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Okay, let me put it to you this way, straight from examples right here in the city I live in and many others in my country: You and your neighbors get along in

Okay, let me put it to you this way, straight from examples right here in the city I live in and many others in my country: You and your neighbors get along in the small residential/commercial community you inhabit. Things are fairly peaceful even though otherwise your country is riddled with corruption, police that are WORSE than useless (they're often highly criminal and/or collude with criminal gangs) and your little community of neighbors is trying to get by and largely watching over their neighborhood. Then, one day, a small group of thieves starts entering and assaulting stores, trying to extort people and robbing others on the streets, threatening more violence if people don't cooperate better. You try calling police, but they either don't show up at all or only do so late and never investigate anything worth a damn (remember, they collude, and they're likely colluding with your newly arrived local thugs). So, your neighbors and you organize together and ambush these thugs the next time they come along with their attempts at violence. You catch and badly beat a few of them then toss them out into a public area where an ambulance can pick them up. It sends a clear message, the extortions stop. Is this ideal? Nope. It's awful, but you want peace for your business, community and family, and what other recourse do you have? Should you and all your neighbors just spew platitudes about ideals of law and order while being assaulted regularly? Or should the whole neighborhood, as you say, apply for overseas asylum and wait months or years for a response (likely negative)? Maybe they should abandon their homes and everything else of their culture to illegally flee, letting the country sink further into chaos? They mostly won't do these things. because they want a peaceful home that is their real home, and with legal options having been marginalized, communities and groups sometimes really, no-shit-no-other-option have to take matters into their own hands. Maybe that clears things up about perspective from within a highly functional, lawful country that had decades or centuries before you were born to become like that, letting you simply enjoy it and criticize others who aren't so lucky yet.

robbedpeter 5y ago
It's really clear. If your home is invaded and there is no rule of law, you ambush and kill the thugs. If that's not feasible, or if the retaliation can't be handled, then you leave for a place where you aren't chattel for a gang of thugs. Because it's no longer your home. If your country won't or can't protect you and your neighbors, it's not your country, so yes, fleeing is the only rational move. They can't extort you if you're not there anymore, and you run the chance of grouping up with enough like minded others that you might be able to return and take back your land with force. I'm not criticizing the people who find themselves in shitty situations. I'm criticizing your statement that the civilization I am fortunate enough to live in is "privilege." It is a carefully guarded and deliberately constructed civilization designed precisely to defend individuals from mobs and strongmen. That is a right, not a privilege, secured by violence and death and sacrifice. When there is no rule of law, might makes right. Securing civilization from lawlessness universally starts with blood and death and is a horror show. It's that, or leave for a better place. By staying, you're giving power to the exploiters. Worse, you're giving them the means to abuse and exploit more people, and more generations of people. There are no good or easy choices in such situations. You kill, you leave, or you perpetuate the hellscape, inflicting it on your local society. The idea of the state having a monopoly on violence is the foundation of all successful civilizations. The idea being that if there is no monopoly, the right and responsibility to use violence falls to individuals, and when individuals are wielding violence without consequences, rule of law is meaningless. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence
- helloworld11 5y ago
  I mostly agree with the ideas you're expressing, and that they're a vital part of any decent, functional society. My strong disagreement is with criticism of vigilante reactions under dysfunctional circumstances, and with the perhaps unintentionally flippant insistence that people should just leave their home if they live in partly lawless places, or that they can at all easily do this, with families and precious possessions included. Staying isn't just a casual preference for most people, it's a basic economic necessity and an emotional attachment to the idea of not giving up and ceding one's home to abusive people because things got tough. People aren't normally thinking in some abstract sense that "I should leave this country and stop giving abusive social elements the means with which to perpetuate themselves". They're more often thinking. "This is my home and where my family is from, why should I flee everything I know instead of fighting back however I need to?".

robbedpeter 5y ago

It's really clear. If your home is invaded and there is no rule of law, you ambush and kill the thugs. If that's not feasible, or if the retaliation can't be handled, then you leave for a place where you aren't chattel for a gang of thugs. Because it's no longer your home. If your country won't or can't protect you and your neighbors, it's not your country, so yes, fleeing is the only rational move. They can't extort you if you're not there anymore, and you run the chance of grouping up with enough like minded others that you might be able to return and take back your land with force. I'm not criticizing the people who find themselves in shitty situations. I'm criticizing your statement that the civilization I am fortunate enough to live in is "privilege." It is a carefully guarded and deliberately constructed civilization designed precisely to defend individuals from mobs and strongmen. That is a right, not a privilege, secured by violence and death and sacrifice. When there is no rule of law, might makes right. Securing civilization from lawlessness universally starts with blood and death and is a horror show. It's that, or leave for a better place. By staying, you're giving power to the exploiters. Worse, you're giving them the means to abuse and exploit more people, and more generations of people. There are no good or easy choices in such situations. You kill, you leave, or you perpetuate the hellscape, inflicting it on your local society. The idea of the state having a monopoly on violence is the foundation of all successful civilizations. The idea being that if there is no monopoly, the right and responsibility to use violence falls to individuals, and when individuals are wielding violence without consequences, rule of law is meaningless. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence

helloworld11 5y ago
I mostly agree with the ideas you're expressing, and that they're a vital part of any decent, functional society. My strong disagreement is with criticism of vigilante reactions under dysfunctional circumstances, and with the perhaps unintentionally flippant insistence that people should just leave their home if they live in partly lawless places, or that they can at all easily do this, with families and precious possessions included. Staying isn't just a casual preference for most people, it's a basic economic necessity and an emotional attachment to the idea of not giving up and ceding one's home to abusive people because things got tough. People aren't normally thinking in some abstract sense that "I should leave this country and stop giving abusive social elements the means with which to perpetuate themselves". They're more often thinking. "This is my home and where my family is from, why should I flee everything I know instead of fighting back however I need to?".