This video will make your day: Sikh immigrant shop owners teach thief a painful lesson

[Alcibiades]

Before Santander’s comment, a frankly quite disturbing set of reactions in this thread to an act which clearly went beyond mere self-defence and arguably bordered on sadistic revenge (notwithstanding the possibility that DrScholl points out).

[Alcibiades]

Before Santander’s comment, a frankly quite disturbing set of reactions in this thread to an act which clearly went beyond mere self-defence and arguably bordered on sadistic revenge (notwithstanding the possibility that DrScholl points out).

How is it sadistic to protect your own livelihood? These Sikhs immigrated with nothing and they aren’t going to let some psycho destroy their business.

I have no problem with them tackling and restraining the robber. However, I don’t see how them then beating him with a pole, whether real or staged, is necessary to protect their livelihoods. Call me an out-of-touch bleeding heart, I guess, but I hold the crazy belief that people shouldn’t generally engage in excess violence for purely ‘retributive’ purposes.

Your indifference to what the Sikhs in that video saw with some guy openly destroying their livelihood tells a lot. I am sure that you, someone who lives in a affluent suburb of London and doesn’t presumably know many people who own businesses like this.

I could say a lot of things here (iirc you don’t exactly live in a diverse working class area), but because I’m the adult in this conversation I’m going to refrain from most of them . All I’ll say is that I hope that in a few years’ time you’ll look back on posts of yours like these (which have recently taken on a weird right-wing identitarian tone) and be embarrassed.

what does that have to do with the people in the video?  Poor people can't defend themselves if other people in their ethnic group are rich?

I thought the people in this video were small business owners? I’d be rather surprised if they were “poor”.

[Alcibiades]

I thought the people in this video were small business owners? I’d be rather surprised if they were “poor”.

in America you can be poor and a small business owner.  In fact, it's encouraged.  But lets say they ain't poor, are non-poors not allowed to defend themselves?

Of course they are, I was just trying to rebut whatever specific ridiculous point you and Ishan were trying to make here, but of course it’s tangential to the main issue at hand, which as I said is that this goes well beyond simple self-defence (being either a fairly nasty piece of violent revenge, or a rather weird and pathetic attempt to generate online content).

More broadly, even if you think what the owners did here was grimly necessary, it should be viewed as no more than that - grim necessity - and the tone of outright glee from many in this thread strikes me as very odd. In general, having to resolve disputes through extrajudicial interpersonal violence (and I think we all know what the subtext of this video as far as race relations go is) is not a sign of a healthy society!

[Alcibiades]

my only "point" was that it was super easy for him to avoid getting his ass beat.

Well of course, I’m not saying that he was justified in trying to rob the shop, just that two wrongs don’t make a right.

what do you suggest they do instead?  Stop whacking him when he asks?  What do you suggest they do when he gets up and starts to walk away?  Let him go?  Do you believe they never should have intervened in the first place?  You have hindsight, plenty of time and almost no stress so this should be far easier for you than for the victims. 

Uh, continue to restrain him until the police arrive? It was clear that they had already accomplished that before they brought the pole out. I’m pretty sure that in most scenarios like this, that is in fact what happens without having to resort to extra ‘punishment’.

I generally agree with this, but nobody should lose any sleep over this ass beating (except for the criminal who might find it hard to get comfortable for the next week or two).  If the courts keep letting repeat criminals out, we will be seeing more "community justice" beatings like this.

I would suggest that America does not have a problem with underincarceration…

[Alcibiades]

we clearly watched different videos if you think the guy was restrained when the broomstick started hitting him.

Considering the possibility that the video was staged, I’m not sure it deserves overanalysis, but anyway, even taking what you said as a given (which is still not clear to me), repeatedly striking the robber’s lower half with a stick does not seems to me like the best way of helping to restrain him, compared to sitting on his legs.

if there are criminals walking around unpunished for their crimes it does.  You can have both some people in jail incorrectly and others not in jail that should be.  In fact, I'd assume that's the norm everywhere.

One of the problems with this video is it is largely context-free - for instance we don’t know where it happened - but yes, it is a possibility that the area is underpoliced (though policing is obviously a separate issue from incarceration - because the robber had a gun, some prison time is probably appropriate in this situation, but otherwise I’m not sure it would be). On the other hand, though, this could be his first offence, in which case I’m not sure how incarceration is supposed to have prevented this, other than some dystopian Minority Report situation. And taking a broader view, I’m sure I don’t have to spell out the destructive effects that mass incarceration has had on many black communities in the US.