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 defended themselves. Nobody can criticize them for that. Yes of course it would better if law enforcement was fixed, but people often have no ability to fix that in any reasonable time frame. Meanwhile people are getting murdered.
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.
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.
to the extent that they expect other people to suffer or even die upholding those ideals
The key word here being other people. This is why I don't support 'nonviolent' politics; it basically encourages people to be punching bags in hopes of activating the conscience of people higher up the social scale...which is a lot better for the latter group than for the 'nonviolent demonstrators' getting brutalized. Turns out that people's consciences are pretty darn calloused these days, so if you're depending on on other people's empathy to solve your problems you're going to be waiting a long time.
You can only act reasonable so long as your enemy is willing to extend the same courtesy. When someone is this far gone, there's nothing you can really do other than violence, if the legal system has failed you. It sounds like they tried all reasonable options and were left with just one.
It insane and the rule-of-law take is a new one to a very old story. The story surfaces every few years and until this posting the consensus was he got what he deserved. The law fails people on a daily basis.
> 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
Good ideals are worth suffering and risk of death. I'm honestly surprised you think otherwise. Not saying this is one of those cases necessarily, just responding to the general idea that principles should never be dogmatic.
