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Comment by hfern | Hacker News Reader

Vigilante justice is an affront to the rule of law and is never justified. Even in heinous crime such as those committed by Weinstein.

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Bracing for downvotes, but surely somebody has some unflattering nude shots of Harvey somewhere. Wouldn't be terrible (well, in some ways) if those surfaced.

I’m always amazed how quickly most people’s principles go right out the window the moment they’re angry. Publishing unauthorized nude photos is wrong, period. Doesn’t matter what a piece of shit he’s accused of being. He deserves prison if he’s guilty of these criminal acts. With the number of instances he would reasonably spend the rest of his natural life in prison, after being duly convicted. That’s what’s right, and that’s justice.

Simple explanation is that most people don't have principles.

Simpler and probably better explanation: We don't all have principles neatly aligned.

Your principle going out the window may be me expressing a deeply held opinion.

Well, I would agree that many people treat self interest as a principle. I don't think many people have principles beyond that though.

Maybe mild preferences.

Most people I know have fairly decent work ethics, standards how to treat other people, honesty up to a point.

Not that I don't share a large part of your cynicism.

I'll concede you're a better person than me if you were a victim and took the more arduous high road of turning whatever evidence you had into a conviction. I would probably take the easier road, even it meant I was an unprincipled moron.

suggesting that sexual harassment is an appropriate response to sexual harassment is completely moronic

If I were a victim, I'd rather use whatever I had to retaliate without having to out myself and deal with the fallout. Perhaps not brave, but in my mind, not unreasonable.

Yes vigilantism is an affront to the rule of law. But if the rule of law demonstrably fails then it is necessary. (It shouldn’t fail but that’s a different matter.)

This is the ethical dilemma, deontology (rule of law) vs utilitarianism (best outcome). It is always easy to construct counter examples to supposedly perfect laws. Don't kill people. Sorry, I'm gonna kill Hitler. Ultimately everyone is a relativist.

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