the case of Aaron Vargas

Recently, I had blogged about the National Forensic League's March/April resolution, "Vigilantism is justified when the government has failed to enforce the law." This weekend, a visitor to the blog sent me a story of her brother, Aaron Vargas, who will soon stand trial, accused of murdering Darrell McNeill of Fort Bragg, California.

My brother was recently arrested for killing the man who sexually and psychologically abused him for 20 years. Many others in our small community were abused. Victims, and a former wife of the abuser, went to the police but not investigation was done, only a report was filed. The abuser abused his own children. He was involved in Big Brothers and Boy Scouts. His "little brother" was a victim, abused for 5 years and then harassed. [The victim] killed himself three years ago. A second victim also killed himself. My brother was stalked and harassed by his abuser. The abuser would show up at his house and ask to see his baby and to babysit. My brother quit his job because he was stalked at work. I launched a website for my brother www.saveaaron.com. I'm trying to get the word out about his case and this issue of abuse and the system failing the victims.

According to the local paper, Vargas shot McNeill with a muzzle loader, and made no attempt to flee or resist when arrested a while later. The paper notes that McNeill was suffering from Parkinson's and had lost ownership of his home.

I can't vouch for all the claims in the story above, since they were sent to me by a total stranger. If true, they illustrate the pain of abuse compounded with injustice, the difference between vengeance and retribution, and the dilemma society faces when a victim feels forced to take the law into his own hands.

Put in Aaron Vargas's place, I wonder what I would do. Honestly--and fortunately--I can't say.

guest blogger offers Neg arguments for vigilantism resolution

Guest-blogger and frequent commentator comakid has graciously offered to share some favorite Neg arguments on the vigilantism resolution. I edited lightly, mostly for spelling.

It's rather hard to write this, because I didn't really have a "set," pre-written case; on the neg, I found it more useful to go through my opponent's arguments one-by-one. I (and my judges, apparently) liked the extreme amount of clash.

On the other hand, I did have my favorite arguments, so I'll post the ones that make it nigh impossible for the affirmative to win.

My bias is a Policy background; I debate based on what outcome will be best. That means I tend to go for reductio ad absurdum and other stuff. Also, empirical examples make or break the round; reality always overrides theory.

Here we go:

I negate the resolution, Resolved: Vigilantism is justified when the government has failed to enforce the law.

Observations:

Value: Peace defined as AVOIDING A STATE OF NATURE or TOTAL GOVERNMENTAL COLLAPSE
Should be easy to defend. Yes, that IS a Hobbesian state of nature I'm referring to.

Value Criterion: Obviously, Governmental Legitimacy. I usually referenced the need for a federal monopoly of violence (thanks Jim!).

Here are my favorite contentions/ideas that I used during the round; they're solid.

Zero: Effort
Vigilantism is a short-term solution; my opponent can agree that a long-term application of vigilantism in any situation wouldn't solve crime, as violence perpetuates violence. Also, such a system would depend on vigilantism ALWAYS being morally correct and perfect, and at that point, there's no need for law or government anyway, since individuals would be... Christ-like, apparently. Ignoring that line of argumentation, the only real solution would be to put effort into rebuilding a NEW government or REFORMING the old one. Otherwise, you undermine the government's ability to rule, and we fall into a Hobbesian state of nature.

One: Naturalistic Fallacy
The resolution states that the government only needs to fail to enforce the law to justify vigilantism. But, is vigilantism justified when the law isn't good? My opponent has assumed that all laws are good and righteous, when I can easily point out such things as Jim Crow laws. Does my opponent REALLY want to stoop to that level? If he does, then:
A) He agrees the government doesn't have to support Jim Crow laws.
Oh, then all laws aren't justified then. And, therefore, vigilantism isn't justified (sometimes) when the government fails to enforce the law. That's conditional affirmation. He loses.
B) She says that a vigilante wouldn't support such laws.
My opponent fails to take groups like the KKK into consideration.
C) She finally admits that such laws would have to be enforced, for whatever reason.
My opponent has no moral standing. She's freely advocating, at this point, a government that freely abuses and dehumanizes certain members of society. And, at that point, there's no point in the law for those members of society; (and, by now, your opponent has probably turned her whole case around. You can say why vicious racism is wrong, right?)
D) He says Jim Crow laws don't count; I need a broader view.
How about China's One-Child policy? Should vigilantes enforce THAT law if the government fails to do so? It gets worse and worse from here on out.

Two: Social Contract Theory (don't bring up the word: "Hobbes")
A government's job is to represent the people's best interests; the reason we concede power to it is because it NEEDS that power to protect our interests. Therefore, we also put power into the GOVERNMENT to decide when and where to enforce the law. It is not the right of the people to choose when and where to support the government's decision; otherwise, my opponent is directly choosing a state of nature, with no government. I already said why that's bad; that's why peace is my value.

Three: Overkill (My fav.)
Killing shoplifters.

What? Not enough?

Okay. Obviously, the resolution has stated that the "jury" part of due process has failed to work. I'm fine with that; it's the single advantage (for all intents and purposes) that the affirmative has. The other part of due process is the punishment. The resolution only says that vigilantism is justified; we have no clue what such a person could do. Let's say the government decides that a shoplifter (a single mother in poverty) doesn't have to pay a fine or spend jail time. At that point, the government has failed to enforce the law. Let's say Joe Brown, our vigilante, comes up and brutally murders the girl to "enforce" the law.

