I have to come up with a firm the definition for The Machine. My concept is born out of the excessive use of the guillotine against created enemies during the French Revolution. All manner of fast and simple execution (mechanical and procedural) coupled with the human need for satisfaction on seeing a wrong righted are ripe for abuse.

Human’s have a tribal and strong capacity for empathy. Although the word is tied to good feelings and a sense of group euphoria, it also needs to be recognized that we all can empathize being angry, feeling hatred and desire revenge. Once The Machine gets started to satisfy the desire for revenge, it won’t stop till enough killing is done and the crowd is satisfied or horrified. The problem is that The Machine is a blunt instrument and it is not tuned to seek for justice but simply to achieve gratification. Think of it as a shot of a murderous heroin into an outraged collective.

And I am not some superior being incapable of feeling anger agianst a true monster walking among us. This reserch I am helping with has me sometimes having to walk away from the computer and take a breathing because there were some truly nasty creatures walking upright as human beings in the past. The last one that had me boiling was a drunkard father who decided to erase his family from existance including a 4 month old baby he killed by simply driving his fist through the baby’s face.

But as much as I would not mind seeing this bastard slowly dipped inch by inch in a vat of sulphuric acid, I need to accept the fact that the justice system has to take precedent. Why?  Once again, lynching is a tool of immediate gratification and that is dangerous because 1) it leads to mistakes and 2) it can be easy manipulated.

In 1891, the city of New Orleans was shocked about the kiling of the loved chief of police. It was especulated it was the Mafia so the usual Italian suspects were rounded up, charges presented against 19 people and a trial conducted. Six of the accused were  acquitted and the locals were not amused. Knowing that they had not been relesed from jail yet, a mob stormed it and shot them inside their cells. But when the smoke cleared, there were 10 bodies, not six. The mob simply killed 4 people unrelated to the case because they were available. This episode is considered the biggest mass lynching in the US and it was done because people felt cheated as their expectations of revenge were not satisfied.

And as for convenience, too many cases I have read that after a particular hineous crime, specially against women or children and where no firm culpable party had been found, somebody would eventualy blame it in the local minority or undesriable of any color. Once again, the demand for intant bloody gratification led to deaths of innocent people or at least still not guilty since nothing was proven to say otherwise.

So, even though I could very well be a part of a mob seeking to show somebody the application of hemp in the Irregular Justice System, the idea that I would be complicit in the death of an innocent, no matter how small the chance, is something that I could not have in my conscience.