By Ben R. Williams
Pete Hegseth, the United States Secretary of Defense — I’m sorry, Secretary of War — announced last week that the execution of Nidal Hassan would be livestreamed to the public.
Hassan fatally shot 13 unarmed U.S. soldiers at Fort Hood military base in 2009. His execution by firing squad is scheduled to take place on Dec. 3, this country’s first military execution in more than 60 years.
There are two main components to this story, and from the public discourse I’ve seen, they tend to be conflated. There’s the issue of whether Hassan should be executed, and there’s the issue of whether it should be livestreamed. These are two very different issues.
Should Hassan be executed, and for that matter, should anyone? Those who believe that truly heinous criminals should be executed generally point to a few arguments. They say that if someone has taken a life or multiple lives, the only just punishment is for them to lose their own life. They say that if someone has taken a life or multiple lives, the only just punishment is for them to lose their own life. They say that executions deter others from committing crimes.
They say that it’s the only way the families of the victims will ever experience closure. They say that it’s the only surefire way to prevent a criminal from re-offending.
I certainly can’t argue with the last point; dead people seldom re-offend.
Do executions deter others from committing crimes? It’s impossible to know for certain, but despite a long history of executions in this country, people are still committing violent crimes. Is it the only way for the loved ones of the victims to experience closure? I cannot say, but I imagine there’s never really closure for someone who loses a loved one to violence. There might be satisfaction at seeing the perpetrator receive the ultimate punishment, but I expect the next day feels a lot like all the previous days.
To my understanding, people who defend the death penalty generally argue that it’s retribution, not vengeance. Retribution is the dispassionate application of justice by the state, whereas vengeance is more personal and passionate, the infliction of injury and humiliation on someone who has wronged you.
The death penalty SHOULD be dispassionate. If we’re going to have executions in this country — and I’m not saying we should — they should be solemn occasions. We should recognize that executing someone is a painful responsibility performed solely for the public good. Every execution should be performed with the understanding that it’s a regrettable and shameful necessity.
Livestreaming an execution completely undercuts the best argument for the death penalty.
Pete Hegseth is not a serious man who understands the weight and gravity of his decisions. He’s a clown who used to be on Fox News. He runs the DoD like a fraternity president who’s going to get his frat booted off campus after a tragedy occurs. He wields an enormous amount of power while also being someone you wouldn’t trust to feed your dog when you went on vacation.
The purpose of livestreaming Hassan’s execution by firing squad is to humiliate and diminish Hassan. Whether or not Hassan deserves it, the onus is on the state to be better than a mass murderer.
This isn’t about providing transparency; it’s about the U.S. government providing an outlet for the sick and impressionable to watch a man get shot to death.
The backlash to this news has been pretty swift, and some members of Trump’s cabinet are already distancing themselves from it. J.D. Vance said that he wasn’t sure if the livestream was actually going to happen, but if it did, he wasn’t going to watch it. I’m not sure that’s any better. If J.D.’s going to sell out his values for money and power, he should at least have to watch the horrors he’s complicit in committing.
My darkest suspicion is that the real motivation behind livestreaming this execution isn’t justice or cheap thrills; it’s desensitizing Americans to the idea of public executions. Maybe that sounds reactionary, but I’ve been expecting the worst of this administration for years now and they have never failed to lower themselves to my expectations.
