Forums > Areas > Jalisco's Lake Chapala Region

Hound Dog

Oct 31, 2009, 12:27 PM

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On Civility

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There is a thread on another forum regarding vigilante justice including a mealy-mouthed discussion of whether or not vigilante justice by citizens protecting the precepts that presumably hold a community together and prevent anarchy and the destruction of the community as established are morally correct and I cannot think of a more complex problem with no easy answers but here is what I do know:

A body of laws and behavior, whether good or bad, holds together a community whether good or bad and people either do or do not benefit by that community´s existence and here is where people go astray. People affix moral judgments to a community based upon their philosophical points of view or, more importantly, whether or not they prsonally benefit from its existence physicallyor intellectually but, for sure, if you are endowed with certain intellectual and property rights by the community in which you reside you probably wish to protect the integrity of that community even if you must resort to violence. If you are not endowed with those rights by that community then your goal is just the opposite.

Weak or disorganized or corrupted or isolated frontier communities do not necessarily establish order within their jurisdictions and then "ordinary" citizens take the non-existent or inadequately enforced law into their own hands and, despite excesses arising from summary execution of laws by mob justice, those barbaric actions are the acorns from which great oaks arise.

That´s the way it is here on this less-than-civil planet.

In the desperately poor and disenfranchised Las Hormigas slum on the outskirts of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, one incorrigible youth continued to steal bicycles, a vital transportation link supporting livelihoods for indigent families throughout the ghetto and he was warned repeatedly to stop his criminal behavior but he continued to steal bicycles for needed drug money and just because he lacked appropriate respect for the social order of these folks expelled for political/religious reasons from their original home communities and livelihoods so one day they had had enough and they caught him in the act of stealing one more bicycle and they confronted him and beat him to death on the spot. No one in the Las Hormigas ghetto saw nor remembers the incident. Not one bicycle has been stolen since in Las Hormigas despite its history of bicycle thievery.

(This post was edited by Hound Dog on Oct 31, 2009, 12:53 PM)

gpkisner

Oct 31, 2009, 2:09 PM

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Re: [Hound Dog] On Civility

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Gosh--I hope all the bicycle thieves in the Chapala/Ajijic area get the message!

wendy devlin

Oct 31, 2009, 2:11 PM

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Re: [Hound Dog] On Civility

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Your story above recalls a most memorable night, when a bicylce, (it's owner's principle pride and joy and means of transport) was stolen, from where it leaned against the front of our casa. While the owner was visiting us, in the afterparty of arbon's birthday. We went to sleep as old folks do when the light fades early in the tropics around 9 p.m. Only to be woken a few hours later by shouting and screaming. Ma and Pa jumped to their feet, racing to the front door, just in time, to witness a melee on the street in front of the casa. The young man, whose bicycle had been thieved had returned with a gang of his amigos, to inflict bodily harm on the family of the night-watchman, who they thought were harbouring the perp of the bicycle theft. They attacked with crude weapons the men members of the perp's extended family from Acapulco,(hence, newcomers and racially different;read of African slave heritage) as one of those brothers was the current night-watchman on the bridge project beside the casa. The dudes from Acapulco grabbed what weaponry was at hand, machetes and long pieces of rebar and began chasing their attackers, down the street, intent of inflicting bodily harm. Which they did. Later that night, say after midnight, a huge bonfire appeared, outside our case. There, in the firelight, we witnessed the dashing about (like chickens with their heads cut off) panicked reaction of the women, wailing, loudly. The men members returned, and the commotion continued until the wee hours of the morning, when finally, exhaustion, seemed to set in, and the bonfire area went silent. Men, women and children slept the night together around the bonfire under blankets instead of returning to their shanty homes. The day, following, the bicycle in question, mysteriously returned to our casa. The alledged perp was seen, by myself, that afternoon, catching a long-distance bus, south.