I agree with outgoing North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, who told Real Time host Bill Maher that while he supports the military execution of mass-murdering Islamist Nidal Hasan, he opposes Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s intention to live-stream the event.
As a Christian, I accept that God will sort this out, and that whenever Hasan dies, he’ll be consigned to hell. I believe that a firing squad dispatchment of the perpetrator is justified. If not, why have a distinction between military and civilian justice? I’ll sleep soundly the night after this cleansing execution, and pray for the families of those who died that day, and those who were injured.
The age-old argument in favor of the death penalty, civil or otherwise, is that it serves as a deterrent. I’ve never bought that. Perhaps at one time, but it takes too long to execute—we’re often going-lethal on old men who committed their crimes as twentysomethings. Much of the time the killer has already factored the risk, and either gone ahead intentionally, or allowed malign passion, personal vindictiveness, or political/ideological fervor to overrule the prospect of someday being lined up, electrocuted, or put down like an animal. It’s likely that such irrevocable justice will sway some potential life-takers, but as the U.S. military prepares to carry out the sentence this December, we must look past the deterrent and face up to the essential feel-good aspect of wasting somebody like Hasan—who wasted so many innocent lives.
We must also consider the feelings survivors most affected by, in Hasan’s case, a murderous rampage. Films like The Green Mile, while thematically opposed to capital punishment, don’t neglect t include family members who come to view the end of the individual who took their loved one’s lives. There are outliers, those close to the victim who on moral grounds oppose the governmental taking of even the most irredeemable life. The secular clamor against the execution of Hasan and others like him falls along the lines of: “This is not who America is as a society.” Faith-based objections counsel that “Only God can judge, and take a human life.”
For the general citizenry, it’s that sense of fatality-inducing judgment and justice that will fuel the high ratings when and if the execution is televised. Though I oppose the live-stream of a sentence I believe is fully justified, will I watch it? I won’t: it’d be hypocritical.