Lynch mobs weren’t “hijacked” for horribleness. They were inherently horrible from the get-go.
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No: the vigilante groups would be easily hijacked. They could easily be turned into lynch mobs.
A vigilante group that carries out extrajudicial executions IS a lynch mob.
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Ok, let’s say one formed for the sole purpose of offing Dylan Roof, and no other purpose, no political leaning, no further action, dissolved completely and forever afterwards. What, in your opinion, is horrible about that?
It’s an extra-judicial killing. Duh.
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You’re proposing an incredibly unlikely scenario (someone pardons Dylan Roof and lets him walk free) for the sole purpose of justifying a highly problematic and unlikely “solution” (a lynch mob forms, takes out one bad person with no collateral damage, then peacefully disbands forever with no further impact on society).
Frankly I find both premises ridiculous.
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So do I, but what will we do when Trump actually does it? Probably not Dylan Roof, but some other killer, before Trump is out. It won’t be so ridiculous then.
I can easily imagine a scenario in which violent lynch mobs form in reaction to something Trump does. I cannot imagine any scenario in which violent lynch mobs make things better.
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You could probably write a browser plugin to automatically replace names with this text. However I’d have to disable my current plugin that replaces “Trump” with “Loofah-faced shitgibbon”
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That’s already happened.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/taskandpurpose.com/trump-golsteyn-pardon-2641345387.amp.html
I haven’t heard a thing about lynch mobs going after these freed murderers.
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What about nonviolent lynch mobs that just get Dylan and keep him in a safe location for a while? (Say, 75 years)
I dunno, maybe you don’t find this worthwhile to think about. I do, because what Trump is doing to and revealing about the USA that was already there is scary to me. I mean not like I wasn’t scared before during Obama. But now it’s REALLY scary.
That’s like saying “what about politicians who only fix elections for good instead of evil?” or “what about a benevolent dictator who knows what’s best for everyone?” or “what about a court system that only denies due process to people who are too dangerous to deserve due process?”
Some ideas are just too inherently flawed to have any place in a society that strives for justice and rule of law.
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Ok, those are valid points. But ultimately not what I am really trying to get at. Let me think a minute.
What do we do when the rule of law has broken down and we lack the means to fix it?
(Do is emphasized because that’s the operative, as in what actions should be taken? Not thoughts or ideas- actual actions that we will need to undertake if the rule of law is no more.). Hope I am not frustrating you or @milliefink with this. I’m trying to explore the ideas in good faith.
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Restore it when we can, replace it when we must. Even in times of great political upheaval I think it’s important to remain accountable to someone, even if only one’s fellow revolutionaries operating under a provisional government. A lynch mob answers to no one.
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Actually I kind of feel like this is thumbing his nose at the GOP establishment. “You aren’t going to do anything, I can do what I want!”
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The only thing about this that makes me happy is that it’s so transparently fucking corrupt and wrong to anyone that looks at it for the rest of History
Historians are going to have a field day with this asshole.
If we have any history left to tell after our country is a smoldering ruin of grifters grifting grifters because that will be all that’s left soon.
I want to throw the entire Senate into the ocean for pardoning this crook who pardons crooks
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This is America. White people walking around unpunished after murdering Black people is a routine event.
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The Divided States aughve Murica.
Trump’s version is more: “I’m not a crook. You’re a crook! They’re all crooks too. So are they. And them over there. All crooks. Not me. No one has ever been persecuted like I have. No one… [continues for another three hours].”
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Seems to me to be one way of influencing, steering how people frame their perpective of punishments fitting the crime. He keeps saying “even murderers and drug dealers get less time” – meaning these “violations” of corruption and fraud are actually just, i dunno, mistakes. Wait, not even – they were misunderstood out-of-box thinkers who really didnt do anything wrong, so if they werent that bad, im fine too.
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