Ok, so I’m not exactly going to be breaking news to people on the story out of Chicago about the kidnapping and torture of a (presumed) Trump supporter by four anti-Trumpers. This is halfway all over the place… it’s all over the right-wing side of the media, anyway, perhaps less so on the left-wing side. The reason for that should be obvious… that a guy was kidnapped, held for 48 hours, burned, beaten, berated and cut because he was white and because the assailants were anti-white and anti-Trump just doesn’t play well into the current narrative that Trump voters are the nexus of racist evil in America today.
But even though I’m not Breaking News, I think there are aspects of this story that deserve comment. And particularly, there are three separate cultures that should be pointed out:
- The culture of violence and depravity that made these four spectacular persons believe not only that kidnapping and torturing someone was a fun thing to do, but to live stream it on Facebook was a *smart* thing to do.
- The media culture that has spent the last year bleating at full volume that Trump supporters – specifically white Trump supporters – are racist violent scumbags. As we saw with the Jared Laughner shooting in Arizona in 2011, the press was quick to jump on the fact that Sarah Palin had used a graphic that showed “gun sights” for Congressional “targets.” So will we see similar examination of the anti-Trump/anti-Conservative/anti-Republican/anti-white messages in the media as a cause of this and similar violent incidents against perceived Trump supporters?
- The PC culture that *leaps* to the accusation of “hate crime” for any incident – real, imagined or outright invented – of bias against Muslims or ethnic minorities, but yet brushes off this actual, recorded incident of verifiable physical torture, that even tries to excuse this sort of thing if the victim is of one particular race and/or political persuasion. For example:
Former Bernie Sanders campaigner Symone Sanders opined:
“… we cannot callously go about classifying things as a hate crime.”
“If we start going around and anytime someone says or does something egregious or bad and sickening in sense in connection with the president-elect Donald Trump or even President Obama for that matter because of their political leanings, that’s slippery territory. That is not a hate crime.”
And CNN’s Don Lemon leans back on that hoary old trope, It’s Society’s Fault:
“I don’t think it’s evil. I think these are young people and I think they have bad home training. I say, who is raising these young people? I have no idea who’s raising these young people. Because no one I know on Earth who is 17 years old or 70 years old would ever think of treating another person like that. It is inhumane. And you wonder, at 18 years old, where is your parent? Where’s your guardian?”
But worst of all was the Chicago Police. Early on, after watching someone being tortured *explicitly* because of his race and perceived politics, Chicago PD Commander Kevin Duffin said:
“Although they are adults, they’re 18. Kids make stupid decisions — I shouldn’t call them kids; they’re legally adults, but they’re young adults, and they make stupid decisions…
“That certainly will be part of whether or not … we seek a hate crime, to determine whether or not this is sincere or just stupid ranting and raving.”
Now, here’s the thing. I think “hate crimes” is one of the stupidest, most panderingly corrupt ideas ever to spring from the decaying minds of lawmakers in recent decades. I don’t care if Joe tortured Bob because Joe didn’t like Bobs race or religion, or if he was just after money, or he was doing it for the sick thrills. Bob was tortured the same regardless; Joe was equivalently evil regardless, and the end result in the legal system should be the same regardless. But so long as we *have* “hate crimes” laws, then they should be applied equally across the board. Fortunately, the Chicago prosecutors did eventually decide to pursue “hate crimes” charges… but why would there have been any doubt?
The “hate crimes” charges should allow the legal system to throw these scumbags away for a good long while. But you have to ask… why shouldn’t that have been the case regardless? I’m seeing estimates of thirty years in prison, which sounds like a lot… but as they are 18 years old, that means they could be out by the age of 48. They could, in principle, still reproduce at that age. They should at the very least be locked up so long that there is no possibility for their gene codes to be propagated.
And for clarity: I don’t use the word “evil” terribly lightly. I don’t believe, as many religious people do, that “evil” is an actual force afoot in the universe, some malicious intelligence out to cause a ruckus. But then, I also don’t believe that “tall” is something that can be considered a personifiable force, either. Like “tall,” “evil” is something that someone can be that someone else can recognize. And kidnapping and torturing someone? That’s evil. After a proper, fair trial and if found guilty, feeding them feet-first into a woodchipper would *not* be evil comparatively. What *might* be *argued* as evil would be to switch the chipper off and on during the process. But I’m uncertain of that. May require testing.
