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A popular theme in entertainment is that of good people doing bad things for good reasons.A popular theme in entertainment is that of good people doing bad things for good reasons. We sympathize with the protagonist who seemingly has no recourse but to commit a crime in order to save himself or his family. The television series “Breaking Bad” describes a chemist stricken with cancer who begins to manufacture methamphetamine in order to provide for his family. I have sometimes wondered if stories like this inspire people to act, or if the entertainment industry is writing stories that reflect what’s happening in the public arena. Perhaps it’s more of the latter, as history is awash with instances of people who commit criminal acts for some imagined greater good.
The late 1960s and early 1970s saw the rise of the Weather Underground, a Marxist militant organization opposed to the Vietnam War and dedicated to overthrowing the U.S. government. At around 1:30 AM on March 1, 1971 they exploded a bomb in a men’s restroom in the U.S. Capitol. The bomb was placed there in protest against the invasion of Laos. No one was injured but the explosion caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage. One would think that when the founder of a group that detonated explosives in government buildings was apprehended they’d lock him up and throw away the key. But no, the case against the group’s co-founder Bill Ayers collapsed due to prosecutorial misconduct and he went on to become, in the words of one leftist site, “a distinguished professor of education and a senior university scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago.”
More recently, Luigi Mangione, the accused assassin of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, has been dubbed the “Claims Adjuster.” In his view Thompson’s company unjustly denied care to its clients, resulting in suffering and death. There may be some truth to that claim. A lawsuit was filed in a U.S. District Court in Minnesota alleging that the company’s use of an AI algorithm to deny coverage to patients, resulting in their premature release from treatment programs. Patients then had to use their savings rather than their government-funded Medicare Advantage Plans to obtain care.
In the 1997 movie The Rainmaker, Matt Damon’s character takes on a lawsuit against a company that unjustly denied claims and the company was forced into bankruptcy. Isn’t that how things are supposed to work? Legally? Or have we gotten to the point where people take things into their own hands? Brian Stephens, Senior Managing Director of Risk, Intelligence, and Resilience at security consulting firm, Teneo said he was “a little surprised and taken aback at the volume and level of support that was publicly stated for the attacker.” He went on to say that this may inspire copycats. Some have said Mangione was “too handsome to be guilty.”
The movies Death Wish and Dirty Harry explored the topic of vigilantism and excessive force from the point of view of a private citizen and a law enforcement officer. When those films first came out I was just as happy as everyone else in the theater when the criminals got what was coming to them. One reason why the Paul Kersey character as well as Clint Eastwood’s Harry Callahan were viewed so sympathetically was because they were doing something that traditional law enforcement was not doing — bringing about swift justice, and usually in an eye-for-an-eye way.
<img alt captext="Pexels/Terrance Barksdale” class=”post-image-right” src=”https://conservativenewsbriefing.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/are-americans-breaking-bad.jpg” width=”450″>Is that where we’re headed? If local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies are defunded and denigrated to the point where, like the military, they cannot meet their recruitment goals, what then? When Soros-appointed and otherwise-biased judges and district attorney’s institute revolving door justice so that the innocent are persecuted while the guilty go free, what then? When profit-seeking is taken to such a degree that people are physically, emotionally and financially broken, what then? When our citizens are unreasonably denied justice, what then?
Will we descend to the point where honor killings and blood feuds become common? In some places they already are. They’ve been occurring in Albania for a millennia. They’re fairly common in the Middle East, they’ve come to Western Europe, the UK and we’re even seeing them here in the U.S. Not all of these killings are based on religion. Drive-by shootings and gang retaliations have been going on for years and some places, such as Chicago are infamous for them. The Windy City has reportedly seen over 4,000 gang-related deaths in the last 20 years.
Most Americans want to live peacefully and securely under a justice system that protects the innocent and prosecutes the guilty. What happens when they think they’re justified in emulating Luigi Mangione, or the fictional Paul Kersey? Who wants to live in a society where blood feuds and gang warfare become the order of the day?
I have written here previously about three serious problems afflicting our society. Bringing our justice system back to its core mission is integral to solving them. There are presently over 6.7 million people incarcerated in the U.S. We have 25% of the world’s prison population while having only 5% of the world’s total population.
Much of the available academic literature on the subject focuses on reducing harsh sentences, changing minimum sentencing laws, and decriminalizing certain offenses, such as those pertaining to drug use. There are scholarly pieces addressing the issue. A very thorough uses a systems approach describing inputs, throughputs, and outputs. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has proposed legislation that also shows promise.
Any search on the subject of criminal justice reform will yield a wealth of documentation on so-called ‘Restorative Justice.’ Hailed by many academicians and social justice proponents, it seeks to heal the harm caused by crime. The criminal, the victim and the state meet and discuss the crime. The criminal makes amends to the victim through an apology and restitution and then both are given the help they need to reintegrate into society. Some studies have shown positive results with this approach but it is not always practical or applicable. The accused and/or the victims may not wish to participate and some crimes make restitution difficult or impossible.
What this author has unofficially observed is that the public does not want to see crimes such as shoplifting decriminalized, law enforcement defunded and denigrated, admission standards to police academies lowered, or grandmothers arrested for praying in front of abortion clinics while arsonists, rioters and thieves get a slap on the wrist. No one wants to live in ‘food deserts’ created by soft-on-crime DAs or ride on mass transit alongside the mentally ill.
As mayor, Rudy Giuliani turned crime-ridden New York City into one of the safest cities in America through his “broken windows” policy — apprehending petty criminals before they become felons. Ronald Reagan said, “If you want more of something, subsidize it; if you want less of something, tax it.” At present we’re rewarding incompetence and lawlessness while we’re penalizing expertise and structure.
The reason societies relegate law enforcement to ostensibly impartial third parties is to circumvent blood feuds and vigilantism. Let’s take the Gipper’s advice and turn things around.
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