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Today a man who murdered several Jewish people in their synagogue in Pennsylvania was sentenced to death. Now, if you’re like a lot of people, you might think “GOOD! That’s justice!”
Thing is, it’s not justice, it’s revenge. The laws of our land, don’t generally say anything about “an eye for an eye.” And matching hate with hate doesn’t make things better, it just makes everything worse.
On the one hand, it’s actually expensive to kill a person in a state sanctioned setting believe it or not. On the other, it’s morally expensive, turning your state government, it’s elected leaders, and those who elected those leaders to office, into murderers. That’s what “state sanctioned” means. Even voters will have figurative blood on their hands—and I’ve heard that figurative blood is hard to get out! I think Shakespeare wrote a play about it.
Some folks think the death penalty is a deterrent, but it’s not. People will always kill other people, just like they always have. What’s worse is that the death penalty is actually a form of hate. Rather than let this guy live in prison for the rest of his life, giving him a chance to be a better person, his life is ended, allowing him to go out a martyr—a person that will be seen as a hero after he is put to death. This specific guy in PA is probably 100% OK with going out like this.
After all, his initial act of mass murder followed by his own execution will just inspire more hate, more hateful action (aka more mass murder) and will require more hate in return when, inevitably, another misinformed malcontent kills more people who they’ve determined, inaccurately, are murderers.
Robert Bowers, the murderer mentioned in the above comic, stated something to the effect that he was defending his people from these Jewish people who were killing innocent people in the streets. I won’t quote him directly because, I just don’t want to, but you get the point. He was enacting his own version of the death penalty. So, he’s following that example, really.
The thing is, he’ll never change now. He’s going to die the horrible person he was and that is that. No chance for him to see the error of his ways, and spread the word to his kind that they have been duped—lied to, by their own leaders who claim that Jewish folks are murdering people (?) and that they should all be executed. If he could learn the truth, that he had been manipulated into murder, maybe his truth could spread like a virus through Hateland.
Of course, the power structure doesn’t like people actually thinking for themselves. The power structure just wants us afraid of each other so we’ll stay focused on our own fears of starvation, homelessness, losing our jobs and our homes. If we won’t be afraid of each other, they want us to hate each other. This is because, more than fear, hate is the ultimatemind killer—it stops you from seeing reason, logic, facts, and how we’re all being manipulated into playing this big game.
Hate only really helps the fascists.