Vandalism

Vandalism

Babylon Village is blessed with the natural scenery of Argyle Park, our canals and waterways, and the efforts of so many who make our places of public assembly and houses of worship visibly enticing to neighbors, friends and visitors. Homeowners take pride in reconstructing their residences. Holiday decorations enhance our village every year, all year long. Our merchants prepare bright and cheery displays highlighted with flowers and plantings in both storefronts and the alleyways to parking. The Village Beautification Society has made so many things happen, with the installation of lampposts, brick sidewalks, and plantings all around to enhance the appeal of the Village and create a wonderful atmosphere to raise our children. Our unsung heroes are the Village work crews who, every morning, tend the flowers hung on lampposts and keep Argyle Park a place where brides want to have pictures taken, and young families bring their children to play. All use creative minds to enhance the place where we live and work.

But here, as in many places around the country, are those whose goal is not to improve our Village but to disrupt and destroy. They are called vandals. They are a small gang who "express themselves" by forcibly imposing themselves on others.They’re actions of wanton destruction and/or desecration are not benevolent manifestations of the freedom to express ideas.

Freedom of speech is the right to communicate ideas, information and values. It includes, in the words of the First Amendment, the right to "petition the government for a redress of grievances" and to assemble "peaceably" for that purpose. Freedom of speech protects debate and dispute. It does not protect coercion, nor does one person's freedom of speech authorize him to force others to listen. No one has the right to violate rights.
Yet that is precisely what vandalism does. The vandal smashes car windows, destroys trees planted in schoolyards, tosses trashcans into Argyle Lake, and throws Christmas trees into waterways and canals. What is the cost of vandalism? Is it only physical damage, police overtime, lost wages and productivity for the besieged?
The goal of vandals is to impose their emotional tirades on a public that does not agree with them, and to do so by forcibly disrupting the lives of village residents, merchants and those who labor to make the Village a garden sanctuary. They spread their message not through persuasion, but by smashing property. Their goal is not peace and brotherhood.
The issue is not merely that vandals resort to violence and destruction. There is a fundamental difference between rational persuasion and destroying other people’s property. Their crime is that there is a crucial distinction between ideas and actions, between holding obnoxious views and forcibly imposing them on others. If the vandal has a rational mind, he should exert his effort in an expression of peaceful protest. His expression of dissatisfaction must not consist of a refusal to respect the rights of others. The vandal views freedom of speech not as a right to debate, but a right to violent disruption.

Robert Garmung wrote an essay in March 2003. Paraphrasing his thoughts: “For them, "democracy" becomes what it meant in its origins in Ancient Greece: the absolute right of the screaming masses to dispose of the individual's life, liberty and property.
The fundamental basis for freedom of speech is a respect for the rational mind, which requires the freedom to weigh the evidence, to dispute and debate, without fear of coercive interference. By their reliance on violence and brute force of mob gatherings, the vandal shows contempt for the mind. It is confession of intellectual and moral bankruptcy, a confession that, for them, rational argumentation does not matter: all that matters is that their opponents are cowed into submission.

The banner of free speech is reserved for those who respect the rights of others and offer arguments addressed to our minds. It does not protect the mindless rabble that clog the streets of our Village proclaiming by their unlawful acts, a fraudulent "right" to destroy the peace and harmony created by rational minds.”

Has respect for other people’s property and their rights been lost or is it simply not fostered? Is the attitude, “so what, whatever is damaged can be replaced (by the owner not the vandal,) based on a lack of guidance in the home? If these actions are tolerated, when does the vandal take responsibility for his actions? When does he learn to respect the rights of others and the peace and harmony created by rational minds?