People have too much respect for the police. They see them as a bulwark against criminals. In reality, while they do indeed punish some criminals from time to time, they are criminals's best friends. In fact, going beyond this affirmation, we can say that cops are themselves criminals, much worse than the ones they pretend to fight. Just think about all the liberty-killing laws they apply.
That is why a man like Ivan can be so mean without immediately suffering the consequences of its crimes. The laws, the police, and the institutionns end up protecting people like him. Otherwise, he would quickly receive his well-deserved violent reward, which would make him think twice before committing crimes.
Let me make this point easier to understand:
Gun laws restrict the means of self-defense. Peaceful citizens (who are not going to find a gun on the black market, contrary to criminals) are left at the mercy of bad men. Moreover, they make it harder for victims, ex-post facto, to punish (by payback) those who have harmed them.
Anti-free speech laws protect pigs. Laws protectings privacy, and libel/difamation laws, end up protecting them. You cannot show their face, their personal details (like their home address and car registration number), which would contribute to put a lot of social pressure on them. They will sue you if you do it.
Most crimes are committed far from any witnesses (or where the witnesses won't be willing to testify. Criminals will use that fact to accuse the victim of defamation, because she cannot prove in a court of law, that she has been wronged.
The State monopoly on violence favours criminals. The law doesn't recognise the right of people to defend themselves, nor to make justice by themselves (“take the law into your own hands”). This is not “to prevent chaos”, as government officials claim. This monopolization of policing historically arised as a way, for the kings, to earn higher fees from court proceedings. People were made to depend on the king for their security. A tax measure, in reality. (See Bruce Benson, The Entreprise of Law).
Let's review how this monopoly favours criminals. Imagine a case where an employer doesn't pay what he owes to an employee, despite having the funds to do it. This is a violation of the workers' property rights. The worker comes to his boss' shop, and bang his head a few times with a stick. Something proportional, not too excessive.
Now what will the police do? They will probably take sides with the boss. He is an “established person”, he pays taxe, while the worker is just a poor guy. He may even have corrupted the chief of his local police station. Moreover, the boss is probably from the country, while the worker may be a foreigner without connections and without the right to vote. Finally, his act (banging the head of the boss, or breaking the window of his shop) will look much more impressive and sensational that the boss' act (refusing to pay). That is why the police is much more likely to attack the worker than the boss.
The worker, while being in the right, will have the full weight of the state against him. He will have to fight with his own meager ressources a blind, tax-subsidized system. At the time when he needs the money to survive (he has just been fired).
The same will happen with courts. If the worker tries to sue his boss, he will spend money with lawyers, he will have to spend time in the police station (where they will probably not even register his complaint – rembember, they are lazy and corrupt officials), and he will have to wait months and years till the process ends. In the end, he may lose his case by lack of proofs, and be forced to pay court proceedings, which could cause his ruin.
It is relatively easy for the police, who has big means at his disposal, to prove that the worker beat his boss. And since the law doesn't recognise the right to self-defense and revenge, he will get condemned. But it is much harder, for the employee, on his own, to prove that he worked for his boss. His main witnesses may be his former co-workers, who will no testify againt their own current boss (no matter how nasty he is), by fear of being fired.
So those who say that people “Shouldn't take the law in their own hands” are just dumb and dishonest. They lack a sense of justice. More than that, they lack of compassion for the victims: they are in fact accomplices of criminals. It would do them some good to take a few kicks in the balls from some unknown in the street. And then we would see if they still think the same, when confronted with the inefficiency of the policial-judicial system.
The right of self-defense, and even of revenge, should be respected. It is sacred. The only question that can be settled in court is whether this revenge has been adequate or excessive. But the right to punish criminals should be granted.
