Dog the Bounty Hunter

[Beldaran]

Dog the Bounty Hunter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_The_Bounty_Hunter) captured an American serial rapist in Mexico and the Mexican Government threw him in prison for taking the law into his own hands. He got out on bail and returned to the United States for good, since he felt the mexican prison system was corrupt and he would have to spend the rest of his life there.

Well, the US government just arrested him at the request of the Mexican government and they are trying to extridite him to mexico. It is my personal opinion that a man should not rot in prison his whole life as punishment for capturing a rampant serial rapist.

It is also my opinion that Mexico is a shit country.

Has anyone else heard of this?

[Saffith]

Mexico's legal system has some issues, I've heard.
My mother used to live in Mexico. She's told me before that her father once found a dead body in a car by the road and didn't report it to the police because, without evidence to the contrary, he'd be assumed to be the killer.
Also, apparently, if someone dies in a car crash because they weren't wearing their seat belt, the driver is guilty of murder. Or something like that... I don't rembmer exactly.


It is also my opinion that Mexico is a shit country.I wouldn't go that far. I've been there a couple of times, and it was perfectly fine, for the most part. Every country has its problems. Mexico does have a few pretty bad ones, but overall, it's fairly nice as long as you're not too poor.

[Beldaran]

I wouldn't go that far. I've been there a couple of times, and it was perfectly fine, for the most part. Every country has its problems. Mexico does have a few pretty bad ones, but overall, it's fairly nice as long as you're not too poor.

I would go that far. Mexico is a shit taco. It's filthy and disorganized and impoverished. The government is completely corrupt, the drug cartels and the mob own everything.

You'll notice americans are not fleeing across the border into mexico.

[ctrl-alt-delete]

It is bullshit. Dog is awesome.

Mexico sucks. Hence illegal immigration.

[Aegix Drakan]

what the HELL?!?

Arrested for taking the law into his own hands? What kind of stupid charge is that? He then gets off on bail, and leaves, but at the request of a country that doesn't like him, he's going back to that same country that doesn't like him??? WTF? This makes no logical sense!

WHAT is Mexico's justice system smoking?

---

oh, and on the subject of mexicans fleeing to america, I saw a video once, where a border official was talking to Bush right in front of the wall, and while Bush was giving some speech about tigher security measures, you can see a bunch of Sambrero wearing people jumping over the fence right behind him!

I'll try to post it if I can get it again.

[ShadowTiger]

It saddens me greatly to imagine what he must have been feeling when he was arrested for bringing people justice.

Probably how batman feels too. He does so much for people, yet he is considered a vigilante and in their words does as much damage as the criminals he catches.

*tsk*tsk*

Such a shame...

[Beldaran]

It bears noting that Dog (Dwayne Chapman) did not break any US laws. He was hunting a serial rapist in the US (who apparently had raped over a hundred women from what I read) and he is deputized as a bounty hunter (through his bail bonds business). However, it made him angry that the rapist crossed the mexican border so he went over and got him.

He broke Mexican law because he was not deputized as a bounty hunter in Mexico. This is a bad reason to throw someone in jail. We should not let dangerous criminals go free out of some misguided reverence for technicalities.

Anyway, Mexico probably wants him just because they hate Americans and want to make an example out of some cowboy bad ass personality type.

[Exdeath]

That is definitely bullshit. We, as a country bend over backwards (idiotically some may say) for Mexico and take all of their citizens and give them free stuff. We shouldn't be trying to appease countries that don't care about us and our welfare. Especially at the expense of someone like DOG.

I watch his show on occasion and think this country needs more people like him.

[AtmaWeapon]

It bears noting that Dog (Dwayne Chapman) did not break any US laws. He was hunting a serial rapist in the US (who apparently had raped over a hundred women from what I read) and he is deputized as a bounty hunter (through his bail bonds business). However, it made him angry that the rapist crossed the mexican border so he went over and got him.

He broke Mexican law because he was not deputized as a bounty hunter in Mexico. This is a bad reason to throw someone in jail. We should not let dangerous criminals go free out of some misguided reverence for technicalities.

Anyway, Mexico probably wants him just because they hate Americans and want to make an example out of some cowboy bad ass personality type.This is an ethical problem.

He broke the law in another country. He was not authorized to be a bounty hunter in Mexico and he is being punished for ignoring the law and taking matters into his own hands. Mexico has every right to prosecute him for this offense.

Analysis of what he did can provide different evaluations based on what ethical theories you subscribe to. A consequentialist or utilitarian analysis would indicate that since his actions resulted in more good than harm (a rapist in jail is obviously better than a rapist free) he was ethically justified in breaking the law. However, a rules-based analysis would disagree. From a Kantian point of view, his actions would only be ethically correct if it could be said that it is always good behavior to break the law to serve justice. However, this is a contradictory statement and there are cases where vigilante justice creates more problems than it solves.

