Vigilantes

[Murphy]

We love them round here, anything to justify carrying a bat round. Eg a pair of dicks will trudge round at 4am checking cars, torches, hi-vis, acting like weekend warriors. All you’d have to do is crack one and his mate‘ll run (happened already with kids)

 

[Leo]

an unaccountable group with carte blanche to intimidate whoever they deem to be a threat, what could possibly go wrong?

 

[Murphy]

A nation descended from yeomen, taking on the world with spades, pitchforks, machetes, swords, strawdogs

Vigilantes cover various realms of violent egotism, ex territorial army types, cheering on shootings of burglars and junkies getting beaten to death

 

[Murphy]

If there’s a riot and you have to tool up as a group to protect homes etc that’s different, not that many people rub against it irl

problems here are are low level antisocial behaviour, which is a broad category of legal constructs, mixed with feudal minded “a witch!” making more problems than are ever solved

 

[Murphy]

 

[Leo]

@toko what's your take on the Proud Boys?

 

[martin]

 

[luka]

Lol clothes-lining the man in the wheelchair

 

[Mr. Tea]

Yeah the Turks with baseball bats are our Koreans with rifles on the roof tops

I don't think they actually killed anyone though, did they?

Though I do see what you mean.

 

[toko]

@toko what's your take on the Proud Boys?

I realize now that I probably was too charitable with my usage of "vigilante". if it includes fascist orgs then I obviously don't love them. But I don't thinkproud boys are vigilantes, (even if they claim to be so.) In my eyes, vigilantes are organized groups that enforce some kind of law or provide services in lieu of the government. They should have some recognition by the community they purport to represent. Proud Boys on the other hand are an explicitly political group that seeks to use violence to achieve their means. They do not represent a "community" save for disaffected white youth.

Black Panther Party on the other hand was both a vigilante group and a political group and so is a more interesting case. On one hand, they clearly provided services needed by the communities they served such as breakfast for children. They thus had some form of political legitimacy within the communities they alleged to serve. On the other hand, they use violence to achieve their political means, (even if in self-defense.)

 

[entertainment]

in uganda when kony was tearing through the villages and museveni snubbed the northern tribes of troops and weapons, a system of local defense units started using traditional bows and arrows to defend their villages against the attacks. they became quite successful and were known as the arrow boys

 

[version]

I remember reading some of the gangs in the Brazilian favelas took it upon themselves to enforce hygiene measures when the Bolsonaro government refused to take COVID seriously.

 

[toko]

a question I have is there a legitimate non-ideological difference between a vigilante group and the police? is it a question of organization-level or accountability?

 

[shakahislop]

in uganda when kony was tearing through the villages and museveni snubbed the northern tribes of troops and weapons, a system of local defense units started using traditional bows and arrows to defend their villages against the attacks. they became quite successful and were known as the arrow boys

right. i mean once you get outside 'the west' or whatever there's a lot of this stuff about, people outside the state using violence in a semi-organized way. it's a phenomenon that i don't think you can label good or bad, it really depends on exactly what's going on and the morality can be murky. one of my friends was telling me about how frequently people in the rural areas of Tanzania are murdered, as punishment by the community, or more accurately some self-appointed section of the commuity, for some (real or imagined) crime. that's just one example, from my perspective this kind of thing is everywhere if you take it at a global scale.

i guess you could call that a vigilante thing

 

[shakahislop]

there's plenty of non-state governance through violence going on. even in places without wars. A lot of power structures in a lot of 'developing' countries have this kind of feature. it's just not much of a thing in the countries that most of us on here are from

 

[shakahislop]

Blackbird Leys is the most dangerous small town in Oxfordshire, and is among the top 10 most dangerous overall out of Oxfordshire's 312 towns, villages, and cities. The overall crime rate in Blackbird Leys in 2021 was 138 crimes per 1,000 people. @shakahislop

the only interesting things I have to say about blackbird leys is that they were the dirtiest team we played football against, who would also call us names, that it has a nice swimming pool, that its getting gentrified-ish, that part of the population there are people who were moved there after 'slum clearances' where the city tore down a chunk of the residential bit in the city center by the station

 

[shakahislop]

my sister told me that it was the joyriding capital of england in the 90s but i doubt that's true

 

[shakahislop]

it was also the inspiration for the Beatles song 'blackbird', which is often misinterpreted

 

[toko]

there's plenty of non-state governance through violence going on. even in places without wars. A lot of power structures in a lot of 'developing' countries have this kind of feature. it's just not much of a thing in the countries that most of us on here are from

yeah I think vigilante's can only really exist within the context of a state - if there was never a state or police it's just different factions using violence to enforce some rules

 

[shakahislop]

Blackbird Leys - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

such a beautiful name too. can you think of an estate with a more beautiful name? blackbird leys.