If you want to view a truly sickening display of the kind of bloodthirsty degenerates who are among our fellow Americans, go read the comments that follow Dr. Charles post on hanging. A line of posturing and ignorant trolls try to out do each other in their demands for greater brutality in our executions. The current leader of the pack is a psycho called JamesR who says:
In my opinion a good executioner could make a hanging last a good day. By pulling him up and letting him rest on the tips of his toes. Add a band and some barbeque and we could make a day of it.
I'm surprised he forgot to mention the piano wire. Justice and death are nothing more than games of one-upmanship to these sociopathic children. How many of them really have the lack of conscience necessary to be "good executioners?" And if they did have what it takes to be cold-blooded torturers for the state, would you want them as your neighbors?
Of course, plenty of them at least have enough of a sense of shame over their blood-thirstiness that they feel the need to couple it with faux compassion and willful distortion of Dr. Charles' position. How can he show compassion for Saddam, they cry, even though he didn't, when Saddam was a bad man? What about Saddam's victims?
Indeed, what about them? How many of Saddam's victims will hanging him bring back? How many more will it bring back if we torture him first and televise it? The dead will remain dead, no matter what we do with Saddam. Killing him merely brings us one step closer to his level. Our torturing President and Vice President have already brought us to close to Saddam's level for my comfort.
The question is not whether or not Saddam is a bad man who did bad things. Dr. Charles didn't defend him. I haven't defended him. I know no one who has defended him. The question is whether or not we should be killers ourselves. The questions of whether he deserves death and whether we should become killers are two different questions.
The fake outrage on behalf of Saddam's victims has a second, sleazier, use of shifting the subject still further from Dr. Charles' point. How come he isn't writing about Saddam's victims, they demand. Well, how come he isn't writing about how to make our laundry lemon fresh? He chose a certain topic to write about. To criticize him for not writing about something else is simply not a valid criticism. I don't know if Dr. Charles ever objected to Saddam's crimes when Saddam committing them. I'm willing to bet money that none of his commenters know either.
We have to be better than those we condemn or we have no business condemning them.
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