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Did Neely actually violently attack anyone? From the wiki article it sounds like he was just screaming at people and disturbing the peace. Perhaps he deserved to get roughed up for that, but getting killed seems a bit of a reach.
I think so, but mostly wonder why this was the main concrete example from the OP, since in a Hobbesian state of nature the worrying crazy person would have died of any number of things long before that point. I feel like it might be just throwing me off, but am not sure, since I don’t really understand what he’s getting at.
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Shortening the description of what happened like this IMO really does a disservice to understanding the incident. At no point did anybody, Penny included, set out to kill Neely. No weapons that were not appropriate to the situation were deployed. No physical techniques that were not reasonable considering what was happening were used. He was merely physically restrained for a brief period to make him stop doing whatever it exactly was that he was doing. This was highly likely to have been reasonable and appropriate. That he died from it is an unintended consequence, most likely due to him being in comprehensively terrible health.
The class of people that Neely represents has wildly different health than anything most regular people can conceive of. Which touches back to the giant hole concept that HlynkaCG was talking about. These people start out severely mentally ill, the type that would likely be institutionalized for life in another era. They do lots of illegal drugs, not checked at all for purity or cleanliness. Possibly including injected with dirty needles. They probably sleep on the streets somewhere most of the time. Constantly in and out of jail and hospitals. You can bet they never follow up on any health or legal suggestions offered in those places. Eating whatever comes to hand, no thought to it being clean or healthy.
I know there are legal doctrines covering this sort of thing, which I'm not meaning to debate right now. But morally speaking, exactly what responsibility do we have to this sort of person? If you're both so crazy that you're antagonizing and scaring people on a train, and also so unhealthy and fragile that a brief period of mild restraint is at risk of killing you, then what exactly do we do with you? I have a hard time feeling like society has any responsibility towards such a person.
It sounds like the chokehold lasted for some time after Neely passed out, though it’s unclear exactly how long, so I wouldn’t say Neely was obviously uncharacteristically fragile. But fair enough, it was not the greatest loss to society, as callous as that may be to say.
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He was choked. estimates vary between 6-15 minutes which could easily be fatal if his airway was constricted.
Do you have a source for this? There's video of him still breathing after he was released. I'm not aware of any witnesses or video that reliably puts the chokehold time at 6-15 minutes. Exactly who made that "estimate" and based on what?
Considering the normal timing of NYC subways, usually 1 to 2 minutes between stops, it would be extremely strange for someone to be in a chokehold for "6-15 minutes".
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That's part of the problem: oh, he's just screaming and threatening, ignore it. We can't have him arrested and taken off the train, that would be intolerable racist prejudice. We can't deal with these kinds of disturbances as they used to be dealt with in the past, so just accept the new consensus of Bike Cuck(a dreadful term, but the best example of the mindset). Only losers take the bus, or the subway, anyway so it's not like anyone important is inconvenienced by mentally ill people roaming around with the possibility of becoming violent. Really, you should be cycling or walking everywhere instead of using public transport, reduce your carbon footprint! It's your fault for being in a confined space you can't get out of, with a crazy person who might decide they want to rip your face off because they don't like the colour of your jacket!
No, that doesn't warrant being killed. But neither does it warrant the ordinary people on the subway being subjected to this 'disturbing the peace' as the new normal, either.
I’m not sure what your point is. It seems we agree that the legal system is too lax on shitty mentally ill people, and we also agree that this doesn’t justify vigilante violence going too far?
Taking these two statements together results in "The legal system will allow mentally ill people to menace others, and they may do nothing but stand there and take it". If the legal system doesn't deal with these menaces, and doesn't allow others to deal with it, it is in all practical effect putting the full force of the state behind the menace.
The more the king is perceived as a tyrant instead of a font of justice, the less the 95 IQ masses cooperate voluntarily, and the less voluntary cooperation the weaker the social contract is. The sovereign doesn’t have a panoptic iron hand because of his telepathic powers; he rules because men obey him.
Yes, he rules because men obey him. But obviously only some men will obey him voluntarily. As long as he has enough of those, the rest don't matter. He can choose to enforce an order where thieves and violent people are kept down and the other people are left to go about their business in peace. Or he can choose to enforce an order where the thieves and violent people are given significant leeway and the others are left in fear of them on the one hand and the sovereign on the other. Either way works, as long as his cops and soldiers are willing to stick with him.
The second way, arguably, works even better -- unlike the thieves and violent people, the ordinary people will stay on the side of the sovereign even when the sovereign works against them, because they believe in such things as the sovereign's legitimacy. Tell a thug that he's forbidden from violently defending himself from threats because he might get it wrong and his attacker's life is worth at least as much as his, and he'll laugh and maybe stab you. Tell an ordinary citizen that and (we know, because it has already happened, and in fact the previous incarnation of this board schismed over exactly this) he'll consider it and quite likely accept it. Of course the cops, being cut from a similar sort of cloth (if a somewhat finer weave) as the thugs, won't accept it... but they get an exemption.
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