I personally think he does not belong in jail for what he did, but the fact remains that he broke the law and ignoring his offense creates a precedent that may end up ugly. His actions and intents were noble and heroic but at the same time illegal.

He knew what he was doing when he did it and I don't believe he made a good decision.

[Beldaran]

This is an ethical problem.

He broke the law in another country. He was not authorized to be a bounty hunter in Mexico and he is being punished for ignoring the law and taking matters into his own hands. Mexico has every right to prosecute him for this offense.

Analysis of what he did can provide different evaluations based on what ethical theories you subscribe to. A consequentialist or utilitarian analysis would indicate that since his actions resulted in more good than harm (a rapist in jail is obviously better than a rapist free) he was ethically justified in breaking the law. However, a rules-based analysis would disagree. From a Kantian point of view, his actions would only be ethically correct if it could be said that it is always good behavior to break the law to serve justice. However, this is a contradictory statement and there are cases where vigilante justice creates more problems than it solves.

I personally think he does not belong in jail for what he did, but the fact remains that he broke the law and ignoring his offense creates a precedent that may end up ugly. His actions and intents were noble and heroic but at the same time illegal.

He knew what he was doing when he did it and I don't believe he made a good decision.


[enter godwin]

In Nazi germany, it was illegal to help a Jewish person avoid extermination, yet many people did. They ignored the laws of another country because they were unethical. If you feel that all nations' law should be respected to the letter, regardless of their ethical consequences, then you are the moral equivalent of someone who turns Jews over to the Nazi's.

[mikeron]

Mexico has always been this way. They give sanctuary to killers and rapists, even US citizens, who commit their crimes in the US, just so long as they are marginally "Mexican looking". If you claim any Mexican ethnic heritage whatsoever, you can give America (and human decency) the finger for the rest of your days.

EDIT: Just don't drink the water.

[AtmaWeapon]

[enter godwin]

In Nazi germany, it was illegal to help a Jewish person avoid extermination, yet many people did. They ignored the laws of another country because they were unethical. If you feel that all nations' law should be respected to the letter, regardless of their ethical consequences, then you are the moral equivalent of someone who turns Jews over to the Nazi's.See there's a problem with this analogy and I'm too lazy to go look up the specific term for the problem. You could have avoided the invocation of Godwin's Law by using an analogy to the Underground Railroad, where people illegally helped slaves escape the South, so you may want to keep that in mind if you ever need the analogy again.

In your analogy, people break the law to help save a race of people from percecution and death. Let's analyze this by the same methods I analyzed the bounty hunter's:

Utilitarians and consequentialists would agree that the net result of breaking the "kill jews" law produced more good than bad. Countless lives were saved, and if there were some unit of happiness (my teacher loved using the term "hedons") it would be argued that the net result of the action is positive. Based on this, it could be ruled that the law is unethical, not the action.

Kantian analysis would agree as well. The first categorical imperative would ask if the universal rule "It is always right to save a person from persecution." seems to present no problems as a universal maxim. One would be hard-pressed to find a counter-example. The second categorical imperative considers whether any party of the action is being used as a means to an end, but in this case all parties are working for a mutual cause (on the technicality that the Nazis wanted the Jews out of Germany and these people were furthering that cause without violence).

So I feel that in this case (and similarly, the underground railroad in the United States) the law is unethical and the action of saving the individual is morally correct.

I originally pointed out that a utilitarian analysis of Dog's behavior would hold him ethically correct. However I prefer a Kantian analysis because there it is possible to derive feasible instances where utilitarianism supports acts of evil (and I can provide these instances upon request but have omitted them for brevity in an otherwise essay-length post). Dog's actions fail the first categorical imperative because one cannot logically agree that it is always right to break the law. Kantianism does not consider the results of an action but the intentions of the agent and the rules that support the action.

Once again I will state that what Dog did had good results, but he knowingly and willingly broke the law to do so. I think it is a shame that a noble act can result in criminal punishment, but I believe there is no way to logically support the stance that Mexico has no right to prosecute him.

To address the inappropriate analogy on the same terms, I believe that people who helped Jews escape Nazi extermination were acting correctly. However, I do not believe the moral consequences of the act place the German government in a position where they cannot enforce their own laws.

Understand that ethics and morality are not the same. Morality is whether something is right or wrong, ethics is the study of why it is right or wrong. The fact is that in Germany during WWII the law in question was considered morally right, and the ethical motivations behind it were the arguments put forth by the Nazi party. The only reason we believe these views are wrong are our beliefs in individual rights. To date, I'm unaware of a single moral compass that is acknowledged by all cultures, so it is impossible to take a stance other than cultural relativism when we consider the actions of another culture.

