Well, that escalated quickly.
My recent Mugwump Ramblings post, When Justice Becomes a Spectator Sport, apparently wandered into a particularly sensitive corner of the internet, kicked over a hornet’s nest, and then had the audacity to ask the hornets why they were so excited about watching somebody die.
The article concerned the planned execution of Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter, and my disgust at hearing someone express genuine enthusiasm about watching a livestream of his death. I made it abundantly clear that I have no sympathy for Hasan or his horrific crimes. My objection wasn’t to accountability. It was to the idea that watching a human being executed should be something anyone eagerly anticipates.
Judging by the responses, that distinction proved surprisingly difficult for some people to grasp.
But What About Charlie Kirk?
The most common objection wasn’t actually about capital punishment. It was about Charlie Kirk’s death and the horrifying video of a young woman being stabbed on a subway.
Apparently, according to several commenters, people who oppose a livestreamed execution are the same people who cheered Kirk’s death or enthusiastically watched that young woman’s murder. Therefore, my objection to turning an execution into entertainment was somehow hypocritical.
That’s quite a leap, especially considering nobody bothered to establish that I had celebrated either tragedy.
For the record, I don’t celebrate political assassinations. I don’t celebrate the murder of innocent women on public transportation. And I don’t celebrate the execution of prisoners, even when those prisoners have committed monstrous crimes.
See how remarkably consistent that is?
I can disagree profoundly with someone’s politics, condemn another person’s horrific criminal behavior, and still believe that human suffering should never become entertainment. These positions aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, I’d argue they’re rather comfortably acquainted.
Not All Violence Is the Same, but Our Reactions Matter
There is an important distinction that seemed to get lost somewhere between the capital letters and angry emojis.
A murder captured on video is an act of violence that someone recorded. A government-planned execution is a deliberate act of state punishment. And a proposed livestream of that execution introduces another question entirely: Why should the public be invited to watch?
These events have different circumstances, different legal meanings, and different victims. Pretending they’re interchangeable doesn’t strengthen an argument. It avoids having to make one.
But there is a common thread worth examining: our response to suffering.
Anyone who celebrated Charlie Kirk’s death deserves to have that reaction challenged. Anyone who watched footage of a woman’s murder for entertainment deserves the same scrutiny. And anyone eagerly anticipating the opportunity to watch a firing squad kill a prisoner should be willing to answer the same uncomfortable question.
What are you getting out of watching another human being die?
That question doesn’t change depending on whether the victim is politically popular, personally sympathetic, or guilty of a terrible crime.
The Comment Section Has Entered the Chat
Naturally, there were also personal attacks. Some comments crossed the line from disagreement into outright nastiness, and I hid them and blocked the people responsible.
I’m perfectly comfortable with disagreement. I’ve spent enough of my life publicly questioning powerful institutions, deeply held beliefs, and my own former convictions to know that controversy comes with the territory. I don’t expect everyone to agree with me, and frankly, a comment section full of people politely nodding along would get boring rather quickly.
But disagreement isn’t a license to abuse someone.
You can challenge my reasoning, dispute my conclusions, or make a passionate argument for capital punishment. What you cannot reasonably expect is unlimited access to my social media pages for personal harassment.
My Facebook page isn’t a taxpayer-funded public square. It’s my digital living room, and occasionally somebody needs to be shown the door.
The Question Nobody Seems Eager to Answer
What struck me most wasn’t that people defended the death penalty. I expected that. There are serious moral, legal, and philosophical arguments about capital punishment, and reasonable people can disagree.
What fascinated me was how quickly the discussion shifted away from the actual question.
Instead of explaining why watching an execution should be an eagerly anticipated experience, some commenters pointed toward other people’s alleged hypocrisy. Others treated opposition to a public spectacle as sympathy for a murderer. Still others simply attacked me.
None of those responses explains why an execution needs an audience.
The thirteen people murdered at Fort Hood deserve remembrance. Their families deserve compassion. The survivors deserve acknowledgment. None of that requires us to turn the death of their killer into a public attraction.
If your argument is that Hasan deserves to die, make that argument. If you believe capital punishment deters terrorism, explain why. But if you’re excited about watching the moment someone is killed, don’t be surprised when somebody asks what that excitement says about you.
Because that was my question in the first place.
And after reading the comments, I think it’s more relevant than ever.
Justice and vengeance are not always the same thing. And neither one should need a cheering section.
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