@incendiary_dan Just to be clear, I wasn’t saying that our government is doing things right, but rather that in general, a central organizing body with some form of popular representation can be allowed to do things that an individual wouldn’t be allowed to do.
In addition, I agree that US incarcerations system is horribly messed up, not just with respect to discrimination but also with respect to the level of crime necessary to be jailed. This doesn’t mean that its impossible for a government to do things properly, though I can imagine some sort of critical mass argument showing that its very difficult. However, I believe its more a function of Americans being swayed by catch phrases (“tough on crime”, “weak on crime”) than anything else that causes a lot of our problems.
That being said, it seems we probably agree that pure vigilantism is not the way to go. Maybe, as you say, smaller units of organization are the way to go. This would probably allow for easier enforcement of laws/moral rules. It does fit, to some degree, with my own views of government (though I also believe in a larger scale “government’ with a limited role based purely around coordination).