Justification: Everyone Else Is Doing It.

[DavidB]

I innocently came across some information which addressed statements of Church leaders, actions of Church members and editorials by Deseret Weekly (all circa Brigham Young Utah years)

The information was not sourced so I took a quote hoping that Google would provide an assist. I found what appears to a copy of the Deseret editorial. The editorial admits that the actions of Mormon mob were wrong, but goes on to state that such happenings are a daily occurrence and attempts to distinguish what the group of Mormons did by stating that the Mormon mob did not storm a jail, did not endanger the.life of LEOs, and that the Mormon mob had clear evidence that the.persons killed had committed an offense whereas other mobs act without such clear evidence. The editorial closes with the claim that seeking to prosecute members of the Mormon mob is the actions of anti-mormons and liberals.

Is there any value, in justifying ones illegal actions on the basis that everyone else is doing it?

You can find the editorial with the following info: The Deseret weekly - Volume 39 - Page 713 - Google Books Result "antiquated payson homicide"

[bluebell]

There is historical value in trying to understand the motives and justifications for why someone does something which would otherwise be considered immoral.

There is also value as far as the law and justice goes in knowing the context of someone's actions (killing someone who's been beating you up is and has pyschologically abused you is usually different in the eyes of the law than premediated murder on someone who has done none of those things).

Whether or not there is value in God's eyes is much harder to answer. We know that the scriptures teach that people are allowed to defend themselves. If someone truly believed that such actions were a defense from future attack, could the actions be moral? Maybe.

[Damien the Leper]

You seem to be reaching in your argument, Bluebell. It seems more a rationalization to commit a crime pryor to another crime that may or may not happen. This is the very rationalized thought process that leads nations to war.

[TAO]

DavidB, sure there is, it's called 'precedent', and usually falls along those lines. Someone tries it first, and it justifies later attempts partially.

[bluebell]

People talk like justifying or rationalizing something authomatically makes it bad. Every good decision is rationalized in our brains just like a bad decision would be.

Anyone who thinks there would never be a rational or justified reason to do something because someone else is doing, or going to do it, hasn't thought the issue through. Just ask yourself whether or not you would be willing to kill someone who was going to kill you or a loved one.

Sometimes murder is justifiable if someone is going to do it to you first, right? It's justifable by the law and it's justifiable according to scripture. That's not reaching, it's just reality.

Sometimes it is moral to make a choice on how to act based on the actions or choices of another person. That was the point of my post and i stand by it.

[thesometimesaint]

Legally self defense is not murder. It is justifiable homicide.

[cinepro]

Is there any value, in justifying ones illegal actions on the basis that everyone else is doing it?

After seeing

on the newspaper business in New York City in the early 20th century, I tend not to look to 19th century newspapers for "valuable" arguments.

Even the Deseret News.

Edited October 19, 2012 by cinepro

[bluebell]

Legally self defense is not murder. It is justifiable homicide.

Homicide is just another word for murder-they mean the exact same thing in the dictionary.

In our justice system, killing someone is either justifiable homicide, or unjustifiable homicide, but it is homicide either way.

[thesometimesaint]

bluebell:

No it is not the same thing.

Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide (such as manslaughter). Homicide is simply the taking of another human life.

Homicide (Latin: homicidium, Latin: homo human being + Latin: caedere to cut, kill) is the act of a human killing another human.^[1] Murder, for example, is a type of homicide. It can also describe a person who has committed such an act, though this use is rare in modern English. Homicide is not always a punishable act under criminal law, and is different to murder from a formal legal point of view.

[KevinG]

Abraham Lincoln Advocates for Separate Negro Nation

George Washington Leads Massacre of Government Troops

Franklin Delano Roosevelt Orders Genocide of Civilian Germans

(yes contexts counts)

[USU78]

And don't forget . . . FDR orders habeas corpus suspended for Japanese-American citizens . . . "for their own safety"

[Sleeper Cell]

I innocently came across some information which addressed statements of Church leaders, actions of Church members and editorials by Deseret Weekly (all circa Brigham Young Utah years)

The information was not sourced so I took a quote hoping that Google would provide an assist. I found what appears to a copy of the Deseret editorial. The editorial admits that the actions of Mormon mob were wrong, but goes on to state that such happenings are a daily occurrence and attempts to distinguish what the group of Mormons did by stating that the Mormon mob did not storm a jail, did not endanger the.life of LEOs, and that the Mormon mob had clear evidence that the.persons killed had committed an offense whereas other mobs act without such clear evidence. The editorial closes with the claim that seeking to prosecute members of the Mormon mob is the actions of anti-mormons and liberals.

Is there any value, in justifying ones illegal actions on the basis that everyone else is doing it?

You can find the editorial with the following info: The Deseret weekly - Volume 39 - Page 713 - Google Books Result "antiquated payson homicide"

If the editorial “admits that the actions of [the] Mormon mob were wrong,” how can it be said that it justified the mob’s illegal actions?

It is one thing to justify the mob’s actions. It is quite another to say that the Mormon mob was wrong but the anti-Mormon mobs were even worse.

I surmise that the editorial’s was pointing out that the most vocal critics of the Mormon mob were, as a group, relatively silent when it came to other mobs. If non-Mormon mob actions were a daily occurrence, wouldn’t it be legitimate to ask why some critics single out a single incidence of Mormon mob violence?

That said, I would have preferred that the Deseret News editorial had concluded that, in one sense, Mormon mob violence is worse since members of the “one true church” (many of whom were victims of mob violence) should, of all people, know better. This of course, is not a reason for holding the Mormon mob to a higher legal standard (as some of the critics of the day apparently wanted to do).

[DavidB]

It is one thing to justify the mob’s actions. It is quite another to say that the Mormon mob was wrong but the anti-Mormon mobs were even worse.

The editorial called the mob lawless, but at the same time in essence said, notwithstanding the lawlessness, it was not as lawlessness as other mobs.

I surmise that the editorial’s was pointing out that the most vocal critics of the Mormon mob were, as a group, relatively silent when it came to other mobs. If non-Mormon mob actions were a daily occurrence, wouldn’t it be legitimate to ask why some critics single out a single incidence of Mormon mob violence?

The editorial was not want for words in describing the "rotten egg" platter that "liberals" and anti-mormon feast upon.

[RobertAC]

Is there any value, in justifying ones illegal actions on the basis that everyone else is doing it?

Birds do it.

Bees do it.

Even educated fleas do it.

Let's do it . . .