Cases like these are why I find the study of ethics to be nonsense, but nonetheless I have been forced to study ethics a good bit recently. Most theories of ethics polarize issues (Kantianism is particularly vulnerable to this argument) and cases such as these provide difficult analysis.

To shift gears I'll discuss why I think Mexico has the right to prosecute, aside from my analysis of the ethics of their action. Obviously, both Mexico and the United States agree that for a citizen to be authorized to enforce the law, the citizen must have some certification. This certification exists so that citizens cannot practice vigilante justice, which can often endanger the public or interrupt police actions by spooking the suspect away. Dog was not certified to act in this role outside of the United States, but he did it anyway. He broke the law in Mexico. He is being charged with breaking the law in Mexico. Whether he brought the criminal to justice or not is irrelevant because he practiced vigilante justice.

I do think it is a shame that he's going to jail, but the law is the law. Perhaps there should be some kind of bounty hunter certification for all North American countries considering the high number of people who flee to Mexico. There is likely a process to either become deputized in Mexico or extradite a known criminal who is fleeing prosecution, instead Dog decided to ignore the law and in so doing made himself a criminal. (Note he fled to the United States in an attempt to avoid prosecution.

Ideally, I feel what should be done is the United States should vouch for Dog's actions and either insist on a reduced punishment or the stipulation that Dog serves time in an American prison. Some form of punishment is due, but after this controversy I'm pretty sure the punishment will be disproportionate to the crime.

These bullet points are all I'm trying to say:
What Dog did brought a dangerous criminal to justice, a good act. What Dog did broke the law. People who break the law are criminals. Criminals deserve to be punished according to their crimes. Dog Deserves to be punished for his good act.I am fairly certain there is no way to refute these arguments and their conclusion. I am also certain that the conclusion should be considered absurd to most people. This is why we study ethics and morality; sometimes it is difficult to tell whether something is good or bad and sometimes good actions are punished.

Also I put forth this as fact: I feel really stupid referring to a man as "Dog".

There's probably a page more I can write but I'm going to bed now. Perhaps I'll remember the stuff I'm thinking tomorrow.

Actually I wish I had seen this sooner:

Anyway, Mexico probably wants him just because they hate Americans and want to make an example out of some cowboy bad ass personality type.Because it's pretty much true, though you have spun it to fit your case. Mexico wants to show that if you do not follow their legal process you will be prosecuted, and what better example than a man who broke the law?

[Aegix Drakan]

yeah, the reasons mexico are prosecuting him for might be logical, but still...

the whole thing stinks like month-dead skunk. Dog deserves better than this...

[Kairyu]

I have the perfect solution. We can compromise:
Mexico will drop all charges against Dog, and the U.S. will let them set the serial rapist free in their own country again.
See? Everybody's happy.

[AtmaWeapon]

Could someone find more details about the specific case for me? I find this case pretty interesting and I'd like to know whether Dog attempted to pursue options such as extradition or obtaining deputization in Mexico before resorting to going anyway. I did a little bit of looking but honestly I don't want to read about it from the "Save Dog the Bounty Hunter petition" for the same reasons I wouldn't ask Osama bin Laden to explain to me the tenets of the Islamic faith or Fred Phelps about God's opinion on tolerance of homosexuals.

Basically to me whether he pursued legal avenues first and was hindered makes the difference between "responsible enforcer who had to bend the rules" and "vigilante who displayed irresponsibility that puts his capacity to continue his work in question". This does not change whether Mexico has the right to prosecute but does affect the net effect of his actions.

[Mitsukara]

Well, specific case aside, I just wanted to comment:


it's fairly nice as long as you're not too poor.
That's the real trick, isn't it? The majority of mexicans are poor and will always stay that way so long as the government continues to operate the way it does. Mexico sounds like a horrible, opressive place to live- the handful of rich get richer and the poor die or at best stay poor. Also, sanitation is at an extreme low because of their awesome septic system which dumps human waste into the water supply, which is why you "don't drink the water." Things are a bit better for an American who moves there, because you've got the head start most of the residents will never get in regards to possessions/wealth/good cleaning habits. It's also fairly tourist-friendly I think.

However you slice it, though, it beats the crap out of several African countries, where you can (quite easily) be beaten, mauled, shot randomly, raped, given aids because you were raped, die for attempting to escape or make any kind of stand for yourself, and own virtually nothing in your short and terrible life.

I'm glad I live in one of the really nice countries of the world :(

[Beldaran]

I got my information from the report on MSNBC on TV, which I just happened to be watching over my lunch break. I'll look for textual sources when I get back from school.