Even better, one opponent said that vigilantes could simply "imprison" bad people. That brings vivid images of poor shoplifters in basements, chained to a wall for months, maybe years, all across the nation... yuck. Clearly, there's no philosophical basis for this argument, but I (and my judges) liked it.

guest blogger on Locke and vigilantism

As a dissenting view to my recent post on Locke versus the vigilante, I offer the thoughts of Sharry Grewal, this year's Ohio State OHSSL champion. The words are hers, slightly edited by me.

First, actually read the Second Treatise by Locke. If you do, you will find valuable info for the Aff.

In my first contention, I argued that when the government fails to enforce its laws, that state is considered dissolved and society is in the state of nature. I had a quote from Locke supporting this. The quote ended with "and the people are at liberty to provide for themselves."

In my second contention, I argued that the right to punish criminals is a natural right. I had a quote from Locke that said that in the state of nature, vigilantism was needed to enforce natural law, and was a right of all men. I then argued that any right that someone had in the state of nature was a natural right. It is important to note that the right to enforce natural law and punish criminals is the only one that individuals give up when the state is formed. However, when the state dissolves, as in C1, individuals can reclaim this right.

In my third contention, I argued that vigilantism provided the necessary enforcement of natural law to protect the community. I had excellent anthropological evidence of this (from a cross-cultural study) from Dr. Ray Abrahams. Three overarching patterns that Abrahams found: 1. Vigilantism is a frontier phenomenon; occurs in areas where a weak state has a large power vacuum. 2. Vigilantes tend to protect, rather than violate property rights. 3. Vigilantes tend to reduce chaos.

On to the Negative. I took the standard, yet persuasive procedural justice angle here, as well as a disproportionate punishments angle. I proved that disproportionate punishments were inherent to vigilantism because 1. vigilantes had a mob mentality and 2. they let their emotions, rather than a desire for justice take over.

In rebuttals for the negative, I established that vigilantism wasn't needed in the state of nature, because in the state of nature, cooperation would occur. This was established through a Robert Axelrod card. I then gave an excellent statistic to prove this. Out of 196 countries, only 15 are currently at war. I also gave examples of this on the national level. 1. When Fransisco Franco lost authority in 1936, groups of workers in cities. 2. Since 1991, the private sector of Somalia has very little crime rate because its citizens have cooperated. I then claimed advantages of this by saying that cooperation would bring about the re-establishment of the state. I proved that the Aff destroyed this cooperation by locking society into an endless cycle of violence, and consequently, into a state of fear. Whenever an Aff claimed that I wasn't allowing criminals to be punished, I responded that individuals who refused to cooperate will be ostracized (this included criminals and non criminals, so it wasn't vigilantism). Example: economic sanctions on the international arena. I then pointed out that very little crime would occur as a result of the fact that individuals feared reciprocity (if I don't cooperate with you now, you won't cooperate with me in the future) and had a sense of duty to the community. I always was able to extend the international anarchic arena statistic to prove that very little crime/conflict would occur.

Thought-provoking all around. Thanks for sharing, Ms. Grewal.

LD mailbag: the vigilante and the social contract

A reader writes,

I was hoping to run an Aff with Justice as the Value and Locke's Social Contract as the Criterion.

Upon researching a bit more, however, it does become clear that Locke would have been against vigilantes. Is there a way to modify Locke or simply use a generic 'social contract' criterion on the Aff side without getting rocked?

As I (and others) have mentioned elsewhere, classical approaches to the social contract are difficult for the affirmative. Locke disapproves. Hobbes wouldn't countenance it. Rousseau is anyone's guess.

Does that mean the Affirmative has no place to go?

Not quite.

Often in LD debate, competitors name-drop any of the Big Three without fully understanding the nuances in their positions. While this might make them seem well-researched, it can backfire, as a better-informed opponent can point out weaknesses in that philosopher's theory of the contract--or a judge, familiar with the philosopher, will set teeth on edge when hearing his work mangled.

This doesn't have to happen. Why use any of these particular theories when a more generic perspective will suffice? And why rely on crusty dead guys for your contractual logic? This is the beauty of LD: you are allowed to state your own premises and draw your own conclusions. A good argument is a good argument no matter who says it, and anyone who says otherwise is walking head-on into a trap called ad hominem.

For inspiration on the general theory underlying Social Contract thought, a good place to head is the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which distinguishes two major strains: contractarianism and contractualism.

Contractarianism, which stems from the Hobbesian line of social contract thought, holds that persons are primarily self-interested, and that a rational assessment of the best strategy for attaining the maximization of their self-interest will lead them to act morally (where the moral norms are determined by the maximization of joint interest) and to consent to governmental authority. Contractarianism argues that we each are motivated to accept morality, as Jan Narveson puts it, "first because we are vulnerable to the depredations of others, and second because we can all benefit from cooperation with others" (1988, 148). Contractualism, which stems from the Kantian line of social contract thought, holds that rationality requires that we respect persons, which in turn requires that moral principles be such that they can be justified to each person. Thus, individuals are not taken to be motivated by self-interest but rather by a commitment to publicly justify the standards of morality to which each will be held. Where Gauthier, Narveson, or economist James Buchanan are the paradigm Hobbesian contractarians, Rawls or Thomas Scanlon would be the paradigm Kantian contractualists.

