“Five hundred and twenty-seven counts of obstruction of justice.” – The Dark Knight
Behold, the American justice system! (All memes as-found today)
One of the most important requirements to have a functional society is the law. This is backed by historical evidence. One of the earliest known fragments of a legal system is the Code of Ur-Nammu. Ur-Nammu is the name of the king who wrote the laws, and the name of the country he ruled was Ur, which must have been quite a happy coincidence for King Ur-Nammu.
The kingdom of Ur was bordered on the north by Um, on the south by Uh, and on the west by Like. On the east was the kingdom of Carpetia, who, from their capital of Deepshag, specialized in creating high-quality fabric floor coverings. But that is another story.
This, though, was at least 4100 years ago. It illustrates a very simple truth: when people live together, they have to have laws and punishment or there will be chaos. Anyone who ever had a roommate or an ex-spouse can vouch for me on that one.
Thankfully, federal judges have jurisdiction in interstellar space.
The law is a very simple premise: in exchange for the promise of fairness, the individual gives up the natural rights of vengeance and retribution. This is crucial. Without law, if Britney Spears borrows $20 to buy a McChicken™ sandwich at 3am and then doesn’t pay me back, I could drive to her house and kidnap her pet ocelot until she repaid me. I know, I know, that sounds oddly specific, but there are some stories I just won’t get into.
Instead, I can sue Britney Spears in court, and if all of the facts are properly judged, that McChicken®-eating soulless tart will give me back that $20. Or, maybe, I lost that IOU she signed on the back of my travel copy of the Magna Carta and the judge says, “Insufficient evidence” and frog marches us both out of court.
As long as everyone feels the system is fair, life is good. But when people sense that fairness is gone, they’ll take matters into their own hands. This is scary, because it leads to a series of endless reciprocal atrocities. Another word for this is Chicago. Or Mogadishu. Or El Salvador.
Still waiting, Pam.
The people in those locations don’t believe in the law. Those wandering around killing don’t want cops, obviously. But most of the people that they kill don’t want cops, either, since they’re killing as well. The bystanders and clueless non-violent civilians who wander into the games would like law, but it often doesn’t matter.
The punishments are rare, and when they finally hit, aren’t a sufficient deterrent to others going out to break yet more crimes. Part of the reason is that most of these criminals are really stupid. I don’t mean that euphemistically – they’re stupid. Low IQ correlates with high crime. The stupider they are, the more likely they are to kill.
There are many reasons for that, from inability to plan, to the inability to understand a conditional hypothetical (“How would you feel if you didn’t have breakfast, Jamal?” “But I did have breakfast.”), to the inability to think that their actions might have consequences.
Amazing how opposition to Trump will make the GloboLeft contort themselves.
No, for the law to work on stupid people, the punishment must be swift, severe, and certain. Our current justice system is none of these. Cases last for years, most crimes are dealt with by being dismissed or through a plea to a far lesser offences, and Soros D.A.s frequently drop the charges on rapists and murderers.
If that isn’t bad enough – juries are tribal. The first big case I saw that confirmed this was O.J. Simpson’s murder trial.
It’s pretty obvious that O.J. Simpson killed his ex-wife. This is a non-ideological question. But it is not a non-racial question. Why was he found not guilty? It was because he was black and killed a white woman. The black jurors certainly weren’t going to convict him.
Do we think a black juror will vote to convict Karmello Anthony? Or that a pliable D.A. won’t give him a sweetheart plea deal so he can do two years in the slam and then be out? That leads to a loss of faith in the system.
What happens when we lose faith in the justice system? Well, in Indiana, one great-grandfather lost faith in the system. 65-year-old Mark Vawter was waiting, likely, to shoot and kill one S’Doni Pettis.
Why would a great-grandfather want to do that? Because Mr. Pettis had, while (allegedly) with drugs and while being chased by police, Mr. Pettis had driven a car at great speed into an innocent bystander’s car causing it to burst into flame. Inside? Mr. Vawter’s 3-year-old and 2-month-old great-grandchildren. Mr. Vawter probably had seen that Mr. Pettis was charged with 3 counts of a level 3 felony. In Indiana, that could put him out on the streets again in less than three years.
And Mr. Vawter had probably learned that Mr. Pettis had already been charged with an attempted murder, but the case was plea-bargained down to an aggravated battery. He went to jail, and . . .
Pettis was likely let out early.
Mr. Vawter calculated that the system would probably fail again, and decided to take matters into his own hands. Vawter waited with a pistol, and drew it when the prison van doors opened. What Vawter didn’t know was that Pettis wasn’t on the van – his hearing had been postponed.
Vawter was shot by the police.
Vigilantism is something that has been feared by governments for more than 4,000 years. When individuals feel that they have no choice but to enforce justice themselves, you have the chaos of gang warfare.
But thankfully in the UK, you know the justice system is working, and people will get longer sentences than Mr. Pettis for speaking their minds . . .
The justice system is important, and it’s failing. There will be consequences.
How much longer do you think Trump will allow Pam Bondi to stay as AG before he replaces her? On paper, she seemed like a good candidate, but once in office she seems to be more focused on doing interviews than her actual job. Kash is doing better, but not by much.
