05-09-2021, 09:54 AM
(05-09-2021, 04:07 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Somebody opened fire randomly killing people in Times Square. Does Trump have an alibi?
In the literal sense of not being there, yes. But in the sense of being the 'spiritual' cause... major Nazi war criminal Julius Streicher, who penned the vilest smears against Jews in Nazi Germany, may have never been in any of the murder camps and needed not plan any deportations or mass killings to be culpable of creating a climate in which the Holocaust was possible. Charles Manson didn't need to be at the Tate-LaBianca murders to be convicted of the murders and sentenced to death. Cult leader Shoko Asahara didn't have to needed not prepare or plan the introduction of Sarin into Japanese subways to be convicted of murders for which he was hanged. Osama bin Laden didn't have to participate directly in the 9/11 attack. Need I mention Frouald Karamira, who pushed murderous hatred on radio stations that he controlled in Rwanda before the Rwandan genocide? Let us also remember the infamous hit-man conspiracies done on behalf of someone who thinks a spouse worth more dead than alive.
It is enough to say to some murderous plot or to create the climate of hatred that leads to mass murders or pogroms to be guilty of them. So if some Commie says that it would be great to plant a bomb that kills a large number of super-rich people and people in his cult do so, is he culpable? Yes.
Streicher, Manson, Asahara, bin Laden, and Karamira all met bad ends. Three were executed, one was spared execution due to the voiding of execution only to spend the rest of his life in prison, and bin Laden expired in a gangland-style hit ordered, with justification, by the President of the United States.
It is the responsibility of us all to avoid encouraging evil deeds, especially large-scale murder. Evil counsel is one of the worst sins possible, tantamount to the overt act itself. Don't ask me to cheapen the concept of sin, as is commonplace in Christianity, by potting gluttonous behavior (getting drunk or eating too many jelly rolls) in the same category with committing the mass murder of the Cambodian killing fields.
We can fault our electoral system all that we want for allowing Donald Trump to get elected with less than a plurality despite saying
Quote:"I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK? It's, like, incredible."
Sure, we have deluded people and lunatics who say stuff similarly horrific. Even so, in a democracy people are responsible for choosing people who do not reek of gross immorality in their expressions. Yes, I know how to do some thoroughly horrible crimes if I did not care about the consequences to myself or others; any idiot can commit a murder or even plot a murder-for-hire. I know enough to say no to such.
It is sickening that 45.93% of the American electorate voted for someone who could brag about his ability to shoot people on Fifth Avenue and not lose any voters. It is also sickening that even more people (46.80%) of the American electorate voted for him after his frequent expressions of political sadism. Know well that an even swing of 0.18% of the vote from Joe Biden to Donald Trump would have been enough to give that horrible man a second term as President. Say what you want about Donald Trump being able to win the Presidency by getting the right distribution of votes in accordance with our electoral system; that system could have never foreseen Donald Trump. The survival of democracy depends more upon the decency and wisdom of the People than upon the refinement of its electoral system.
Then again, millions of American seem to defend the loser of the 2020 Presidential election even if he was cruel, corrupt, and despotic. I would have voted for Barry Goldwater or George McGovern over Donald Trump. What is wrong for a two-bit hood, a religious fanatic, or a racist pig is wrong for any of us, even if we 'only' vote for him. 0.87% of an expanded electorate not only failed to learn a lesson, but also added their votes to those of an earlier total.
We Americans are simply lucky this time. Too many of us did not learn the lesson from Donald Trump.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.