Justice Done As Passengers Throw Bogan Scrag Off Train

Many people would have already seen the Youtube video of the drunken bogan woman swearing at, hitting and spitting at passengers on a Sydney suburban train. Eventually, as the train pulls into Hurstville station (in Sydney’s south), the young guys filming her grab her bags, then throw them and her out onto the platform. With the hypocrisy so common to grubs, she then yells to the station guard: “Officer, I’ve been assaulted!”. You can tell the station is Hurstville from the sign on the platform at 13:45 into the video. At 14:08, one of the passengers asks: “What station are we at?” His mate replies: “Hurstville.”

This is how idiots should be dealt with: quickly, summarily and without excessive force. She wasn’t a serious physical threat to anyone (even the middle aged man she hit for telling her to sit down and shut up); just a nuisance who had escalated to intolerable. None of the young guys punched or even slapped her. In fact, one of them can be heard telling her: “I don’t hit women” when she spat on him and challenged him to a fight. When the train finally stopped, they just picked up her bags and threw them out the door, then threw her out after them.

In a liberal society, people should have the right to use an appropriate level of force to defend themselves against not just direct physical attack, but against nuisances such as this bogan scrag.

No one flattened the woman in the video. She wasn’t punched and held down until she agreed to be quiet. That is what would have happened to a man behaving as she did. Despite her breaking the tacit taboo against women threatening men (the quid pro quo being that men don’t hit women), she still wasn’t hit. There was a small and appropriate level of violence used to throw her off the train. Of course the guys laughed at her afterward: by her behaviour, she deserved ridicule.

Women can’t have it doth ways. If you behave like a lady, you’ll be treated like one … and yes, men will have significant input to what behaviour constitutes “ladylike”, because that is what exempts women from male social rules concerning appropriate uses of violence. If some women break the taboo against threatening and physically attacking men (or other women important to them), they are likely to receive violence in return, because that’s how many men deal with physical threats. If violence wasn’t effective in immediately countering violence, the police wouldn’t need to be armed.

An open society doesn’t need police to solve minor problems such as this. Suppose the police had been called. Even had they made it to Hurstville prior to the train, everyone would still have been held up as the train was stopped while the woman was removed and (possibly) arrested. Some might say that this is the correct course of action: better that people on the train suffer the inconvenience of a time delay in order to have authorized security or police deal with the matter.

No it isn’t. Just chuck her off and let everyone get on with their journey. The passengers have been inconvenienced enough by her behaviour; no need to add to it by stopping the train.

“Oh, but if citizens take the law into their own hands, they or she might have been injured.”

So what? That’s a risk adult citizens should be entitled to decide for themselves. In a liberal democracy, citizens make the laws. They are already in OUR hands. If police are not around, citizens should and do have the right to enforce our laws. Ever heard of a citizen’s arrest?

In NSW, it’s Section 100 of the Law Enforcement (Powers and Responsibilities) Act 2002. Section 231 says that only sufficient force required to make and maintain the arrest is allowed to be used.

The guys on the train effectively arrested the woman, then let her go. They actually used less force than would have been required to hold her until the police arrived (as would have been their duty after exercising their right to make an arrest). In any sensible society, police looking at this video would say: “Fair enough” and get on with some real police work.

Looking at the incident and its outcome, I reckon justice was done. The summary action of the passengers was a far better outcome than wasting the time of police and witnesses, not to mention the expense of a court hearing.

The reporting of this story in Britain is quite revealing. The Daily Mail, hardly a lefty flag bearer, ends its article with a quote from a Brit:

Michael Murphy added: 'Why can't passengers do this in my country? Everyone just stands around and pretends it's not happening.'

That’s what happens in a nanny state. Nobody will take any action in case they are accused themselves. Better to all just suffer in silence and wait for “the authorities”. Even if they do turn up before the person leaves, the police probably won’t do anything meaningful either, in case they are accused, particularly if the perpetrator (read “victim”) is not white.

Can you imagine if the spitting bogan thrown off the train was an Aboriginal woman? We’d have had lefty hand wringers crying racism and the press calling Anthony Mundine for a quote.

Had it occurred in America, the woman would probably have manufactured an injury, then sued the guys, with aggravated damages for the “humiliation” of putting the video on Youtube.

Let’s continue to deal with minor incidents in an informal, Australian way, rather than emulating the spineless nanny statism of the Brits or the ridiculous litigiousness of the Yanks.