SORRY, RICH LOWRY -- DANIEL PENNY WAS A VIGILANTE

Like nearly every other commentator on the right, Rich Lowry of National Review believes that Daniel Penny did a heroic thing when he fatally strangled Jordan Neely, a mentally ill homeless man, on a New York subway car earlier this month, and he's disgusted by those of us who find extra-judicial killing distasteful:

Pretty much everything you need to know about the Daniel Penny case you can learn from the Death Wish movies.

Or so you might conclude if you took seriously the Left’s analysis of the tragic incident in a New York City subway car earlier this month that has led to Penny, a former Marine, getting charged with second-degree manslaughter.

The upshot of this commentary is that conservatives favor “vigilantism” and support it, of course, because it’s a bulwark of white supremacy.

Lowry goes on to cite four published pieces that call Penny a vigilante, only one of which invokes white supremacy. But first Lowry must dismiss the charge of vigilantism altogether. He happens to have both Merriam and Webster right here...

There are many problems with this line of argumentation, beginning with the fact that Daniel Penny wasn’t a vigilante.

Merriam-Webster defines a vigilante as “a member of a volunteer committee organized to suppress and punish crime summarily (as when the processes of law are viewed as inadequate).”

Well, yes, that's the first Merriam-Webster definition of "vigilante." The second is:

broadly : a self-appointed doer of justice

Which is exactly what Penny was.

Lowry magnanimously refrains from arguing that in order to meet the strict definition of "vigilante," you must first join a committee. He writes:

There can be loner vigilantes, of course. If, say, someone Penny cared about was harmed by a mentally ill homeless man, and he started riding the subways looking for mentally ill homeless men to take vengeance on, that’d be vigilantism.

This is a version of the scenario that set the Charles Bronson character Paul Kersey on his path of blowing away New York City’s muggers and lowlifes.

Is he arguing that you can't be a solo vigilante unless you exactly mimic the plot of a Charles Bronson revenge film? It sure seems that way.

Lowry continues:

By contrast, conservatives are, as a general matter, viewing Penny as a defender of himself and, most importantly, those around him — not an avenging angel administering the justice that Alvin Bragg refuses to.

Really? Right-wingers don't see Penny as a substitute for a DA they regard as Soros-addled and crime-loving? You'd never know it from reading this summary of a podcast episode from popular right-wing brodcaster Liz Wheeler:

Liz ... talks about how the government neglected their duty of enforcing a civil society by allowing Jordan Neely, who had been convicted multiple times of criminal offenses, to roam freely. As a result of this negligence, Daniel Penny had to take matters into his own hands....

Or from the message posted to Penny's crowdfunding page by Kid Rock, who donated $5,000:

Mr. Penny is a hero. Alvin Bragg is a POS. Kid Rock.

And then there's this guy:

We must defeat the Soros-Funded DAs, stop the Left's pro-criminal agenda, and take back the streets for law abiding citizens. We stand with Good Samaritans like Daniel Penny. Let’s show this Marine... America’s got his back.
https://t.co/uQXZuT19Mo

— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantisFL) May 13, 2023

Lowry quotes the one piece he cites that overtly connects the killing of Jordan Neely to white supremacy, a Substack post by Aaron Rupar and Noah Berlatsky:

Conservatives are desperate to preserve the privilege of white violence, which is why the defenses of Penny sound so rabid and so unhinged. For conservatives, a world in which white men are held accountable for racist murder is a world without law, without order. It’s a world in which chaos (that is, equality) is let loose, and America’s essence (that is, white supremacy) is perverted.

Lowry responds, triumphantly:

Of course, if Penny had reacted the same way countering a perceived threat from a mentally ill white man, the tragic event would be a blip; it’s the catnip of a potential racial incident, and the opportunity to put Penny, with no justification, in the company of long-ago racists acting extra-legally to intimidate and kill blacks that makes the case irresistible for progressives.

You really believe that, Rich? Then why are we furious about Governor Greg Abbott's effort to secure a pardon for a man convicted of murdering a Black Lives Matter protester in Austin -- a white protester? Why are we angry about the lionization of Kyle Rittenhouse, who killed two protesters and wounded a third, all of them white? People of color are prime targets for violent self-appointed guardians of the public order, but whites who don't know their place are also on the target list.

In this piece, Rich Lowry is wrong about everything -- as usual.