00:00:00.000There's big controversy over the fact that the U.S. is now planning to live stream an Army firing squad executing the Fort Hood shooter.
00:00:06.000According to Reuters, the U.S. will live stream the Army's upcoming firing squad execution of a gunman who killed 13 people at the Fort Hood military base in 2009.
00:00:14.000In what would be an unprecedented broadcast of a U.S. execution, Nidal Hassan, former Army psychiatrist, is set to become the first person to be executed by firing squad by the U.S. military since 1945.
00:00:25.000He will be executed at the same sprawling Texas base where he opened fire with a laser-sided handgun in a medical facility.
00:00:31.000That shooting came weeks before he was scheduled to be deployed to Afghanistan, and he was left paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair from being shot by police during his arrest.
00:01:31.000And again, we should separate off between the death penalty itself and that question and whether it should be televised.
00:01:37.000So, George Washington's opinion, by the way, was if you are going to do executions, you should actually publicize them.0.89
00:01:42.000Quote, I would to God that one of the most atrocious in each state was hung in gibbets up on a gallows five times as high as the one prepared by Haman.0.84
00:01:49.000No punishment, in my opinion, is too great for the man who can build his greatness upon the country's ruin.0.84
00:02:06.000See what I think it's going to happen in December when he's executed.
00:02:10.000But what I try to remind people is look, this is a guy who committed, in my view, the worst terrorist attack on American soil outside of 9 11.
00:02:18.000The people that he was meant to treat, the army soldiers that he was meant to treat for mental illness and other problems, he took them at their most vulnerable and gunned down these people where they live.
00:02:29.000So, whatever the controversy is about the method of the execution, I hope that people don't forget that this is a guy who brutally murdered a lot of innocent people.
00:02:38.000Now, that said, I mean, look, if it's ultimately live streamed, I'm not going to be watching it.
00:02:43.000Okay, so again, there are two questions.
00:02:46.000One, death penalty, and second, is it worth watching?
00:02:50.000So, Pope Leo put out a tweet saying that the death penalty is an attack on the dignity of the person.
00:02:55.000Quote, the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.
00:03:00.000The common good can be safeguarded and the requirements of justice can be met without recourse to capital punishment.
00:03:05.000Effective systems of detention have been developed to protect citizens while at the same time do not completely deprive those who are guilty of the possibility of redemption.
00:03:16.000The selective outrage from Pope Leo with regard to the American application of the death penalty, I find to be completely in absence when it comes to the mass slaughter of Christians all over Africa and the Middle East by radical Muslims.
00:03:31.000Also, just going to point out that historically speaking, the church was quite comfortable with the death penalty.
00:03:37.000Augustine wrote Great and holy men punished some sins with death because the living were struck with a salutary fear.
00:03:44.000And because it was not death itself that would injure those who were being punished with death, but sin, which might be increased if they continued to live.
00:03:50.000St. Thomas Aquinas, every part is directed to the whole, as the imperfect to the perfect, wherefore every part is naturally for the sake of the whole.
00:03:57.000For this reason, we see that if the health of the whole body demands the excision of some member, through its being decayed or infectious to the other members, it is both praiseworthy and advantageous to have it cut away.
00:04:07.000If a man be dangerous and infectious to the community on account of some sin, it is praiseworthy and advantageous that he be killed in order to safeguard the common good, since a little leaven corrupteth the whole lump.
00:04:18.000John Paul II, in 1997, adopted A part of the catechism which permitted capital punishment under strict conditions, quote, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.
00:04:29.000And then in 2018, Pope Francis went further and he changed the catechism to say, quote, the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person and then committed the church toward worldwide abolition of the New Testament.
00:04:46.000There are certain people who deserve not to live.1.00
00:04:49.000If you shoot a pregnant woman screaming, My baby, my baby, you should die.0.99
00:04:55.000The Bible, like the Old Testament, very, very clear on this, going all the way back to the beginning of the book of Genesis.1.00
00:05:01.000If man shed blood, by man shall his blood be shed.
00:05:04.000That's, again, black letter biblical law.
00:05:07.000So, we're talking about in the religious context, there's that.
00:05:09.000But put that aside, there are basically two purposes for the death penalty.
00:05:13.000One is because the entire goal of government is to remove from private hands vengeance.
00:05:18.000That is one of the original goals of government.
00:05:21.000If you go to places that are anarchic, what you see is if a member of one tribe kills a member of another tribe, The member of the second tribe will go and kill someone, anyone from a member of the first tribe.
00:05:30.000And that's how you end up with tribal warfare in large measure.
00:05:34.000And so the idea of a state that presided in impartial fashion over criminal law was a way of preventing tribal warfare.
00:05:43.000And what you see is in places where the law does not govern, actually gang warfare continues to thrive.
00:05:47.000This is true in the South side of Chicago, the same way that it's true in tribal Africa or tribal Middle Eastern countries.
00:06:29.000That's a full year to sleep on the mattress in your own home and make sure it's actually right for you.
00:06:33.000Every Helix also ships free in the US, includes a limited lifetime warranty and the Happy with Helix guarantee for those seamless returns and exchanges.
00:06:40.000Again, that's a 365 night sleep trial, an entire year, not four months.
00:06:45.000So that's a long time to figure out whether you like it or not, like a long time.
00:07:26.000If you're using this as a deterrent, the fact that we have done this live broadcast.
00:07:30.000Of an execution once in literally my entire lifetime suggests it is not an effective deterrent.
00:07:35.000You're not going to deter terrorists by showing a firing squad for a terrorist.
00:07:39.000Now, you might deter terrorists by showing firing squads for lots of terrorists.
00:07:43.000If you go back far enough in American history or just throughout Western history, what you'll see is that executions publicly were part of the way that law was enforced because the idea was if you violate the law, this could happen to you.
00:07:55.000But because we have an appellate system that means that Nidal Hassan murdered 13 people back in 2009, and I checked my calendar and it's now 2026, 17 years later, and we have never, so far as I'm aware, had a publicly broadcast execution, I don't think this is going to achieve the deterrent effect.
00:08:11.000I'm very much in favor of achieving the deterrent effect, by the way.
00:08:13.000I think if you commit a terrorist act on our soil, We should speed up the criminal justice process.
00:08:17.000It should not take 17 years to exhaust your appellate process.
00:09:09.000We're a kind people, not a cruel people.
00:09:12.000But unfortunately, Trump takes us to the lowest common denominator every time.
00:09:18.000Chaos and Cruelty, how about the corruption that we're seeing from him every day?
00:09:26.000Okay, now again, trying to suggest the execution of Nidal Hassan is some sort of evil in the American spirit or something, that's nonsense.
00:09:35.000And again, it does actually reflect a broader unwillingness of Democrats to come face to face with the evils of crime.
00:09:44.000And I think that you can be in favor of the application of the death penalty, I think you can be against the public execution.
00:09:50.000I think you can even be against the death penalty in general on principle.
00:09:53.000I think you're wrong, but I think you can be.
00:09:55.000But the sort of bizarre sympathy that's being driven by some Democrats for some of the worst people on earth is really quite bad.
00:10:01.000What an amazing video you just watched.
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