You know, I’m really sick of this constant, one-way denigration of anyone who “takes the law into his own hands,” any citizen who sees that a corrupt system is letting the guilty escape, and reluctantly decides that ordinary men must step up.
I remember this narrative from the black-and-white TV westerns of the 1950s. The vigilantes were always motivated by malice toward someone: sodbusters, freedmen, Indians, beaners, sheep herders, pacifists...and always had the wrong men.
Is history ever that way? I guarantee you that many men caught with stolen horses and summarily hanged were guilty of stealing those horses.
In Gone With the Wind, Scarlett goes out by herself and is assaulted by white trash. Since the Army of Occupation was not interested in extending the protections of law to white Southerners, several gentlemen disguised themselves, disguised their horses, broke curfew (punishable by death), and went to visit justice upon the would-be rapist.
The northern media lost their minds when they heard such things were happening, (which they were) and began spouting that it was an organized campaign to terrorize freedmen. Racism, don’cha know? General Forrest and some others decided to yank their chains, and announced the organization of a group they dubbed the KKK.
The “KKK” consisted of an unknown number of groups of men across the South, trying to protect their people from the worst abuses of the “reconstruction.”
You know, vigilantes.
I now see the reason that this “vigilantes evil” narrative was so relentlessly pushed. I thought it was just a convenience for the police, who used to insist upon a monopoly on violence done to malefactors. However, the real purpose of demonizing “vigilantes” was to keep us—yes, us—from protecting ourselves from the left—AKA the Forces of Evil.
We didn’t know this day was coming, but they did. Or, at least, they had faith that they would bring it about. “Double, double, toil and trouble, fire burn, and cauldron bubble, and never, never emulate the Minute Men; never take your gun and boil into the streets to confront mobs of evil rioters. Leave it to the police; you’ll only screw it up; it’s illegal, and vigilantism is always wrong no matter what.”
Does everyone believe that? Is everyone going to sit in their rockin’ recliners until evil knocks the door in to rape their wives and children in front of them, as the Vietnamese communists used to do?
By the way, the original KKK disappeared with the end of reconstruction, when it was no longer needed. The second group to be called by that name arrogated it to themselves without permission or justification: a case of stolen honor.
The first KKK was made up of southern aristocrats, the second of lower caste southerners resentful of the successes not only of blacks, but of Jews, Catholics, and practically everyone else.
1. Slavery is not the worst thing there ever was.
2. Racism is not the worst thing there is.
3. There are times when men of honor have an obligation to protect the weak from the evil.
This is more of a denigration of those who respond to ideas with violence, something that is always bad.