A Good Old Fashioned Raging Mob

It's a fact the the Muslim world thinks the Evil Empire is trying to change their way of life and culture. But is this a properly directed fear? Why, just two days ago, we had our own crazy, violent mob killing someone publicly.

Clearly living up to the slogan Don't Mess With Texas, an angry Austin crowd descended upon a driver and his passenger after their car struck a 2 year old boy when pulling into a apartment complex driveway. The child, who suffered minor injuries, was being checked by the driver when the crowd began beating him. His passenger, David Morales, got out to defend the driver from the beatdown and got his own can of whoop-ass.

Accounts vary, putting the number of attackers at anywhere between a half dozen to a more substantiated 20. The driver escaped but Morales was killed on site, and police note that neither guns nor knives were used in the assault, which means they really dished out an old school, Middle Eastern beating. On one hand I'm appalled by the brutality and group lunacy, but at the same time I'm pretty impressed. Such raw violent power, when properly directed, can be a good thing.

But there is a fine line.

One of my favorite stories ever was a few years ago, out of Iran or Iraq or Afghanistan -- the location is not super important, just know it's that lovely, literal eye for an eye part of the world -- where the sentence for a rapist was to be put in a sack and dropped down a cliff...repeatedly...until he died. Awesome! Now that's a deterrent to crime! Of course, women who show their ankles also face being stoned to death in an alley, so as you can see the system still has some kinks to be worked out. This is clearly an idea in it's infancy, but it may still catch on.