March/April NFL Background Paper

Resolved: Vigilantism is justified when the government has failed to enforce the law.

In the recent decade, many movies have demonstrated the power of masked avengers to enforce the law when the government/system fails.  Almost all super-hero movies, especially films like The Watchman, The Matrix, and V for Vendetta glorify vigilantes.  Yet, beyond being simply entertaining, discussion and depictions of vigilantes underscore many of the crucial issues regarding justice, equality, the rule of law, and law enforcement.  NFL’s March/April 2009 LD topic offers debaters a fantastic opportunity to delve into issues that may otherwise go untouched. 

As the affirmative, the first burden is to define the resolution.  Definitions of “vigilante” do not offer much flexibility, but both Wikipedia and the Mariner Museum define a vigilante as someone that appeals to a higher law/power.  Vigilantes, generally, operate outside the jurisdiction of the government in order to stop actual or perceived criminal acts, which the government is either unable or unwilling to penalize.  Affirmatives may struggle in defining laws (which is discussed later).  Definitions of “law” are anything but dynamic and the affirmative is left with a lot of ground to defend.  However, through some simple philosophical arguments, it may be possible to narrow the focus. 

Many political theorists argue that laws which violate natural rights are not legitimate laws and citizens are not bound to abide by them.  Therefore, “law” can be narrowed to “good laws” in an attempt eliminate the negative’s ground to use examples of “bad laws.”  If the government is assumed to exist for the purpose of protecting human or natural rights, any law that exists outside of the framework (i.e. violations of natural/human rights) is not a just law.  One could posit that unjust laws are not actually laws.  In that, the government has resigned some of their authority by making the unjust law, stripping all power and mandate from that law. 

Intrinsic within the concept of vigilantism is the Hobbesian dialogue about the nature of government.  In Hobbes’ world, any law made by the government is legitimate because human nature is basically evil (and his or her life without the government is “nasty, brutish, and short”).  Essentially, government is given an ultimate mandate to enact whatever policies are necessary.  In such a political framework, vigilantism would never be justified.  Affirmatives should be prepared to respond to such an argument.  However, the strength of the affirmative lays in an appeal to rights that exist outside of civil rights.  Natural and human rights do not function in our world because governments give them to citizens, but because they are intrinsic – the UN Declaration on Human Rights holds the same ideals.  Therefore, when a government begins to violate the natural or human rights of an individual/group, the citizenry is all but obligated to act.  It is for this reason that international actors justify invasions that violate sovereignty – when the natural rights of individuals are violated, the government resigns a certain measure of legitimacy.  The U.S. Constitution and its framers understood the need for vigilantism when they penned the Second Amendment.  You can argue that a right to keep and bear arms is not a natural or human right, but our founders understood that the necessity for vigilantism would one day arise.  Without weapons, the citizens of the United States could never hope to defend themselves from injustice.  Affirmatives can claim that our framers intended to instill within our constitution the tacit understanding that vigilantism may one day be necessary and vital to our nation’s survival.

The negative team, therefore, should approach the resolution with three strategies in mind.  First, they should attempt to discredit the affirmative’s arguments by demonstrating how laws can be unjust.  Laws can never intrinsically protect positive values.  Not all laws are desirable and many laws infringe on rights and liberties.  As a result, often vigilantes must fight against the law (not simply enforce it with the government in absentia).  Ergo, failing to enforce the law becomes desirable and actually enforcing it undesirable.  Negatives should prepare themselves with many examples of vigilantes fighting against the system to provoke or incite positive changes (especially those that may align with the affirmative value) in their nation.  If those changes uphold one value, they are bound to violate another.  In addition, negatives must be ready to answer natural/human rights arguments.  If the negative can demonstrate that government’s existence and legitimacy exists outside the realm of natural and human rights, their interpretation falls and you can utilize your applications of bad laws.  Those arguments can stem first from a Hobbesian interpretation of government or many other theories. 

Finally, the negative should plan to show how the nature of a vigilante is not always just.  Over the course of history, many vigilantes have acted out of a sense of perceived wrong.  Groups like the Klu Klux Klan acted violently toward minority groups, not because the minorities were committing crimes, but because the KKK perceived a violation.  Thus, while the KKK may be described as a vigilante group, their operation certainly does not uphold any value the affirmative would present. 

As a whole, this resolution offers debaters a unique opportunity.  Vigilante justice is not an issue that receives a large amount of play-time in the media, nor is it present in many forensic dialogues.  The terms “vigilante” and “law” will play a crucial role in debate rounds, as will the role of government.  Be prepared to engage in issues that are foreign, but highly education and interesting.

 Further Reading:

• The Role of Government/Philosophy: John Locke (natural rights/social contract), Thomas Hobbes (supremacy of the state), Niccolo Machiavelli (authoritarian power), and Karl Marx (hegemony of laws against the proletariat).
• Nonviolent resistance: Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr.
• Rule of Law: Thomas Paine (Common Sense), Joseph Raz (constitutional scholar), and Marxist Theory (rejects the rule of law because of its intrinsically oppressive nature).
• Vigilantes in Now and Then: Klu Klux Klan, New Albany Lynchings, Big Sword Society in China, People Against Gangsterism and Drugs in South Africa, and Ranch Rescue.