Once you've chosen your foundation, you'll have to set about showing why the Social Contract produces a legitimate government (or achieves justice or social stability or welfare or whatever your value is), why the government's failure to enforce the law is interpreted as a breakdown in the Contract, and why the vigilante is therefore justified in taking the law into her own hands. It will probably take you a couple pages to hash everything out--and when you're done, you'll have a completed Affirmative case.

A few things to watch out for: a savvy Neg may argue that the law is not The Contract--which is technically true. You might want to pre-empt this by arguing that it doesn't matter; failure to enforce the law perpetuates social disorder, and is a widespread failure of the government to uphold its end of the bargain. Vigilantism, then, is justified for either of two reasons: for the same reason revolution is justified, or for propping up the State.

Also, a great way to get the Negative to agree to the Contract as a valid criterion for justice (if that's your value--which might be a good idea) is to ask a great CX question: What gives the State the right to punish criminals? Chances are their answer will dovetail nicely with your contractarian / contractualist view. If not, you can hammer 'em in your 1AR for failing to warrant the State's legitimacy versus that of the vigilante.

Last, a deontoloigcally-minded Affirmative might be on more solid ground, simply because the bar for justification is set a little lower. We don't have to argue that vigilantism is smart or best for society, only that it's justified. To the deontologist, that means, quite simply, that it's morally right. End of story.

vigilantism in various ethical perspectives

Joe Nusz of The Debate Files has written a few articles on the vigilantism resolution, analyzing it from a couple different ethical perspectives. (Each of his links below points to a longer piece in PDF form.)

To Nusz's take on the Big Three Social Contract positions (Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau), I would add that Hobbes' position, though strongest for the Negative, also puts the Neg in the bind of defending a form of sovereignty that contemporary folk find unappealing. Thus, Locke is probably the best option for the Neg, since his theory of the contract is less autocratic, yet his condemnation of vigilantism is unequivocal.

Nusz also introduces the philosophy of Bernard Williams (for advanced debaters, I'd say), and discusses good ol' Immanuel Kant. Whether you're looking for a new direction or a classic approach, there's something there for you.

new free LD resource: The LD Files

UPDATE: the domain has apparently expired, which is most unfortunate.

Geared toward beginners but useful for any LDer, Joe Nusz's The LD Files is a great place to get free advice on LD debate, including the current resolution. Check it out! (I'm adding a link to my sidebar, too.)

a libertarian view of vigilantism

Examining the vigilantism resolution, blog-neighbor Jason Kuznicki has weighed in on the vigilantism resolution, offering a libertarian perspective--and a corrective to what he sees as a flawed understanding of the libertarian view. In a sample passage, Kuznicki considers whether the affirmative should look to the inverse of the resolution for inspiration.

It may therefore be worthwhile to turn matters around, and to ask whether we could defend the proposition “Vigilantism is never justified when the government has failed to enforce the law.”

Accepting this proposition would require a sort of legal quietism; we might be forbidden from ever enforcing laws ourselves, even in cases of revolution, civil disorder, or state collapse. Indeed, we might even be forbidden from forming a new government, at least as long as representatives or partisans of the old government were still committed to it. The right of revolution, particularly of revolution in the peaceful or conservative traditions, would be read out as well. This concedes an awful lot.

For the alternative--and for some interesting questions for the Negative to consider--read the whole thing.

vigilantism and evolution

Regarding the March/April vigilantism resolution, Peter Wall has posted a third entry in his wide-ranging study of vigilantism and the rule of law. In a central passage, he refers to the "evolutionarily stable strategies" noted by John Maynard Smith and Richard Dawkins:

Dawkins and Maynard Smith were, of course, talking about populations of animals whose organizational complexity is of a much lower order than that of humans, but I have long thought that if we could pull back law to expose its roots, we would find an ESS. In other words, we would find that human life cannot exist without the kind of widely agreed and consensual strategies for social organization and dispute resolution that typically fall within the realm of “law.” It is the combination of our consent and its function that makes it law, not the success of coercion to achieve security. Those are abstract ides that only make sense when, as people like Yoo argue, the institution of government is a good in itself, whose primary goal is its own self-maintenance. But government separated from the governed and given its own independent existence is like a train going off the tracks.

So what does all of this have to do with vigilantism?

You'll have to head over there to find out. (And you'll be glad you did.)

modern vigilantes

Those looking for stories to match the March/April vigilantism resolution have plenty to choose from. Consider the experience of the Subway Vigilante, Bernie Goetz.

Bernhard Hugo Goetz, better known as Bernie Goetz, (born November 7, 1947) became a symbol of New Yorkers' frustrations with high crime rates when he shot four men intent on robbing him on the Seventh Avenue 2 express subway train in Manhattan in 1984. The incident sparked a nationwide debate on the issue of crime and self-defense.

