Skip to main content

Causing the Fight

Carl Lee Hailey murdered two white men who gang raped his ten-year-old daughter, and was acquitted from the said crime by the jury despite his obvious guilt. This was the story of a responsible father turned vigilante killer in John Grisham’s “A Time to Kill.”

Just like the reasons of the acquittal of Hailey, the vigilante killers and their supporters believe in putting justice in their own hands; that a crime is justified on the victim’s criminal record.

But what do we call these people who are solving crime through crime? Isn’t the definition of the word criminal, someone who is guilty of a crime? Isn’t the murder of a person a crime? If the answer to these questions is yes, then vigilante killers are criminals.

It was said that even implementors of the law tolerate and accept vigilante killing as a means of eradicating criminals. Many ordinary citizens are slowly approving the idea. No one knows, maybe tomorrow, vigilante killing will be legal.

St. Thomas Aquinas’ validity of laws depended on his proposed hierarchy which put the Eternal Law (supreme will of God) on top, the Natural Law (part of Eternal Law imparted to human beings) at second, Divine Law (the Bible) at third, and the Human Law at the bottom. This meant that a law could only be valid if it doesn’t contradict the laws on top of the hierarchy.
So even if vigilante killing is legal – or at least, legal in the eyes of its supporters – it is definitely an invalid law. We all know that one of the laws stated in the Ten Commandments is the prohibition of murder, the indication of a person’s natural right to live. Isn’t this a good enough reason to put vigilante killing out of the scenario?

We have heard all of them despise the National People’s Army for demanding reform from the government through arms, or the rebellious Moro National Liberation Front and Moro International Liberation Front, or even the Abu Sayyaf bandits. The vigilante killers are also like the rebel groups, fighting for a cause, but most often causing the fight

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Prayer in the Desert

We had just finished our pictionary sessions for that day when Manang startled us with a shocking news. Immanuel, or Iman as what we usually call him, the only nephew we have, was rushed to the hospital earlier that day. We were kind of late for the news as my eldest sister, Grace, only left an offline message to my other sister's (Nanette) yahoo account.  It was not really a cause of alarm for me at first as I knew that Ate is some kind of paranoid sometimes. She worries a lot and I thought that she overestimated the gravity of the situation.  Manang decided to call Ate though it was already around 4am Philippine time. I was only listening, something that I usually do as I'm not good in communicating affection to family members, or to anyone if I may say (but it doesn't mean that I don't care. I do, I really do care.) She first told us about the situation, that Iman was suffering from a disease worse than pneumonia, that his lungs were dirty, and that air could...
4 comments
Read more

Discoveries

Imagine this kind of a scenario. There is a group of people that you completely trust with your life. You grew up with them, fellowship with them all of your life, and treated them as the best of your best friends. One of them, is extra special. You have a romantic connection with him and you trusted him completely without hesitation. And then you'll find out that this special person that you loved so dearly betrayed you. Not just once but many times. And his friends, the same group of people that you trusted, tolerated the actions of that special person and even joined him with his activities. All of them appeared to be harmless in front of you but they are totally different people when you turn your back. Huh, it's such a heavy feeling. Everything sank into me last Friday and I couldn't understand why I was able to fit the puzzle pieces together just last Friday. The news was actually not new to me but still I was surprised with everything that I found out. I fel...
4 comments
Read more

Pray for a Partner!

I was surprised by the question that my sister threw at me one time, “Do you now have a boyfriend?” Caught off guard, I honestly said, “None.” It was true anyway. I don’t have a boyfriend now. But by the look of her face I could sense that she didn’t believe me maybe because I am so wasteful when it comes to cellphone credits and because I go out almost every night. It was obvious to her that I am seeing a guy. But I told her that the guy I’m seeing is not my boyfriend. He’s just a summer fling. Hehehe… and I don’t have plans of taking it to the next level with him (or who knows?! Ngek!). My sister continued to talk about my love life and as usual, I just kept quiet. It was always like that, I just listen to everything she says simply because I just don’t want to say anything. She was persuading me to spit out my affairs with the guy that I’m seeing but I told her that there is just nothing to spit out because nothing is going on between us in the first place. We’re just going out...
6 comments
Read more