Does anyone know if Tom Homan has a twin brother? I would love to see more no-nonsense, results oriented people like him in these “house cleaning” assignments.
J Bird
John – – You said: “It’s pretty obvious that O.J. Simpson killed his ex-wife. This is a non-ideological question. But it is not a non-racial question. Why was he found not guilty? It was because he was black and killed a white woman. The black jurors certainly weren’t going to convict him.”
That may have been partly true. A more plausible reason seems to be that the jury believed that if they found OJ guilty, all of California would become engulfed in riots, arson, murder, etc. Recall that the Rodney King riots had just happened. Koreans had been on rooftops armed with rifles and shotguns….. The inflamed black “public” (pushed by media highlighting police bad acts as in Rodney King police acquittals) was mgoing to explode “if the police won again”.
Vigilante justice is where we are headed. Jury nullification is a real thing and growing more common. When you know the system is going to fail to punish wrongdoers, and thereby fail to discourage future felons from committing criminal acts, then the only recourse is taking matters into your own hands. S’Doni Pettis should have been quickly tried, found guilty as there is no question of his guilt and hung in the public square that same afternoon.
Baloney where we are headed is a lock down police state. This is all planned, when all the wimps yell do something protect us. Martial law and army on the streets.
We need more of this. A lot more of this.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ex-mexico-judge-wife-tried-013724550.html
https://nypost.com/2025/04/26/us-news/judge-busted-for-allegedly-helping-illegal-migrant-evade-ice-voted-most-public-trusted-official/
I have some ideas for improving justice.
The real problem is that arresting judges is not striking at the heart of the matter. It is illegal under the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (ARCA) for a US citizen to hire an undocumented worker. Every time ICE picks up a illegal nanny or line worker, the citizen rich b*tch or boss signing their check should automatically be charged as well. Every single time.
I am all for establishing the forty-five square mile Guantanamo Bay Due Process Holding Camp with free cot housing under open-air tents and free daily servings of oatmeal and lentil soup (served by citizens sentenced under ARCA) for those millions of undocumented campers waiting their turn for a constitutionally guaranteed on-site immigration hearing with a mere handful of rogue judges such as Cano and Dugan assigned there as restorative community service. Don’t like a years-long wait? Free jet ticket home anytime to those who wanna skip their place in line.
Heck, sweeten the deal. Give ’em frequent flyer miles.
Spent the weekend in Florence, AL (NW part of the state) and noted something amazing. Almost zero Hispanics working in restaurants and very few blacks in those and elsewhere.
And, driving back to a NC job site through Huntsville, was amazed at how large it is. Checked population figures, and it’s the #1 city in the state, bigger than Birmingham, but not Metro Area. Lots of industrial development. Its County DA spoke at my grandson’s ceremony. No nonsense black woman who had 6 children. This is in a county that’s +/-70% white. Bet justice is quick there.
Next time you come thru Huntsville give me a heads up and I’ll buy ya lunch. It’s a great place to live…for now. All the relocating engineers (highest per capita in the US) can buy twice or more housing from their blue state sale…bringing their politics and inflation with them. We’re rapidly going from red to purple – that’s how Doug Jones got elected.
Move to Cullman!
Funny you should mention that. One of my stepsons moved from Birmingham to Cullman so I go there a lot. He and his family love it there and so do I. I think it’s a great small town. I mentioned to my wife that now that the last local grandkid is going to college it was time to move to Cullman to be near the next two now starting high school. I said this jokingly in earshot of the aforementioned college-bound granddaughter. They both reacted with horror. Apparently after Huntsville away ballgames in Cullman, the minority student athletes sprint to the bus to be immediately whisked back to safety in Huntsville. They claim there’s lots of chatter online about how it’s racist. That’s news to me, I have no frame of reference for that. As I said, I just think it’s a great small town. If Cullman isn’t a place for all of us to aspire to, we’re doomed.
“Mr. Vawter calculated that the system would probably fail again, and decided to take matters into his own hands. Vawter waited with a pistol, and drew it when the prison van doors opened. What Vawter didn’t know was that Pettis wasn’t on the van – his hearing had been postponed.
Vawter was shot by the police.”
The moral of that story isn’t that vigilantism is bad.
It’s that you should learn to use a scoped rifle, and gun the bastard down from far beyond the range of their puny sidearms.
Ideally with a suppressed weapon, so they can’t even tell where you fired from. Allegedly.
And if the minions of TPTB do return fire, take some of them out too, to give them pause when they consider whom they’re really protecting. After the first one, all the rest are freebies.
Most courthouses now have restricted access entrances for LE to drive the prisoner vans into to prevent that. The one in question does not appear to; I expect that will change.
Interesting gedankenexperiment.
When are you going to do that?
It’s not hard to realize justice is a game played by attorneys and judges. Victims aren’t compensated for the crimes against them, or their families, and those that play in court keep drawing a paycheck, regardless of how it turns out. Individual vigilantes receive nothing, except some moments of satisfaction. Large groups have a better outcome. It’s almost impossible to arrest an entire city block, and any witnesses have a tendency to be blind, or impossible to find. In the end, it can be a terrible occurrence, and justice not served fairly, but it’s always cheaper on the tax payer.