By Paul Weiser
Among their many demon-words, the mainstream media (and government at many levels) favor "vigilante" for those they wish to defame. What they fail to understand is that, in historic fact, vigilantism is a very specific phenomenon which arises in a severely limited set of circumstances.
Mainstream media and government would have us believe that anyone who takes it upon himself to perform functions government claims as its own - no matter if it actually fails or refuses to perform them - is "taking the law into his own hands," a vigilante. This tar-brush has been shaken at neighborhood patrols, Minuteman civilian border patrols, and the like.
But actual vigilantism is something else. In America, a secret Committee of Vigilance forms when local law enforcement is seriously corrupt - where the gangs (the "Sydney Ducks" in old San Francisco or bandits on the frontier) operate local law enforcement for their benefit. Only then does a Committee of Vigilance arise - time-limited, with a solemn oath and covenant - to give the bad actors (including mayor and sheriff) personal necktie parties. With all bad guys hung or fled, the Committee dissolves, its work done.
True vigilantes are not night-riders, Klansmen or some other sort of terrorist: they restore order in the only way possible when things get bad enough. They don't "take the law into their own hands" - they pick it up off the ground where government has criminally dropped or thrown it, use it briefly and peaceably hand it back, their mission complete.
Media and government complaining of "vigilantes" demonstrate a keen appreciation, not of how things should be, but of their own corruption. For in accusing those who merely point out their sins of vigilantism, they clearly show that they understand the evil they're doing, and what they in justice - for their own injustice - deserve.
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