We Americans need to have the guts to do this as a nation.
Presumably you think you have the guts, so I wonder, who would you murder first?
‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully
11–20 of 271 posts
Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully
#12This is a review of the documentary covering a 'Town Bully' who had evaded authorities and continued to harm people repeatedly. In order to protect the community, a group of vigilantes murdered them, and the community refused to issue any statements to authorities regarding anyone's involvement. I think broadly, I wonder what the place of vigilanteism like this should serve. The sentiments to protect the community ag…
it seems like a more extreme version of jury nullification. if it became widespread, it would essentially be the end of rule-of-law. but in isolated and rare situations, perhaps it's a beneficial escape valve? easy to suggest from my comfy office in a quiet suburb of course.
It's not a 'beneficial escape valve' when the community decides to, say, kill the n_______ who had the audacity to sleep with a white woman.
Which is a far more common application of lynching. We should not be glorifying this.
Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully
#13To be clear, community murders like this happened all the time in US history. The thing that makes this special is that the man killed was white and actually guilty of crimes.
The parent poster is referring to race-motivated lynchings, of which there have been thousands over the decades.[1] [1] https://www.naacp.org/history-of-lynchings/
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Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully
#14> frontier justice came for McElroy courtesy of the residents of Skidmore (population 440 at the time of the crime). Shaken by the man’s ability to evade jail even after being convicted of a near-fatal attack on a grocery store owner... Belkin also details Skidmore’s plague of subsequent violence ... the series persuasively contends that these crimes indicate that the McElroy episode taught younger Skidmore generatio…
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Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully
#15> Britt Small, in fact, says that the only mistake made during the entire ordeal was not killing Trena too Wait, what did Trena do to also be a potential target here? Just guilt by association? Or was she actually actively participating in the criminal acts (and not being coerced to do so, as I imagine one might be before/while/after marrying a violent criminal at age 12)? The article couldn't, you know, delve into t…
This article is a very brief commentary on the documentary. Presumably the show would explain that point of view and dig deeper into the whole matter.
Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully
#16> Britt Small, in fact, says that the only mistake made during the entire ordeal was not killing Trena too Wait, what did Trena do to also be a potential target here? Just guilt by association? Or was she actually actively participating in the criminal acts (and not being coerced to do so, as I imagine one might be before/while/after marrying a violent criminal at age 12)? The article couldn't, you know, delve into t…
I remember watching some news program about the event (maybe the 60 minutes piece mentioned in the article). I believe they interviewed Trena and she expressed anger that her husband was murdered and nobody would testify or try to bring the murderer(s) to justice.
My guess is that Small doesn't like that she caused waves after the murder. As opposed to just going along with it.
Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully
#17Over the long timespans of human evolution I’m willing to bet that this is a significant selective pressure.. bullies probably just disappeared or were kicked out of the community to fend for themselves
He had 14 children, though - that doesn't seem like a failure to pass along his genes.
Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully
#18> Britt Small, in fact, says that the only mistake made during the entire ordeal was not killing Trena too Wait, what did Trena do to also be a potential target here? Just guilt by association? Or was she actually actively participating in the criminal acts (and not being coerced to do so, as I imagine one might be before/while/after marrying a violent criminal at age 12)? The article couldn't, you know, delve into t…
I'm guessing she wanted to name names.
Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully
#19This is still going on in Alaska, many remote areas have some bullies getting away due to no police. I'm sure some end up missing too, but there is a big lack of funding for state marshals to deal with the problems.
Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully
#20To be clear, community murders like this happened all the time in US history. The thing that makes this special is that the man killed was white and actually guilty of crimes.
You were half right until you dug into the helplessly racist narrative. The wild west had many incidences of such events and the victims were often white. One need only look at the story of Billy the Kid and the regulators or Wyatt Earp's arc for evidence. The only thing that makes this unusual is it was in 1981.
EDIT: person I'm responding to makes the case that this case is SPECIAL in U.S. history and draws a direct line to racially motivated lynchings even though there's plenty of evidence that white-on-white lynchings occurred. I am not saying racially motivated lynchings didn't occur. I'm saying that history is not black and white.