In the incident, Goetz fired an unlicensed revolver five times, seriously wounding three of the would-be muggers and rendering the fourth a paraplegic. The unknown shooter, dubbed the "Subway Vigilante" by the New York press, was both exalted and vilified in the media and in public opinion.

Goetz surrendered to police nine days later and was eventually charged with attempted murder, assault, and reckless endangerment, as well as with several gun law violations. A Manhattan jury found him not guilty of all charges except a single gun law violation, for which he spent eight months in jail. Goetz and others have cited his actions as a contributing factor to the groundswell movement against urban crime and disorder in subsequent years.

More recently, Washington state's Tammy Gibson gained internet notoriety for beating a sex offender she had seen chatting with her teenage daughter--the summer before.

And even after her conviction Friday on assault charges, Tammy Gibson says she still has no remorse for what she did.

According to police documents, Level-3 sex offender William A. Baldwin had moved into his uncle's Puyallup home in early June. Following his move, Pierce County deputies distributed flyers around the neighborhood to alert residents of his presence.

On June 19th, Gibson, an area resident, went to Baldwin's house in the 1800 block of River Road and asked for him.

When Baldwin stepped outside, she claimed she was going to kill him because Baldwin had molested her children. Gibson then proceeded to hit Baldwin repeatedly with her bat, the document said, leaving him with an injured arm.

"I kept swingin' and swingin', and swingin'," Gibson told investigators.

Contrary to what she had said to Baldwin, Gibson later told investigators Baldwin had not molested her children.

Baldwin has since moved to Seattle. Asked if she'd handle it diferently if given another chance, Gibson said, "No, I'd do it again if not better." Her sentence: 90 days in jail.

these three remain: faith, hope, and justice

Recently I've been blogging (too much, one might say) about the National Forensic League's March/April vigilantism resolution:

Vigilantism is justified when the government has failed to enforce the law.

In an otherwise unrelated blog post by my brother, he gives counsel to a Christian frustrated by a perceived lack of divine inaction in the face of earthly injustice. Matt writes,

Then we come to the problem of lack of fulfillment. The question we must ask ourselves is on what terms we would see justice done–on ours or God's? We pray “Thy Kingdom come,” but if we set the terms for its coming than we shall certainly miss it. The Lord’s justice, in fact, may sometimes be hidden from our sight. We are not allowed to know everyone’s stories, including those who hurt us.

I would suggest, then, that you not give up seeking the Lord’s justice here and now, but if anything renew your efforts. But ensure you are seeking the Lord’s justice, for a transgression has been committed against His child, within the boundaries of His kingdom, and it is much his responsibility as it is his right to avenge it.

Quite unintentionally, my brother makes a formative Christian case against vigilantism: it is too likely to be motivated by vengeance, rather than by what he calls a "purified" desire for justice. Moreover, beyond merely straying into the government's turf, the vigilante risks tampering in God's domain.

So, in a manner of speaking, vigilantism is a matter of faith--and doubt. For the vigilante, "justice delayed is justice denied." But in seeking redress, she places too much faith in her own knowledge of the law, and of the guilt of the accused, and of the best means at her disposal. She doubts the government's potential to ever punish the crime or restore the rule of law. And, ultimately, the vigilante lacks patience to wait for God's timing. After all, vengeance is His, and He will repay.

Update: My brother's further thoughts on the subject turn the sketch into a painting.

does vigilantism require a law degree?

Peter Wall's first post on the vigilantism resolution attempted to define its scope. His second is now available. In it, Wall draws on the work of H.L.A. Hart, using an example of a vigilante, A, who has to coerce B into obeying the law, to cast light on a difficult epistemic problem for the affirmative.

How do we know that A, by stepping into coercive shoes, is accurately enforcing the will of the government? This raises the problem of interpretation. What if A is enforcing his own preferred interpretation of the obligations apparently imposed on B, and not the actual obligation imposed on B?

Obviously, there are both easy cases and hard cases. But even then, the person with the inferior position in an apparently easy case will often argue that the situation actually presents a hard case, where the result should be the counterintuitive one--i.e., the person with the apparently inferior position should win. Whether that argument does or should work will depend on your legal philosophy. The next level of abstraction, if you’re interested, would be to express skepticism that A can ever have the expertise or the authority to decide whether he is experiencing a hard or an easy case.

To slightly rephrase the question: what degree of legal certainty or expertise must the vigilante obtain in order to enforce the law?

A way to approach this, from a legal standpoint, might be to look into the precise circumstances where "citizen's arrest" is legally justifiable, and, on the obverse, to consider the citizen's duty to report crimes. Both situations presuppose some baseline familiarity with the law's latitude, and both may require the sort of fine-grained judgment that, in the absence of government enforcement, might justify vigilantism.

There's more over at Mr. Wall's blog. Leave your comments there. (I, for one, hope he continues mining this vein.)

scraping for vigilantism in the political theory jar

Regarding the vigilantism March/April LD resolution, if political theory is a jar of peanut butter, then finding analysis of vigilantism in that jar is like scraping out the last bits at the bottom.

