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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   18226 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 5, 2026

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I am not, in principal, against the death penalty, and I certainly think Nidal Hassan deserves it.

However, IMO, it should be a sober, deliberative action we do because we have made a rational decision, not something to please a bloodthirsty crowd. And it should be done humanely, no matter how big a scumbag the condemned was, and no matter how many people would like to see him slowly tortured to death.

reveling in low-class pandering and/or ostentatious cruelty

is exactly the point here. I fully expect the administration to "botch the aesthetics of the occasion," by which I mean they will treat it like a celebration and sell T-shirts, and if they botch the execution itself and Hassan lies on the ground, bleeding out but not dead, Trump will probably do a cute imitation of his dying gurgles, to wild cheers.

I'm against the death penalty and therefore generally unhappy with this turn of events, but I think, in this case, worrying about how "it should be done humanely" is looking for a stick to beat the decision with in defiance of the facts. Firing squads are the humane option relative to gas chambers, hangings, lethal injections, all of which I understand to be slower and more distressing ways to die. "Slowly torturing him to death" is, in other words, the one thing that they are not doing to this guy. Sure, there's still some small chance the execution could be botched, but that'd be equally (un)likely with a normal, non-public execution. Or are you arguing that it may be deliberately rigged to go wrong for the amusement of the crowd?

I don't think a firing squad is inhumane. I'm talking about livestreaming it, which also is not in itself inhumane, but I don't think the motivation for that is anything other than base spectacle. It does not strike me as taking the responsibility of executing someone seriously, but rather turning it into entertainment.

I'm sure many people will be entertained.

Trump, of course, is the definition of bad taste. But I don't think even Hegseth will do anything like that.

Trump will probably do a cute imitation of his dying gurgles, to wild cheers.

like tiktokers and charlie kirk, or so i'm told.

Yes, they're disgusting. Call me old-fashioned; I remember when we expected presidents to be above acting like that.

I remember when we expected presidents to be above acting like that.

i have hazy memories of those days gone by, decades ago. alas!

Well Obama was pretty classy and fairly rec…oh no…

Well, if you hold your president to the standard of a tiktoker...

there's a nonzero chance the next Dem candidate will be AOC, so that's already in the cards.

i have no expectations of Trump to be decent. we haven't had a properly respectable president in a long time.

You haven't had a president who did the equivalent of the Charlie Kirk thing, though. Maybe AOC is capable of something like it, but "I punch you know because you might punch me afterwards", while painfully common, is not politics that leads to a good equilibrium.

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