Thanks Mark, I see your point, still it shows also the dark side of 'commons' derived vigitante justice, if it thus not protect the right of individuals and becomes the vehicle for whatever 'common feeling' dominates at any given moment, would be great if you could write something publishable on this!! Michel On Sun, Jan 16, 2011 at 12:30 AM, Mark Petz <[email protected]> wrote:

OK Vehmic Courts and the Vigilantes are done outside the system of authoritarianism. So the others were based on a feudal system - one that was controlled in a *hierarchy*

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchy

Outside of this system I want to take the individual things separately

1, Vigilantism -

"such individuals fulfill the like-minded wishes of the community"

is found here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigilante

So to me this is about peers sharing a view of justice and the sanctions that derive from it. They usually subject their peers to this form of justice. Of course they may violate civil rights - but that is because the "civil rights" ARE designated by the government - which is hierachical and non communal in many cases. It certainly is not a peer to peer governance.

There are examples where such peer to peer justice is happening on-line: 4chan, Justice League in Second Life are perhaps the best known forms. It could happen in a bulletin board where rating of comments is given for example troll quotients - and does to some extent in wikipedia where people can be banned from editing articles or have accounts suspended. Of course in this case the rules are written - but if you look at the praxis you will find that there is no judge or appeal process and no jury system - it is a peer to peer justice and can be quite variable.

Now off line - I would say some of the vigilantism is the same with authorities not being competent to decide - you can see this in THE SCENT OF A WOMAN film - with a school boy code talked about. I cannot know what your schooling was like, but in most UK schools the concept of "A Grass" and the same in Prisons leads to such a commons.

I haven't studied in depth this to find out aspects of the commons in it, and much reporting is from a negative view point (for example when will you hear of anyone defending carrying knives for self-defence? but you will often hear of the benefits of carrying guns for self-defence - there are reasons for this related to who can get and control the weapons and thus who reports on them).

2. Vehmic Courts - initially this looks like it is just another hierarchical system, just in parallel to the main justice system - much as the system was set up in Kosava or Albania during times of trouble - with things being decided in large communal meetings, including justice, yet still clear leads and council of elders approach.

BUT I think it is not the Catholic Church hierarchy - but closer to sharia law as practiced in many communities today - where the people felt that the religion was not being properly enforced - so in common they had a belief that something needed judgement and the Church and State were not giving that. They thus leant their tacit support to this and held the judgements as correct in common. So there was a commonality here that the state and church apparatus did not have.

It is more than just "the court of public opinion"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Court_of_public_opinion

as there is a belief that the governance is held by the people. Judge and Jury and Executioner.

I HOPE THAT IS CLEAR WHERE I COULD SEE PHILOSOPHICAL UNDERPINNING OF COMMONS IN THESE FORMS OF JUSTICE. I was so long in replying as too much to do! I will send you a mail on one other aspect of commons justice called Ran Tanning

Markus

On Sun, Nov 21, 2010 at2:45 AM, Michel Bauwens <[email protected]>wrote:

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hi mark,

apart from the egalitarian diggers and levellers,

how do you see the vehmic courts and vigilantes are related to the commons? I would rather call them anti-commons, since they violate basic civic rights,

Michel

On Tuou e, Nov 16, 2010 at 7:35 PM, Mark Petz <[email protected]> wrote:

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OK here is some

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehmic_court http://www.sacred-texts.com/sro/sma/sma26.htm

http://www.diggers.org/top_entry.htm http://levellers.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigilante

Sharia law can be argued as similar in the way it is executed - although there are authoritries it is not so common.

m

Link to this post:

...

http://www.google.com/buzz/116589201391591303703/S6ohkQKuhRf/mbauwens-Added-...

Nov 15 *Michel Bauwens:* mbauwens <http://twitter.com/mbauwens>: Added to the wiki: Sources of Commons Law: http://bit.ly/aZXQAi Nov 15 *Mark Petz:* what about things like the Fehm Gerichte in Bayern? Or vigilante justice? These are also forms of common law. Such sentiments gave rise to Diggers and Levellers Nov 15 *Michel Bauwens:* if you have any precise references, I'd like to add them to this list

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