would be appropriate to lessen the sentence of the vigilante.
The four major goals of punishment are
1: retribution
2:rehabilitation
3:deterrence
4: incapacitation
Conditional on the higher courts finding that the victims were clearly and obviously guilty and only got free due to corruption, most of these goals don't apply to the vigilante. Retribution is less necessary because the victims, being murderous scum, deserved what they got and don't need to avenged. Rehabilitation isn't especially necessary because the vigilante is not broken or morally corrupt, they know right from wrong and only acted in violence against murderous scum. Similarly, incapacitation is entirely unnecessary: they are not at risk of re-offending unless someone else decides to kidnap and rape their daughter.
Deterrence could go either way depending on how far you generalize the behavior and the obviousness of the injustice the vigilante is fixing. We want to deter wannabe heroes who take the law into their own hands after they don't get their way in a fair trial. But I contend that vigilantism is a just and beneficial response in a corrupt system. First, imagine an oppressive regime in some foreign dictatorship rather than the American justice system, I would think it clear that if the law does not protect you then protecting yourself is better than simply bowing and being oppressed. Then imagine small pockets in America where the American justice system is secretly replaced by courts run by the evil dictatorship. Therefore, deterring vigilantism in that tiny subset of scenarios is actively bad, because it's very important to deter real criminals, and it's better that vigilantes deter them than literally no one. Vigilantism is bad only in healthy societies where the police are already fulfilling the role of deterring criminals to the point that adding vigilantes has diminishing returns and creates too many false positives to be worth it.
More options
Context Copy link
Blackstone's maxim was that it's better that ten guilty escape rather than one innocent suffer, not 100 guilty. I don't think it has much to do with El Salvador; it wasn't overly stringent standards in criminal trials resulting in gang members running free.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link