Re: A la carte vigilantism
Goodness me, I didn't foresee the way this thread was going to be sidetracked into a pro/anti-'RA' discussion. I'm not inclined to comment here one way or the other on that particular debate, but would just like to make it clear that when I (ahem!)
didn't advocate driving by in a balaclava and taking photos from a temporarily-unmarked car, I genuinely wasn't even remotely thinking about the possible capital to be gained from the mistaken assumption that you were from the knee-capping department - 'republican'(?) or otherwise.
I just thought that if you'd a simple 'anti-social behaviour' problem that the local Gárdaí were (simply) failing to deal with, and that you didn't want to confront these lads directly, nor perhaps their parents (anti-social or otherwise), this was one way - non-violent, and legal, barring the obscure-your-number-plates bit - of remedying it effectively (or at least displacing it). All I can say is that I've seen it work, more than once, in situations where recourse to the law/gárdaí had failed utterly.
I partly agree with the above poster about the urban/rural difference; village idiots - rural or urban - are usually led by the biggest, baddest idiot in the village. And there's every chance that the offender's parents don't know or don't give a f*ck about their offspring's behaviour outside the house. And the Lord of the Village Idiots may be street/boreen-wise enough to know that 'that oul boll*ix down in the copshop' is not going to come after him, and/or couldn't mount a case against him anyway... but a few of the accolytes might just take fright at the idea that an unidentifiable person had photographic evidence that might conceivably 'go against them' at some future point - if not with their parents, perhaps with a school principal
rolleyes ) or a potential future employer, etc. And Boss Idiots are rarely inclined to hang around and indulge in anti-social behaviour without an audience...
I'm talking 'non-confrontational' call-their-bluff, here, and nothing more sinister..!
(Alternatively, of course, by all means go out and baseball-bat some 'Goddam RESPECT!' into the little miscreants... )