Comment by nonrandomstring
7 months ago
> The answer in these cases, where there are only bad policy proposals, is to do nothing.
Or go further.
Sometimes the answer is to remove regulations. Specifically, those laws that protect wrongdoers and facilitators of problems. Then you just let nature take its course.
For the mostpart though, this is considered inhumane and unacceptable.
Sometimes we do exactly that. In general, if someone is trying to kill you, you are allowed to try and kill them right back. It's self-defense.
If you're talking about legalizing vigilantism, you would then have to argue that this is a better system and less prone to abuse than some variant of the existing law enforcement apparatus. Which, if you could do it, would imply that we actually should do that. But in general vigilantes have serious problems with accurately identifying targets and collateral damage.
Not quite my line of thinking but appreciate the reply. There's definitely an interesting debate to be had there about the difference between "legalizing vigilantism" and "not protecting criminals" (one that's been done to death in "hack back" debates).
It gets messy because, by definition the moment you remove the laws, the parties cease to be criminals... hence my Bushism "wrongdoers" (can't quite bring myself to say evil-doers :)
One hopes that "criminals" without explicit legal protection become disinclined to act, rather than become victims themselves. Hence my allusion to "nature", as in "Natural Law".
"Might is right" is no good situation either. But I feel there's a time and place for tactical selective removal of protectionism (and I am thinking giant corporations here) to re-balance things.
As a tepid example (not really relevant to this thread), keep copyright laws in place but only allow individuals to enforce them.
If you want a fun one in that line, allow piercing the corporate veil by default until you get to a human. Want to scatter conglomerates to the wind? Make the parent corporation fully liable for the sins of every subsidiary.
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