The thing about “kill pedophiles” and “castrate rapists” and all that is that it’s a flat-out reactionary sentiment that gains a lot of traction in Leftist circles and it goes practically unchallenged because anyone who does challenge it can be accused of advocating rape or sex with children.
Some radfems have found this post and of course they’re treating it with all the nuance such a sensitive subject deserves (telling me to kill myself).
I made a joke a couple years back saying that it seems like for a lot of anarchists, the actual issue with the justice system was that the government wouldn’t let them have lynch mobs. And dear god has that one come true, I saw something just the other day saying that the problem with capital punishment was that the government shouldn’t have the right to kill people, but if you just let me bludgeon people to death with a baseball bat it would be great.
i think what people are failing to understand is that the moment anyone is allowed to be an executioner, that power WILL be misused, and it WILL come down hard on literally anyone the group in power wants dead, regardless of whether or not they’ve committed a crime, because that’s how the legal system works rn; people with enough power/influence easily gets away with crimes that people without can’t. just because we’re turning to mob violence instead doesn’t mean that’s gonna change - people who are without power will be executed, and people who do have power will benefit
The moment I read this my first thought was: There’s currently countries in this world, that actively accuse lgtb+ people of pedophilia. So guess who will get lynched first, if y'all made lynching legal?
dear god yes all of this. it’s very clear that a lot of people don’t want to dismantle the power structures, they just want to be at the top of them
Your Very Unfriendly Reminder that the #1 thing Black men were accused of to justify lynching between 1865 and … well, there’s no official “end date” to lynching, but roughly 1940-50s, was rape. Rape of white women and girls.
Anyone who spoke up against lynching was immediately attacked in the press for defending rapists (and pedophiles, though that wasn’t the word they used).
Ida B. Wells’ The Red Record is free and everyone should read it.
When we have the positions “it’s legal to do whatever you want to someone who has done _______,” and “community justice is the answer to government oppression,” we are always going to get to lynching.
It also flies in the face of something that leftists normally claim to be in favour of until they actually have to practice it; which is rehabilitation.
If you want your justice system to become rehab-based rather than the Just Lock Them Up right wing wet dream, you have to accept that people can do bad and icky and terrible things, and they still deserve the chance to be rehabilitated. Which they will not get if you jump straight in with “Kill them”.
