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Republicans Unleash Vigilante Justice, Destroy Rule of Law
On October 1 a Maryland man was arrested for murdering his brother and sister-in-law.
The reason?
He believed his brother, a pharmacist, was killing people by administering the COVID-19 vaccine to them.
The delusion and denial of scientific reality aside, this turn of events is also disturbing for what it signals about the ever-increasing rejection of the rule of law. It wasn’t just that this man had fallen prey to a conspiracy theory, believing right-wing madness that the vaccine not only did not protect people but could fatally harm them, but that he also felt he had the license to take the law into his own hands and act as judge, jury, and executioner.
Whatever happened to picking up the phone and calling the police if you believed someone had committed murder? If it’s an emergency, dial 911.
Well, clearly this man knew his pharmacist brother was not breaking any socially-sanctioned law and that the police likely would not act.
He acted according to law and sense of distorted justice he and other conspiracy theorists had invented.
And why wouldn’t he believe he had the right to take the law into his own hands?
