EP, it was cop vs. drug dealer, not cop vs. bully. But if I follow, you're asking what if it was cop vs., say, organized crime. The Mob. Not the Marching Owl Band of my alma mater (residents of Houston and environs, like Spring, will get that) but Mob as in The Grandfather.

The Mob is a group of people headed by a ruthless, cold-blooded leader who punishes rivals and disloyalty within or outside his gang by killing, torturing, killing family members, terrorizing, or any other brutal means. Moreover, in our hypothetical Mob, most Mob members are not volunteers. They are innocents. Members only by virtue of the misfortune of being born in Mob Leader's territory. And, oh yeah, the Mob just might have WMDs.

(OK, the Mob isn't a great choice, but if I could build an analogy as well as Kynn, my blog would've been quoted instead of his. Just go with me on this.)

The analogy holds. Mob Leader is still a bad, bad man, and the cop is still wrong for killing him.

Thank you, next contestant please!:)

PS - I hate smilies...but y'all are witnesses to my first-ever exception because I want to make sure when WWIII breaks out, it's George's fault, not mine!

Yes, Mob would be a much better analogy, but if we change who the bad guy is, the good guy can't stay a lone individual. As much as the press likes to blare it, Bush isn't the sole individual involved in the war a/g Sadam's regieme. The US is involved with 39 other countries both directly and indirectly backing the war. This has been coming.

I don't believe any analogy will solve this to complete satisfaction. The original analogy comes close, excepting you forget all the internal attrocities that were committed and concealed (since even the UN can't get a search warrant like a policeman could). Besides, shouldn't the internal populace have a voice as the oppressed majority?

Besides, what if I believe that a vigilante is justified? I can't think of anyone who cried for Alan Rickman at the end of Die Hard.

Tommy

OK, let's say there's 39 cops. 39 out of however many cops there are in the city. And only 2 cops at higher levels of the department. The analogy holds.

> the internal attrocities that were committed and concealed

Conceded: I didn't think of that. OK, the Mob Leader is brutal, but the cop knows of only a portion of that brutality. The analogy holds.

> shouldn't the internal populace have a voice as the oppressed majority?

Sure. OK, the cop held a referendum among the Mob and all but a few of the Mob Leader's top henchmen voted he must go. That doesn't justify the cop shooting him. The analogy holds.

> I can't think of anyone who cried for Alan Rickman at the end of Die Hard.

Ummm...EP...you do know that was just a movie...right? OK...this is a little silly, but...a movie was made about the Cop and the Mob. Nobody cried for the Mob Leader. Do I even have to finish this? The analogy holds.