In "Vigilantism and Political Theory," found in Vigilante Politics, Edward Stettner grabs a spatula and digs in. He turns first to the classic social contractarians, more specifically Locke, since Locke has a unique view of the state of nature. Stettner quotes from the Second Treatise, in which Locke claims that, in the state of nature, individuals have the right to pursue justice, having equivalent "executive power" to punish crimes against the laws of nature. However, Locke concedes to the objection that

it is unreasonable for Men to be Judges in their own Cases, that Self-love will make men partial to themselves and to their Friends. And on the other side, that Ill Nature, Passion and Revenge will carry them too far in punishing others. And hence nothing but Confusion and Disorder will follow.

Thus a civil government--some kind of representative scheme with checks on sovereign power--is necessary to enforce the law. Not much room for vigilantism in Locke's view, Stettner argues.

Later on, Stettner attempts to divine a Marxist take on vigilantism. One such position: it's pointless.

Normatively... any attempt to preserve the status quo is of no ethical value, as well as futile. History, for the Marxist, inevitably witnesses the destruction of all established classes until the proletariat is finally triumphant. Any vigilante activity is simply a failure... to accept the inevitable pattern of change...

Combining this with Rosenbaum and Sederberg's observation that vigilantism in inherently conservative, and the Neg can make a Marxist case against its justification.

Last, Stettner offers a broadside critique of vigilantism from the perspective of general political theory.

Much of political theory is ethically inspired.... [Political theorists] tend to discuss attractive goals such as justice, freedom, equality, which can be shown to have a positive ethical content. Other questions important to the theorist, for example discussions of proper political institutions and arguments why government should or should not be obeyed, are related to the means of achieving those ends. Vigilantism does not posit ends which are attractive. It is hard to argue ethically for self-interest, or for order qua order. Moreover, the means of achieving those ends, secret violence, is not morally attractive either. Vigilantism is clearly a sickness in the view of traditional theory, a perversion of both the means and the ends of politics as it should be.

So we've scraped the jar clean, and come up with salmonella. Good for the Negative, I guess.

the "uncharted waters" of vigilantism

Attorney and blog neighbor Peter Wall has written Part I of an exploration of the March/April vigilantism resolution. Not surprisingly, the topic has taken him into some pretty deep--and, in his words--"uncharted waters."

The problem is not to discover what actually exists—we can experience that in our everyday lives, see it in the news, and read about it in history. The problem is how to answer the moral question of whether vigilantism—taking the law into your own hands—is justified when there are no government enforcers of the law. But if law and government have no separate existence, so that law has no determinate moral content outside of a governed society, then “when the government has failed to enforce the law” might by synonymous with “when the law has ceased to exist.” (This also raises further questions about the scope of the resolution: Are we talking about a failure to enforce a law across the board, or a failure to enforce a law within a subset of the entire jurisdiction? Does the difference matter for the discussion?) And if we are talking about “when the law has ceased to exist,” where do we derive our justification?

The reality answer seems straightforward: we just know if something is justified. And there are probably good biological and sociological reasons for that. But having an inkling of those reasons, I am still not clear on how they fit with the philosophical and legal theories that drive our public discourse, our social narratives, and our political ideologies. If we are going to assert certain political theories as the basis for our “way of life,” then we ought to have a convincing and satisfying explanation for them, so that the reality answer fits with the theory answer. I have not yet seen that explanation.

Wall's question about the scope of the resolution is perhaps one of the most important for the debate. I tend to think that it refers to a society where the government and the law exist in some meaningful sense, especially after reading Rosenbaum and Sederberg, who argue that vigilantism is an essentially conservative enterprise. But nothing in LD can be taken for granted.

The matter of justification within or without the law is also interesting, and something I hadn't thought of. It creates a dilemma: one who argues that the vigilante is justified by a deeper or higher law--prior notions of morality or justice--tacitly conflates enforcement of the law with justice. Yet legal systems almost universally condemn the vigilante. Whither, then, is justification to be found?

I look forward to reading, and linking to, Mr. Wall's further musings on the subject, and thank him for taking his time to dive deep into the "uncharted waters" of this fascinating topic. Comments or questions for Mr. Wall should be left on his blog.

vigilantism as "establishment violence"

Vigilante Politics by H. Jon Rosenbaum and Peter C. Sederberg, is the first chapter in , a landmark 1976 study of the nature, causes, and consequences of vigilantism. It is a valuable resource for LDers considering the March/April resolution.

The first chapter, "Vigilantism: An Analysis of Establishment Violence," is by the editors, and lays out the grounds for the analysis of vigilantism, or, in their terms, "establishment violence." Here are some of the high points.

Unlike revolutionary violence or criminal deviance, vigilantism is fundamentally about preserving the status quo.

The potential for establishment violence is directly related to the degree to which those who have a vested interest in the status quo feel that the formal institutions of boundary maintenance are ineffective in protecting their interests. Essentially, it is a conservative phenomenon.

What does this mean for evaluating vigilantism? Two things.

Ultimately, therefore, an evaluation of vigilantism must be grounded in judgments as to the value of the social order being conserved."

This is an interesting approach for the Negative to take: an argument that vigilantism is worthless in the absence of a legitimate government. If the affirmative merely presumes that the law is just and good and that government is legitimate, we are not yet at the point where we can affirm.

If the affirmative doesn't bite, though, and has set up a social contract framework that withstands this line of attack, the negative can go for an empirical or risk-based approach.

