[vhawk01]

Ok, so reading about Fred Phelps and his group that is protesting and demonstrating at funerals, and then the confrontations he gets into, I'm curious about vigilantism. Framed in the context of these despicable people it seems like people's response is often "If they antagonize people at a funeral they deserve whatever they get." This seems very wrong to me, but maybe I am wrong. I don't see how any sort of verbal antagonizing JUSTIFIES physical violence, and certainly not the extreme that a lot of people seem to deem appropriate in these cases.

But I don't know that vigilantism is wrong in all cases. If I am certain someone did something, and there is an obvious repercussion, it is obviously just for me to make sure that repercussion is doled out, even if I am the only one who is capable. But this is extremely impractical. Its similar to traffic laws, where obviously the best scenario is for the laws not to apply to me, since I can be trusted to make good decisions at all times, but since I can't trust everyone else, and since they wouldn't agree to have the laws not apply to me, I have to accept the second-best solution. Is this the same with vigilantism? Must vigilantism be wrong simply because we can't trust everyone to be right about who they go after?

A little bit of a side topic, hinted at earlier. Do you think that verbal antagonism EVER justifies physical violence? I think there are probably some things that people could say to you that would get you to hit them, but would you think that was JUSTIFIED? And even if so, must we again draw the line between the two as a matter of practicality, since what enrages you might seem trivial to someone else?