The Media, Failed States, Dogfights, The Beatles, and an Acid Trip.
I was traveling the other day and I stopped for lunch at a restaurant that had one of the cable news stations on their TV. The sound was turned off. A headline kept appearing before me as I ate:
With the TV's sound off, I never learned the details of the case. I confess that I understand the sentiment of vigilantism in the case of rape. What struck me as bizarre, was having a news network proffer the possibility that a vigilante attack on an accused felon might in any way be justified. They didn't say 'understandable', instead moving beyond hyperbole to the definitive 'justified'. My first thought was that the question presupposes guilt. Additionally, the suggestion of such an attack being justified tacitly implies the judicial system in the US has malfunctioned in some fundamental way, and in this case, the resort to illegal justice might serve some legitimate purpose. If that's true, then please hold in check any judgments on Mexico and its' tribulations with the drug cartels. If justice is being thwarted in our legal system, then we should be addressing our own failure to successfully prosecute the 'known' criminals in our midst. If the truth be told, framing the discussion in terms of support for vigilante justice is specious. It is a manipulation of the audience marinated in sensationalism which networks routinely offer as the sauce du jour, to wet our appetite for stories that should have been relegated to the page 4 of some regional newspaper. This 'appetite for their 'special sauce' is in actuality, the lizard brain, underlying our conscious mind, demanding spilled blood for the horrific act of rape as well as stimulating other primitive, unreasoned responses from homo sapiens, which may have played a role in our past biological success, but which has no place in a society founded on the rule of law. The media execs who chose to frame this story in terms of public support for vigilantism are manipulating their audience's primitive instincts in order to to 'gin up' interest in the already thin content of the 24 hour news cycle, (on what I can only hope was a slow news day).
Accused Rapist critically beaten. Was the vigilantes' attack justified?
With the TV's sound off, I never learned the details of the case. I confess that I understand the sentiment of vigilantism in the case of rape. What struck me as bizarre, was having a news network proffer the possibility that a vigilante attack on an accused felon might in any way be justified. They didn't say 'understandable', instead moving beyond hyperbole to the definitive 'justified'. My first thought was that the question presupposes guilt. Additionally, the suggestion of such an attack being justified tacitly implies the judicial system in the US has malfunctioned in some fundamental way, and in this case, the resort to illegal justice might serve some legitimate purpose. If that's true, then please hold in check any judgments on Mexico and its' tribulations with the drug cartels. If justice is being thwarted in our legal system, then we should be addressing our own failure to successfully prosecute the 'known' criminals in our midst. If the truth be told, framing the discussion in terms of support for vigilante justice is specious. It is a manipulation of the audience marinated in sensationalism which networks routinely offer as the sauce du jour, to wet our appetite for stories that should have been relegated to the page 4 of some regional newspaper. This 'appetite for their 'special sauce' is in actuality, the lizard brain, underlying our conscious mind, demanding spilled blood for the horrific act of rape as well as stimulating other primitive, unreasoned responses from homo sapiens, which may have played a role in our past biological success, but which has no place in a society founded on the rule of law. The media execs who chose to frame this story in terms of public support for vigilantism are manipulating their audience's primitive instincts in order to to 'gin up' interest in the already thin content of the 24 hour news cycle, (on what I can only hope was a slow news day).
