Is it civilizational self-defense, or state-sanctioned murder?
Here’s the thing – a civilization that cannot come up with the moral testicularity to execute a creature who murders over a dozen of its children is a civilization in serious trouble. The minimum standard for any culture that intends on surviving – and surviving means dealing with the barbarians within and without – is to take its own side in the fight for survival. Eventually, there will be a backlash. The only question is how ugly it will be.
This injustice in the Sunshine State – appropriately deplored by Governor DeSantis – is a symptom of the larger problem. You see it manifested across our culture – suicidal tolerance and performative forgiveness. In places like Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and other blue cities – it is always blue cities – the inhabitants murder each other with glee. But more than that, they generally act like savages. We have all seen the videos. Random creeps menacing citizens on the subways, packs of thugs raiding convenience stores or shopping malls, pitched battles between groups of aspiring Einsteins in Walmarts, animals cold-cocking citizens who are simply minding their own business. But no one stops them. No one holds them to account. The cops’ shrug, because the blue politicians have told them to stand down. The answer to those of us who protest is always the same – shut up, racist, and also give us your guns so that you cannot defend yourself from what the government refuses to suppress.
And then there is the spectacle of family members of murder victims “forgiving” the criminals as if forgiveness was a simple act and not a process that demands action by the person being forgiven. This bizarre misunderstanding of Christianity is mixed with what seems to be a desire to front to the world as somehow enlightened – “I want to announce that I forgive the barbarians who raped and murdered my daughter. They did not repent, they did not seek forgiveness, and they have not yet been punished, but I’ll do it now anyway. Look at me.” Not that you want to take theological hints from a guy who grew up a Californian Methodist, but the forgiveness of God does not just manifest out of the blue; the one receiving grace needs to take steps to obtain it. These moral posers – and it is posing, sad and horrifying, but posing nonetheless – demand nothing to obtain forgiveness, so the forgiveness they offer is meaningless narcissism.
Yes, in case you are wondering, I am criticizing the family members of rape and murder victims who refuse to demand justice. Their moral voguing is perpetuating a paradigm where more people’s kids die. Forgive those who seek forgiveness; don’t hand it out as moral welfare and be shocked to find a society full of moral welfare bums.
Oh, and forgiveness does not mean letting them out of jail.
I must confess to being of two minds regarding the death penalty issue, and have always been. On the one hand, yes, there are certainly people who need killing among us, and I do get Schlichter’s strong conviction that civilization cannot long survive without defending itself against the wanton brutality of such ogres. Then again, though, I also have serious reservations about the State’s ability to handle this most grave of matters responsibly, competently, and correctly. As Divemedic concisely says:
This story is why I remain opposed to the death penalty in practice. You can’t trust anyone in our “justice system.” Even with a confession.
The guy spent 35 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit before his conviction was overturned. The cop who got his conviction was using questionable tactics to secure confessions for years.
And this is but a single case, out of literally hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of them. It’s been estimated that anywhere between 46,000 and 230,000 innocent people have been incarcerated due to a wrongful-conviction rate which hovers between 2 to 10 percent. Given what we all already know about how incompetent, ruthless, and untrustworthy government, at any level, all too often is—much less how thoroughly tainted and dysfunctional the American “justice” system has proven itself to be just in recent years—can any of us be too terribly comfortable with granting it the power of life and death over us? Can we AFFORD to be?
Schlichter managed to write that entire screed without once using the word “black.”
We are way past mistakes. The lack of capital justice has already made citizen capital punishment inevitable . Just a question of when, enough Americans are not forgivers.