Secondarily, however, one might ask if vigilantism is an efficacious strategy for stabilizing a sociopolitical order and, if so, under what conditions.

Regarding the second point, there are two critical features of vigilantism: it is "negative," in the sense that its goal is to suppress threats to the status quo, and it is ad hoc, arising in response to need on a case-by-case basis.

The authors note, "In general, vigilantism may be initially eufunctional for the stabilization process; but it tends to be dysfunctional over the long run." Why? "[I]t cannot replace formal political institutions and, indeed, it is probably antithetical to their growth."

The costs, long-term, outweigh the benefits.

The potential costs of crime-control vigilantism are obvious: establishment violence can rapidly become worse than the crime itself. Punishments tend to be disproportionate; the innocent have little protection; and quasi-criminal elements are attracted to the movement as a semilegitimate avenue for the expression of their antisocial tendencies. In addition, when law enforcement officials participate in the acts of violence, whatever moral validity the formal system of laws retained may be undermined.

Last, a point that squares with the way the resolution is written:

As an analytical concept, [establishment violence] assumes that there is a recognized sociopolitical order with formalized rules and methods of maintaining its boundaries over time. According to this model one cannot speak of vigilantism where there is no recognized 'establishment,' where conditions of internal war exist, or where there are no rules governing the application of coercion.

This may be important in cases where the affirmative is trying to justify vigilantism in times of anarchy--that the phrase "has failed to enforce the law" represents a massive failure rather than local or situational failure.

Added: I forgot to mention that, quite importantly, the authors distinguish three types of vigilantism: crime-control, social-group-control, and regime-control. Groups such as the KKK would fit into the second category, and, as such, are arguably nonresolutional, although the negative might try to lump them in as a potential risk of legitimizing vigilantism in a society.

The entire article is worth reading, if you can find a copy. If you have any questions or thoughts, share them in the comments.

when vigilantism spurs governmental reform

In a previous article related to the March/April vigilantism resolution, I described the relationship between vigilantism and legitimate state activity as "symbiotic." Just as symbiotic relationships in nature can drive evolution, so can vigilantism create the impetus for government reform.

Suzette Heald, writing in an article titled "State, Law, and Vigilantism in Northern Tanzania," found in the April 2006 edition of African Affairs, describes the history and impact of the sungusungu. She explains:

From the early 1980s onwards in central Tanzania, Sukuma and Nyamwesi villagers villagers began to organize their own form of collective policing which became known throughout Tanzania as sungusungu. Over time, these groups, which initially by-passed the official agents of state, far from being rejected, have become an integral part of the administrative structures of vast areas of rural Tanzania.

Debaters running up against Weber-based cases will be interested in Heald's analysis of the heterogeneity of modern sovereignty.

Conventionally, the state is seen after Weber as having a monopoly on the use of legitimate force. This assumes that the state is a unified entity, a single Leviathan. But modern democratic states are anything but monolithic: they have multiple specialized institutions, claiming different kinds of legitimacy as recognized from both within and without.

It is precisely this lack of unanimity that not only allowed the sungusungu to flourish, but provided them with greater legitimacy.

If the political and administrative arm of the government supported these groups - and continues to do so - it was quite otherwise with the police and the judiciary. Clearly, the actions of sungusungu groups constituted a 'taking of the law into their own hands' and were in any event outside the law, challenging the powers the judiciary took as its own, of arrest, trial, and punishment. They directly undercut the very rationale of the official agents of the law. More cynically, it could be said... that both police and judiciary found not only their role pre-empted but also the graft which accompanied it. They acted swiftly in attempts to suppress these groups through prosecutions. In the process, they demonstrated only further to the ordinary populace, that they were not the enemies of crime but in league with it.

All this is to say that, in the Affirmative view, there are two primary reasons why "the government has failed to enforce the law." One is a lack of capability; a second is corruption. Either can justify vigilantism.

And, as Heald argues, in the long term, vigilantism can spur government reform. In Tanzanzia, the sungusungu

... have altered the nature of state power at the local level and initiated long-term reforms. The sungusungu have come to operate in a distinctive space; co-opting government and, in turn, co-opted by it. Communities have taken back power, developed their own policing capacity and, in so doing, effectively re-invented themselves. With reformatory agendas, they have evolved new normative structures and modes of co-operation and organization which both actually and potentially have far-reaching consequences for economic and social welfare. A new vision of community responsibility is heralded and held out as an ideal. In the same way, perhaps, they have reformed and reclaimed the state, with the administration demonstrating an increasing responsiveness to the priorities of local communities and allowing them a greater degree of autonomy in the management of their own affairs.

When taken in the context of the resolution--justifying the practice only when the government has failed to enforce the law--vigilantism does not have to lead inexorably to lawlessness. Rather, it can help restore and strengthen the legitimacy of the state.

the moral tradition of vigilantism

Blog-neighbor Mark Olson, considering the March/April LD resolution, delves into the history of the practice.

