Sunday, June 7, 2009

"Controversial" Quotes-- Equal Time

To be fair-- another quote from the same CBS message board comments on B&C. The battle lines drawn re: B&C are always remarkable. Thus this quote.

"Do you guys even hear yourselves? Your minds might be a nice place to visit but I should would hate to live there. They were criminal punks and they got what they deserved. Its just too bad it did not happen sooner."

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

people who don't know what they are talking about should not give opinions!

A. Winston Woodward said...

Although this sentiment is rather crudely stated-- I would respectfully disagree with your assessment of it. This hard line tact, is a commonly held belief, expressed by many interested in B&C-- as well as by B&C aficionados who take the lawman's line.

To me, those interested in B&C fall into 3 main groups. First, there are the B&C supporters or as sometimes expressed, the B&C hero worshipers group. This group of fervent B&C opinion providers, support the outlaws pretty much without question-- and believe B&C were not fully culpable for their actions.

Then, there are those B&C interested parties-- who support the law, and their tracking & killing of B&C as being justified-- regardless of the methods used. To them, the ambush and barrage of hot lead-- was just what B&C deserved, and not a minute too soon.

Then there's a 3rd group of which I include myself, who take perhaps a more balanced “centrist” view of B&C history-- which falls in between the other 2 hard line approaches. Within this opinion, there are some justifications realized re: the depression age and the tenor of the times. Although these tough years were marked by a decrease in the overall crime rate-- they were also marred by a notable increase, in murder and violent crime during this same period. However, this sympathy is tempered with the stark reality-- that anarchy could not be allowed to prevail-- and thus outlaws such as B&C needed to be stopped. The methods used to stop them, of course is a debate unto itself.

It needs to be understood, that laws and sociologically accepted norms that existed 75 years ago, when compared to those of today-- were dramatically different. More on this another time.