Martin Luther King and Gandhi all called for civil disobedience as a form of peaceful resistance to a unjust system. They are folk heroes in their own right. The character in the movie ‘V for Vendetta’ was a fictional folk hero in a Guy Fawkes mask being the face of resistance when the government has gone tyrannical and unjust. It ignited the hearts of the people to resist when they seen the ruling power being illegitimate. This inspiring figure was preparing the people to throw off the bad government.
As the government becomes more brazen and cruel towards the people trying to break their will not to resist and submit to an authoritarian rule. Where there is an action, there is a reaction that is equal or greater. When the justice system ruins innocent people’s lives and the government does not follow its own laws and exercises raw power. A form of resistance will rise up that is not protesting or an armed militia. It will come in the form of folk heroes acting as vigilantes.
These type of people will rise up and defy the system or be a vigilante correcting an injustice. This can be the worse kind of resistance the system can encounter where either way the corrupt system ends up on the losing side. Suppose their is a folk hero being a vigilante on the loose menacing the system because he demonstrates the cruelty of the system. The people show sympathy in their cause further enraging the population against the government. The longer the person is running free. More and more the government loses control over the hearts and minds of the people. People see through the lies of the government causing the system to lose credibility.The system starts losing the control over the population.
If they catch the folk hero or vigilante in the most cruel and barbaric ways trying to send a chilling effect through the population,. This might further enrage the people being a force multiplier creating many more people to take their place as the vigilantes fighting a corrupt system. The system is damn if they do and damn if they don’t. A consequence tyranny brings on itself for their crimes and unjust laws.
Speaking hypothetically in the age of portable cameras and YouTube. Let just picture an old lady in a wheelchair in a city park in Chicago minding her own business reading. According to Homeland Security she is reading Operation Vampire Killer 2012. This publication is on the list of books domestic terrorist read. This old lady according DHS could be a national security threat. A Police officer starts to harass this woman asking for her ID. She says what is the probable cause? The officer getting pissed off because she challenged his authority. The officer ask her to stand up. She says “I cannot” He throws her mercilessly to the ground and starts to taz her in a rage.
A person see this off distance who is playing soft ball in the park and another records the incident start to finish. The person playing softball has his Louisville slugger 34 inch wooden bat. He seen this officer treat his friends and family in the same cruel manner. Nothing has been done to discipline this officer to hold him accountable for his brutality. He says enough is enough. So he walks behind the officer and strikes him with the bat three times to take him to the ground. Once the officer is subdued and stunned by the blow from the bat. The vigilante takes his handcuffs and handcuffed the officer to restrain him from doing any further harm to the old lady. He takes his gun belt and keys and tosses it a distance away so the rogue cop cannot get to it.
Later that night the police arrest the man who struck the officer saying the attack on the cop was unprovoked. They found the man based on his fingerprints on the handcuffs and gun belt. This makes it to the 6 o’clock news saying man struck officer without cause and shows the man’s mugshot on TV trying to demonize his character. They do not bring up the old lady. Well on YouTube or another video channel a video surfaces from multiple sites showing this officer showing no mercy to the old lady and the man using enough force to subdue the police officer from doing further harm.
Now the Chicago Police Department is now public enemy number one because they lied to the public and they allowed a police officer a gun and a badge who had numerous complaints against him. People will identify the actions of a vigilante subduing a rogue police officer because they are seeing the same problem with other officers who are not fit to carry a gun and a badge. The man who stood up to a rogue cop will be a overnight hero in the eyes of many Americans when the video goes viral beyond Chicago. This could be the start of a chain reaction where people start standing up to the police when they see rogue police using force not called for.
We can see the system trying to spin the story which will not work. Many researchers will find out in most of the 50 states all have laws on the books and court rulings saying a citizen has a right to defend themselves or someone when a Police officer is breaking the law putting the persons’ life in danger for no reason to justify the force. The video will make it hard for a jury to convict the folk hero in Chicago or another change in venue no matter how they try to stack the jury. Vigilantes with a righteous cause can be the undoing of a corrupt system when they demonstrate the obvious. This can trigger that last domino to fall which is people start talking to each other finding out they are not alone feeling the same sediments.
The downside is many Police Departments might over react and many city councils might start banning baseball bats and hockey sticks thinking that will keep the police safe not knowing everything and anything can be used as a blunt object can be even worse. Many Police officers will be overly aggressive making them use unnecessary precautions furthering enraging the people causing them to resist in protest. This one vigilante can start a nationwide peaceful uprising of civil disobedience or outright defiance to the system by non compliance. This could be unstoppable no matter how much force the system might use by the Feds sending in the Military or national guard. Homeland security and FEMA will find they cannot control this trend no matter how much they try to use the Police state to crack down with checkpoints and reeducation camps they open up. They will find resistance inside the system not going along with the program will slow down a full blown Police State from coming online .It can be a little too late. The cat is out of the bag or the horse left the barn. Most likely this will result in a peaceful implosion or meltdown of the whole system because good people inside the system and outside the system will accelerate the collapse as the system is frantically trying to stay in power out of desperation.
This is a possible scenario we can see easily happening if we do not reverse the trend soon. Police officers better start thinking for themselves. The leaders telling them to be rude and arrest people and write tickets for things not even law. These are the people who will steal their pension funds and they are the ones not willing to put their lives on the line daily but will tell the officer to go carry it out. Police officers better understand there is long term consequences following immoral and illegal orders. They better read their oath and read the state and federal constitution seeing what they swore to uphold.
The word vigilante has been demonized in the media for many years saying “do not take the law into your own hands” because someone brought a gun on the subway because he was sick and tired of getting mugged and the police would not protect him. So he took matters into his own hands if the police was not going to protect him. He decided to take care of himself and defend themselves resulting in a career criminal shot dead. The press makes it seem like the act of vigilantism is a more heinous a crime more then the habitual criminal with a long wrap sheet trying to rob him out of his own hard earned money.
The truth is, we would not be free if it were not for vigilantes doing the job the system would not do or our government became the problem being so corrupt. When Police arrest people without of very little cause. When the system denies the right of due process. When our rights are continually violated. When the government becomes lawless and there is no more legal remedy or recourse in the courts. The elections are rigged and the elected people refuse to listen to the will of the people. There is not much people can do working with the system. When people are pushed over the edge or faced with no choice but to push back in self defense against a brutal Police state. Vigilante justice becomes the consequences of a corrupt tyranny out of control. Something is going to happen that will push society over the edge pushing back.