[vkou]

It was credible enough to them that they would kill another human being over it.

The whole point of a lynch mob is that you get to throw out any objective standard of credible threat, and replace it with a subjective, heat-of-the-moment one, proposed by the thugs leading it, who know they will face no accountability for their actions.

That's what happens when you normalize lynching. Shitty people will happily use it as a weapon for injustice.

[AndrewBissell]

"credible enough to them" is a meaningless phrase which elides the crucial distinction at hand. The people of Skidmore were objectively justified in feeling physically threatened by McElroy. Lynch mobs were not.

If you want to argue a slippery slope exists (and I think that may indeed be the case), blurring these very different motives together does not bolster your case. I mean, the town of Skidmore didn't go on to exact this kind of vigilante justice on anyone else, did it?

[dsfyu404ed]

Exactly. Hindsight is 20-20 and with hindsight we pretty much agree this guy got what he had coming to him (even if the proper legal procedures weren't followed) whereas the people who got lynched for racial reasons didn't.

[CydeWeys]

I'm not following this logic.

You're claiming that the only reason anyone would kill is if they feel a credible threat to their own life, but this simply isn't true. People kill for all sorts of other reasons. Lynch mobs were primarily driven by these other reasons, not primarily by reasons that boil down to self-defense.

[anigbrowl]

It was credible enough to them that they would kill another human being over it.

Perhaps, but the question was directed to you, not to them.