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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

#171

Post by chrisdhoover »

rocqua wrote: post #150
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 consolat…

We? Do you have a mouse in your pocket? Are you the queen?

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

#172

Post by Faark »

rocqua wrote: post #150
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 consolat…

Totally agree with this sentiment. Especially in situations of deadly but hardly justified self defense.

Sure, if you feel threaten you should use your gun. But you're feeling being would have a significant cost for society and you should have to bear your part of it.

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

#173

Post by AnimalMuppet »

wtdata wrote: post #161
LyndsySimon wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and if anything that supports my position. Minorities are statistically more likely to be both perpetrators and victims of violent crime. Members of those communities therefore are more likely than non-members to have a legitimate need to defend themselves.

But, gun ownership clearly correlates with gun related violence (i.e. violent crime). Less guns, less violent crime.

I'm not sure that's true. Less gun related violent crime, certainly. But that can lead to higher rates of other kinds of violence, as those who are good with knives or their fists are now the top of the food chain. It is not clear that the total amount of violence would go down significantly. (The total number of deaths might, though.)

For example, there is very little gun violence in the UK. But the amount of knife and fist violence might surprise you.

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

#174

Post by dragonwriter »

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…

> 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 see very often.

I prefer the version of history suggested by the last sentence, but unfortunately cannot accept it was accurate.

Looking around the world, I see it frequently and with broad geographic distribution. (Though it's not the whole society, just the dominant group, both in the immediate example and the general case across time and space.)

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

#175

Post by [deleted] »

rocqua wrote: post #146
smacktoward wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#176

Post by rocqua »

chrisdhoover wrote: post #171
rocqua wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 consolat…

We? Do you have a mouse in your pocket? Are you the queen?

We - members of society.

The sentence started with perhaps. Hence, this was a supposition about how society should be.

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

#177

Post by IronWolve »

jascii wrote: post #27
IronWolve wrote: post #19

This 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.

I am not saying you are wrong, however this comment would be a lot more useful/interesting if you mentioned some sources.

Alaska has some of the highest crime/rape rates, gang activity.

https://www.apnews.com/03b5999242a9414e856cdce36e9360aa

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/09/rape-cult...

https://www.ktva.com/story/37361490/alaska-deemed-most-dange...

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

#178

Post by smacktoward »

rocqua wrote: post #146
smacktoward wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Agreed. And I haven’t watched the movie yet either; I’m too afraid it won’t be good enough to live up to the wait...

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

#179

Post by PeterisP »

habitue wrote: post #97
PeterisP wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rule of law is essentially about process for resolving disputes. In this case, it doesn't seem to be any dispute - it seems that the community had came to a consensus (almost unanimous if we discount McElroy himself and his wife Trena) about what how they wanted things to be.

Rule of law is not only about the practice of resolving disputes, though that's important, it's also about the belief that the process is what is used to handle criminals like McElroy. If that belief is shaken, it's much more damaging than if the system itself is a bit inefficient or corrupt but people still believe in it.

I feel that this reverses cause and consequence - in this scenario it's not that this lynching would damage the belief in the legal process, but rather than the lynching happened because of (justified) disbelief in the legal process.

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

#180

Post by its_the_future »

jcims wrote: post #165
persistent wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure this isn't just a bias of yours? Urban areas in the United States have a lower rate of fatal injuries due to violence than do rural areas. Perhaps this is not what you meant by "violent crime"? I know the output of these reports is difficult to interpret but see [1]. The top decile of per-capita violent deaths are rural counties, not urban ones. 1: https://wisqars.cdc.gov:8443/cdcMapFramework/output/m588…

It could be a bias of mine, but if averaged out over an entire county I don't think these are mutually exclusive. I'm talking about the 'rough parts of town' that are typically dominated by a minority population. Try this: Go find a crime map site, pick a big city and show homicides over the last year. Then go to the racial dot map and see how it compares to the census of that locale. http://demographics.virginia.edu…

Are you sure socioeconomic status is not a better fit and that race is not just a proxy for it?
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