The backwoods folkway were members of a society that in many ways can be described as the libertarian ideal. Personal freedom was extremely high and its heroes such as Patrick Henry were notable for their drive for independence and then after the Revolution completed pushing for independence from the Federal government(s) as well. However the very limited (or perhaps non-existent) central government in these regions in the pre-revolutionary times meant that there were also large somewhat organized predatory gangs. These gangs were larger and more organized than any given homestead could deal with when threatened and as a result, the organizing of townspeople for common defense against such groups was named after similar undertakings by Mr Lynch. This society was libertarian enough that the law books and statutes that existed provided little to no defense in the way of penal strictures against assault and injury to person (but property damage and theft was dealt with in a more standard, for the age, manner). It seems likely that the reason that rape, battery and other insults were either not or [only] lightly penalized is that the expectation [was] that your “folk” would deal with matters themselves.

For the affirmative, it's a scheme worth considering: in a libertarian minarchist paradise, the government's failure to enforce the law is, to some degree, desirable, since it allows citizens--families, friends, and neighbors--to preserve greater autonomy and fulfill their moral obligations to each other and to justice.

Update: Jason Kuznicki provides a libertarian rebuttal.

vigilantism's symbiotic relationship with legitimate enforcement

Poring over recent literature related to the March/April vigilantism resolution, I'm finding that most of it focuses on the history of vigilante violence, or contemporary examples of vigilante groups operating in failed states. It's harder to find analytical approaches; for the most part, contemporary political philosophy seems to be more concerned with legitimacy as a matter of state, rather than individual, focus.

Nevertheless, I've found a few interesting choices, which I'll outline in a series of posts.

First up: "'The only badge needed is your patriotic fervor': Vigilance, coercion, and the law in World War I America," by Christopher Capozzola, found in the Journal of American History, March 2002. The author analyzes vigilantism and vigilance committee that sprung up in the fever-pitch of the war effort during the First World War, which eventually prompted President Woodrow Wilson to issue a proclamation condemning mob violence.

In passing, Capozzola notes,

Vigilantism too has played a recurrent role in American history. Vigilantism is often equated with mob violence and thought to consist of political terror and violent coercion. Use of the term conjures up images of night riders and frontier justice. The historian Richard Maxwell Brown has documented more than 5,400 deaths by organized and unorganized groups between 1767 and 1951. But while vigilantism could and often did become deadly, neither killing nor physical violence is necessary for vigilantism. Rather, vigilantism is fundamentally about law. Political arguments about vigilantism articulate relationships between the political behavior of citizens and the system of law in which they operate. Vigilante actions are undertaken by citizens who are not public officials, even if they sometimes cooperate with officials or claim to act in the name of the state. Vigilantes operate outside the strictures of law as articulated by the legitimate regime, but they typically aim to establish social order, whether defense of the state, control of crime, or maintenance of racial, class, or gender hierarchies. "What is paradoxical about the vigilante position is, of course, that it seeks to perpetuate the existing order, but without law and without accepting the actions of the society's political institutions," according to the political scientist Edward Stettner.

Capozzola describes the wide variety of vigilance organizations, and their popularity in the American consciousness.

Hundreds of thousands of men and women responded to calls for national defense on the home front by forming voluntary vigilance associations. They varied widely in their aims, structures, and membership, from elite societies such as the National Security League and American Defense Society to more menacing organizations such as the Sedition Slammers and the Terrible Threateners to the Boy Spies of America. Over 250,000 men, and some women, enrolled in the largest such organization, the American Protective League.

Were these homespun groups effective in aiding the war effort? Not exactly.

Not a single German spy was uncovered during World War I thanks to the work of these vigilant citizens, and much of what they did was ineffectual or even absurd. Volunteers in New Haven, Connecticut, kept a round-the-clock watch at an antiaircraft device they had installed to protect the city against an (unlikely) aerial invasion from Germany. The earnest patriots of a vigilance group in Portland, Maine, seized a suitcase abandoned in downtown Longfellow Square. They "gingerly" brought the bag to police headquarters, where it was "carefully examined and was found to contain a quantity of men's soiled underwear."

On the other hand, where they weren't useless, vigilance committees could be worse than useless.

During the war, vigilance societies targeted pacifists, suffragists, ethnic minorities, religious fundamentalists, trade unionists, and socialists. Incidents of violent, spontaneous prowar crowd action abound, but organized groups working with the institutions of government and civil society already in place in local communities conducted most political coercion. Those organizations repeatedly glossed over or ignored issues of legal process and wasted little energy on establishing with precision their authority to make arrests--on what grounds and consistent with, or despite, what specific structures of law. They were not thoughtless mobs who believed the Constitution a meaningless scrap of paper, even as they appeared to treat it as such, but organized men and women deeply concerned about the survival of American democracy as they understood it.

The wartime context mattered. Calls for citizen vigilance raised the demand for volunteer policing, and wartime rhetoric and fear of subversion heightened its significance. The war also altered the relationship between private political coercion and the state. Americans were accustomed to private citizens' policing their neighbors' ideas and behaviors, their labor and leisure, before World War I. Yet it was only during the war--as ideas, behaviors, labor, and leisure had to be mobilized, regulated, and governed in order to defeat the enemy--that the practices of citizen policing came to be state projects, even when they were not conducted under state auspices. As the needs of modern war blurred the line between state and society, between mobilization and social control, the war tied private coercions to state interests.

