Civilization Cannot Exist Without Righteous Retribution
Article by Kurt Schlichter in Townhall
The only thing about the fact that a jury found that the degenerate scumbag who murdered seventeen people should not be executed is that it was just one nimrod juror who held out not to give the vermin the death he deserves. Statistically, even in a red state like Florida, it’s difficult to find a group of twelve people without a moral illiterate or two. In blue venues, it’s hard to find any moral literates at all.
Here's the thing – a civilization that cannot come up with the moral testicularity to execute a creature who murders over a dozen of its children is a civilization in serious trouble. The minimum standard for any culture that intends on surviving – and surviving means dealing with the barbarians within and without – is to take its own side in the fight for survival. Eventually, there will be a backlash. The only question is how ugly it will be.
This injustice in the Sunshine State – appropriately deplored by Governor DeSantis – is a symptom of the larger problem. You see it manifested across our culture – suicidal tolerance and performative forgiveness. In places like Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and other blue cities – it is always blue cities – the inhabitants murder each other with glee. But more than that, they generally act like savages. We have all seen the videos. Random creeps menacing citizens on the subways, packs of thugs raiding convenience stores or shopping malls, pitched battles between groups of aspiring Einsteins in Walmarts, animals cold-cocking citizens who are simply minding their own business. But no one stops them. No one holds them to account. The cops' shrug, because the blue politicians have told them to stand down. The answer to those of us who protest is always the same – shut up, racist, and also give us your guns so that you cannot defend yourself from what the government refuses to suppress.
And then there is the spectacle of family members of murder victims “forgiving” the criminals as if forgiveness was a simple act and not a process that demands action by the person being forgiven. This bizarre misunderstanding of Christianity is mixed with what seems to be a desire to front to the world as somehow enlightened – “I want to announce that I forgive the barbarians who raped and murdered my daughter. They did not repent, they did not seek forgiveness, and they have not yet been punished, but I’ll do it now anyway. Look at me.” Not that you want to take theological hints from a guy who grew up a Californian Methodist, but the forgiveness of God does not just manifest out of the blue; the one receiving grace needs to take steps to obtain it. These moral posers – and it is posing, sad and horrifying, but posing nonetheless – demand nothing to obtain forgiveness, so the forgiveness they offer is meaningless narcissism.
Yes, in case you are wondering, I am criticizing the family members of rape and murder victims who refuse to demand justice. Their moral voguing is perpetuating a paradigm where more people’s kids die. Forgive those who seek forgiveness; don’t hand it out as moral welfare and be shocked to find a society full of moral welfare bums.
Oh, and forgiveness does not mean letting them out of jail.
Our society must relearn how to say “No” again. No to crime. No violence. No to anarchy. And it is not hard – we know how to do it. Rudy Giuliani did it in New York City, turning the town of “Taxi Driver” and “Death Wish” into the safe, clean, and prosperous envy of the world. Here’s how. It’s simple. It’s not rocket science. It’s not even assembling Legos.
You enforce the law, arrest criminals, prosecute them, and put them in jail for some time commensurate with their crimes. If they commit many crimes, they go to jail for many years. This has the advantage of making them not be around normal people to commit more crimes. But it requires a recognition of the true purposes of the justice system. They are:
- To punish criminals, because a bad act requires society’s retribution. That retribution demonstrates that crime will not be tolerated. It also gives victims justice via society, thereby replacing the need for victims or their families to seek justice personally.
- To keep criminals in jail, because people who commit crimes should be in a place where they cannot hurt those who do not. Yes, that means more incarceration. Good. Because every criminal whose voluntary acts have resulted in the loss of their freedom means dozens of normal people who do not lose their freedom because of the criminals’ acts.
- Rehabilitation, but only to the extent rehabilitation efforts make it unnecessary to have to keep the criminal locked up forever. It is not a right. Rehabilitation is important only to the extent – and history shows it is a pretty damn limited extent – that it prevents more crime. It is not there to help the prisoner except incidentally. It is moral confusion to imagine that because a criminal gets caught that we normal members of society somehow incur a moral obligation to do anything for the prisoner but to provide basic food and shelter and not inflict cruel or unusual punishments.
Imposing order means harshness. It requires that actual criminals be treated with the swift, sudden, and relentless force that today only people who pray at abortion mills or who take selfies in the Capitol receive. Their treatment by the garbage feds demonstrates that law enforcement knows how to crack down. It’s just that the crackdown should be on actual criminals instead of the political enemies of the Biden regime. Cleaning up law enforcement is another topic and another column, or even a whole book. But one thing that must happen is empowering the properly led and directed police to go after the bad people like they today go after the good people. The Soros DAs must be purged. The restraints on policing thugs must come off. We must collectively shrug when a video shows cops capping or kicking the ass of some degenerate, and if there is a riot then that riot must be crushed. We did that in Los Angeles in 1992 – it is a matter of will.
That is the thing – public order and safety are a matter of will. We know how to do it; we’ve done it. We just have to choose to do it again and reject the whining and wailing of those who benefit politically from letting criminals run rampant. You know, Democrats.
And we inevitably will make that choice. It’s human nature; people can only be pushed so far before they either push back themselves or rally behind someone who ruthlessly will. There is going to be a backlash. The question is what kind there will be. I propose a purposeful, conscious backlash where society says “Enough” and uses the present justice system and structures to stamp out crime. But if that does not happen, then there will be a harsher backlash, one that could easily spin out of control into excess. That’s when civilization starts falling apart. Remember the olden days, when there was no crime in mafia neighborhoods because if you tried to mug Mrs. Andolini on her way home from mass the cops found you in the trunk of a Buick parked in New Jersey divided into twelve pieces?
Tough but fair. Yet, the reaction to come might not be so relatively orderly and focused. It’s not a problem for you or me, since we’re not criminals, but it might get out of control. Yet that’s still better than normal people living in fear.
Choose wisely. Choose to stop tolerating this chaos.
