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‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully

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Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully

#141

Post by [deleted] »

vinceguidry wrote: post #113
chrisco255 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grotesque but the fact is that these public square hangings were done since medieval times and probably earlier. From the Salem witch trials to the San Francisco vigilantes, it happened in many town squares, and it was believed to be justified: https://www.legendsofamerica.com/ah-lynching/2/

These weren't all that long ago. Someone claimed that there are people walking around today that went to one of these events. I couldn't corroborate that claim but we're talking less than a hundred years ago. While the Middle ages were some 5-900 years ago. Also what makes these public killings so notable is the fact that it was a deliberate effort of an entire society to instill fear into a minority. That you don't…

[deleted]

Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully

#142

Post by rocqua »

vorpalhex wrote: post #132
cjohnson318 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a facet of Texas law, or reflective of law in any other state. Sometimes jurors choose not to penalize or convict a person for homicide in extenuating circumstances. This is more about the nature of trial by jury in America, than the specific legal code of Texas.

See the recent case of the man who was convicted after punching a white supremacist in the face.. and charged with a $1 fine.

I thought that (beyond the death penalty) the jury does not get to determine sentencing, just guilt.

Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully

#143

Post by ngold »

smacktoward wrote: post #133
mixmastamyk wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me a bit of the series Gunsmoke, which I recently watched for the first time online. Surprisingly good. Time frame is earlier but the feeling of "frontier justice" resonates.

This is also the overall story arc of my favorite show ever, HBO's Deadwood : a bunch of people, who were all attracted for various reasons to a place specifically because it had no law (the town of Deadwood stood on land that had been ceded by treaty to the Sioux, and was therefore outside the jurisdiction of U.S. law), slowly discover over three seasons all the reasons they actually need law after all.

It's fun to watch a bunch of shady guys realize they have to work together against even shadier guys and form a sort of city council out of a survival instinct.

Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully

#144

Post by rocqua »

asfarley wrote: post #115
everdev wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if the justice system cannot help you then you have to take things into your own hands Fortunately not many people seem to feel this way, maybe because revenge doesn't work as a criminal defense. People who have been wronged are usually highly emotional and it's hard for them to put themselves outside of their circumstances and view the incident objectively. Justice is supposed to be blind for good reason. If we al…

This article describes a situation where a bad person did bad things, and was eventually stopped. You are saying: "That was not the solution. But I don't know what the right solution is". How can you possibly know that there is an alternative without knowing what it is? I think what you are really saying is: "I have an ideological opposition to violence-as-a-tool which I cannot rationally explain". Or, "the consequen…

The line of thinking could be different from

> "the consequences of violence-as-a-tool are so unthinkable that I choose to stop thinking."

And instead be something along the lines of.

Admitting exceptions where we allow violence-as-a-tool is more harmful than the harm prevented by violence here. Simply because the consequences of an exception set a precedent that lasts for a long time.

This does involve condemning people to their fate. Alternatively, you can take the position that sometimes people really should take an action they should simultaneously be condemned for.

Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully

#145

Post by rocqua »

ceejayoz wrote: post #40
ProAm wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That doesn't make the actions acceptable, of course. But it does put a spotlight on the importance of having a working legal system that provides some reasonable level of protection to the larger community. This man was tried and convicted by a jury of his peers, it was just in a different courtroom.

The Constitution provides for an impartial jury, along with other important factors. A lynch mob is no such thing.

How many of the mob were directly impacted by the bully?

I could imagine having witnessed the bully be a bully, not being a victim, and still deciding the bully needs to die. The decision can be made not based on the desire to defend yourself, and instead based on the desire to defend others / the desire to prevent unjust behavior.

Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully

#146

Post by rocqua »

smacktoward wrote: post #133
mixmastamyk wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me a bit of the series Gunsmoke, which I recently watched for the first time online. Surprisingly good. Time frame is earlier but the feeling of "frontier justice" resonates.

This is also the overall story arc of my favorite show ever, HBO's Deadwood : a bunch of people, who were all attracted for various reasons to a place specifically because it had no law (the town of Deadwood stood on land that had been ceded by treaty to the Sioux, and was therefore outside the jurisdiction of U.S. law), slowly discover over three seasons all the reasons they actually need law after all.

The lack of an ending to that show was very frustrating.

There is a movie out to wrap up the story. I haven't seen it yet, but I have high hopes.

Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully

#147

Post by AcerbicZero »

jacobolus wrote: post #139
Retric wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively, crimes are more common in metropolitan areas due to increased contact. Crimes are also more likely to be reported in poor metropolitan areas. Poor minorities are more like to stay in metropolitan areas. Resulting in a rather insidious bias that's hard to adjust for. http://www.hngn.com/articles/75816/20150309/dea-was-told-not... PS: It is also easier to hide a body in the country, so missing persons ca…

> crimes are more common in metropolitan areas due to increased contact Is there evidence for this contact theory? It doesn’t match my understanding of crime patterns. For example there are many very dense cities around the world without much crime, and some sparsely populated rural areas with lots of crime. A Google search turns up http://science.time.com/2013/07/23/in-town-versus-country-it... https://www.cbc.ca/ne…

There are many more variables to correct for than just population density but this study does a pretty good job covering that and then some. In short, yes cities have significantly more crime (both violent and property) than rural areas.

https://kb.osu.edu/bitstream/handle/1811/86153/IJRC_Ward-eta...

There are huge numbers of trends in the crime data depending on you want to look at it, so I'm always open to changing my mind on topics like this, if there is good data to support it.

Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully

#148

Post by LyndsySimon »

idoubtit wrote: post #111
tomc1985 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with the mob on this one. As another comment put it, he was tried by a jury of his peers... if the justice system cannot help you then you have to take things into your own hands. Might be hard for all us city slickers on HN to fathom, particularly when these sorts of country towns are frequently mocked or derided by people like us.

> if the justice system cannot help you then you have to take things into your own hands. If you apply this rule strictly, then the mobs could first hit the police. In many countries, police officers are violent and have a de facto impunity when they break the law. In the US, the police kills more than 1000 citizens each year, especially black men and teenagers. They very rarely face jail, not even loosing their job.…

> If you apply this rule strictly, then the mobs could first hit the police. In many countries, police officers are violent and have a de facto impunity when they break the law.

Advocates of our Second Amendment - the right to keep and bear arms - understand this. This idea was the primary reason for the Second Amendment's inclusion in the Bill of Rights.

In the words of Tench Coxe:

> Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American… The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.

In my opinion, minorities in particular have reason to arm themselves and to be prepared to defend themselves if necessary. Armed protest against civil government by blacks and others has a long history in the United States: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/black-panthers-california-196...

If you're interested in this sort of history, I'll recommend a couple of books: "Negroes with Guns", by Robert F. Williams; and "This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed", by Charles Cobb, Jr.

Robert F. Williams is a very interesting personality in and of himself. Among other things, he founded the Black Armed Guard - an NRA-sponsored rifle club dedicated to the defense the black community from racial violence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Williams#Black_Armed...

Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully

#149

Post by dsfyu404ed »

AndrewBissell wrote: post #117
vkou wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was credible enough to them that they would kill another human being over it. The whole point of a lynch mob is that you get to throw out any objective standard of credible threat, and replace it with a subjective, heat-of-the-moment one, proposed by the thugs leading it, who know they will face no accountability for their actions. That's what happens when you normalize lynching. Shitty people will happily use it…

"credible enough to them" is a meaningless phrase which elides the crucial distinction at hand. The people of Skidmore were objectively justified in feeling physically threatened by McElroy. Lynch mobs were not. If you want to argue a slippery slope exists (and I think that may indeed be the case), blurring these very different motives together does not bolster your case. I mean, the town of Skidmore didn't go on to…

Exactly. Hindsight is 20-20 and with hindsight we pretty much agree this guy got what he had coming to him (even if the proper legal procedures weren't followed) whereas the people who got lynched for racial reasons didn't.

Re: ‘No One Saw a Thing’: When a Midwest Town Banded Together to Kill the Town Bully

#150

Post by rocqua »

gameswithgo wrote: post #134

That many people feel what the townspeople did here was wrong is fascinating to me. It seems many people believe in certain ideals, as dogma, to the extent that they expect other people to suffer or even die upholding those ideals. The rule of law is important, yes. But why does anyone expect a town to let themselves be maimed and murdered to maintain the rule of law? This is an insane expectation. The people defende…

Perhaps sometimes, people need to do things that, whilst we would do the same in their position, we still want to condemn as wrong. Not because we disagree with their action, but because we need to signal to the outside world that actions like it are wrong. The circumstances that made such an action acceptable to our minds privately are too nuanced, too easy to stretch to publicly say they made it okay.

As a consolation, in these kinds of cases, taking action and dealing with condemnation is still better than not taking action. Of course, it is not right that people have to choose between two wrongs (living with the situation, or taking action and being condemned for it).

But life isn't fair. That isn't a statement of 'pushing the world into a fair state is infeasible to the point of imposiblity'. Instead, it is a statement that 'there is no state of the world that could be described as fair.

Moreover, the effect of such 'unfair condemnation' is tempered by people like you. I suppose that an actual working society needs both voices. Certainly, the signaling effect does not require that the condemnation be universal, just that it is substantial.

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