Some of what Capozzola describes is not directly germane to the LD resolution, because of its unique wartime context. However, it illustrates a way that vigilantism can quite ironically legitimize the violent aims of the state. Cappozola's work also shows how well-intentioned corporate vigilantism is still plagued by flaws, the most glaring its lack of due process protections.

I would use a metaphor of symbiosis to describe the relationship between vigilantism and legitimate enforcement. What particular kind of symbiosis it represents--commensal, parasitic, or mutual--is where the argument lies.

Black's Law and the vigilantism resolution

Black's Law Dictionary is the premier source for LD definitions. This is uncontroversial. Because of it, all LDers considering the March / April vigilantism resolution should be very, very familiar with two key definitions from that source.

1. Vigilantism
Black's (8th ed.) defines it as "The act of a citizen who takes the law into his or her own hands by apprehending and punishing suspected criminals."

This is important for at least two reasons. First, it makes vigilantism primarily an individual act, rather than the domain of "vigilance committees," along with the concomitant advantages (it's therefore not necessarily widespread, threatening anarchy) and disadvantages (it may lack popular support or legitimacy). Second, the definition requires that the criminals in question are only suspected, raising an epistemic hurdle that the Aff must be able to clear. Negs are going to argue that individuals lack the resources, time, motivation*, and legal knowledge to fully pursue justice, and that vigilantism is thus inherently corrupt.

*In fact, their primary motivation, it can be argued, is to speed up the process of apprehension and punishment, reducing or eliminating the rights of suspects--if there even is a process!

2. Enforcement
Black's again: "To give force or effect to (a law, etc.); to compel obedience to." This prompts an interesting and critical question: does enforcement include punishment? If not, then the Aff can argue that we're not talking about a situation where the government has failed to convict known criminals. Rather, we're talking about a government that has failed to deter crime. This is good for the affirmative, since it means that the rule of law has, if not utterly toppled, at least reached a tipping point.

I've only begun to consider the implications of these definitions. Your thoughts and suggestions, as always, are welcomed in the comments.

litterbug vigilantes and the nanny state

Here's a perfect example of the potential for petty vigilantism in the Affirmative world of the March / April resolution: A man poses as a state trooper to shame someone who littered.

Police said the unidentified man was driving a red pickup truck with a dash-mounted flashing blue light when he stopped the woman and told her he was an off-duty Maine State Police trooper.

The impersonator never threatened the woman, Toman said.

"He just said, 'I stopped you because you threw a cigarette butt out the window in Augusta,'" Gardiner Police Chief James Toman said. "He didn't ask her for any identification and he certainly didn't show her any identification."

Just what the nanny state needs: freelancing nannies.


[Via Obscure Store]

value and criterion pairs for the vigilantism resolution

Regarding the March / April resolution. A work in progress.

Suggest your own in the comments!

For the Aff

V: Justice
C: Preserving autonomy
Preserving individual autonomy--including the ability to exercise discretion in going after villains--is a necessary route to justice when the government has failed to enforce the law. Autonomy precedes any sort of societal or law-and-order consideration, because it is the foundation of human rights and societal order.

V: Justice
C: Social Contract
The Social Contract is a rough approach to balancing rights claims as a precursor to the formation of a State. Any State that, through some loss of sovereignty, can or will no longer enforce the law, has violated the Contract, and is no longer legitimate. Thus, not only do individuals reserve the right to seek justice outside the State, but the State also cannot bring any claim against those who protect themselves or their community by doing so. In this way, vigilantism and civil disobedience are two sides of a coin.

V: Justice
C: Popular Sovereignty
Vigilantism, as the resolution would have it, is justified when the government has failed--arguably to a significant degree, since we're debating the "general principle," as the rules of LD state--via notions of justice, which is achieved by recognizing that ultimate sovereignty lies in the people, not the State or the law.

V: Justice
C: Utilitarianism
A utilitarian view of justice is founded on two principles of effectiveness: deterrence and incapacitation. Both fail when criminals neither fear the law nor face its consequences. Thus, utilitarianism justifies vigilantism when the government has failed to enforce the law.

V: Justice
C: The Categorical Imperative
Punishing the guilty is a categorical imperative. A Kantian would argue that if one of the last two people on earth, surviving the apocalypse in a concrete bunker, knew beyond a doubt that his fellow survivor was an escaped murderer, he would have duty to execute the evildoer. This justice-over-all approach warrants vigilantism in the face of failed government enforcement.

For the Neg

V: Justice
C: The Rule of Law
Affirming the resolution threatens the rule of law, since it prescribes no real minimum for the government's failure to enforce its statutes. Allowing vigilantism to flourish devalues the very institution of the law, which is the closest approximation to real justice within a given society.

V: Societal Welfare
C: The Rule of Law
If vigilantism is justified, similarly to the argument above, the rule of law is at risk, and society is a few steps removed from anarchy. The proper response to an ineffective or apathetic government is to reform its institutions, not to tear apart the social fabric.

V: Justice or Dignity
C: Protecting Rights
Vigilantism offers no protections of due process rights, no checks on cruel or unusual punishment, no accountability to any exterior force. Suspects--or even known criminals--are still humans, deserving of fair trials and humane treatment.