Is It Death You Hate, or Justice?

Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of War, has announced that the firing squad execution of Nidal Hasan will be livestreamed. Hasan is the man who opened fire at Fort Hood in 2009, killing thirteen people and wounding many others. His execution is set for December. President Trump has approved it, and the public will be able to watch him walk out to face the firing squad. The outrage started almost before the announcement was finished. How horrible! How barbaric! How backwards! People in the Dark Ages did this, they say. The whole town would turn out to watch somebody get hanged or burned or strangled. Are we not past that yet? Have we not grown out of it? Others say this just isn't what our society should be doing, that children are going to witness these horrible events and carry them around in their minds for the rest of their lives.

Many have said this shows how out of touch Donald Trump is with reality, and that he's trying to drag us all backwards. Some members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have risen up in open defiance over it. A few who once supported him are now saying this proves they made the right decision to walk away from him, and that anyone who still supports him is on the wrong side of everything they claim to believe. Others have made a different case. They say the footage will end up in jihadist recruitment videos, that it will give this man international martyrdom status, and that it will inspire others to go out and do the same thing. Instead of preventing anything, they say, it will make everything worse.

Well, let me ask a couple of questions.

What Did You Watch Last Weekend?

Everybody who is so up in arms about this, what was the last movie you watched? How many movies or TV shows have you watched in the last several months that featured graphic violence? How many of them showed horrible scenes of death and murder and mayhem, and then glorified how awful it all was? How many of you have watched R-rated horror movies, with blood splattering everywhere, heads and arms being cut off, bodies being opened up, every murder shown in the most grotesque detail they can manage? Who goes to horror movies anyway?

Personally, I hate them. I won't watch them. I had an experience when I was eighteen years old that let me know Satan is very real, and the last thing I want to do is give him any influence in my life. When I was raising my family, I didn't allow movies like that in our home, or even ones that were just too violent. They weren't welcome.

And yet horror is one of the most dependable moneymakers in the movie industry today. The more graphic it is, the more horrible, the more obscene, the more money it brings in. It's easy money. September and October, the run-up to Halloween, have become some of the biggest weeks of the year for the movie business, because that's when all the horror movies come out. Follow the money and you'll see exactly what our culture is willing to pay for.

Now, if you are denouncing this livestream, let me describe what you are actually going to see. It won't be graphic. There won't be close-ups. There won't be computer-animated, slow-motion shots of a bullet entering his heart and blood splattering everywhere. He'll be up against a wall. A handful of men will fire. They aim for the heart, and it's over. Compare that to the movies today, where the more blood there is, the more money there is, and the grosser the scene, the bigger the box office.

It's the Reality They Can't Stand

So what is really the problem here?

I submit to you that it's the reality of it. People can brush off a horror movie and say it was just a movie. We know no one was actually hurt, even though it was far more graphic than anything that will happen at Fort Hood. But this is real. That man really is gone when it's over. He really did die. So is it an aversion to death, or is it an aversion to reality? Is it an aversion to justice and judgment? In my view, that's what's going on here. People don't want to see real justice, because deep down they know that someday, real justice is going to take place for every one of us. So the real fight isn't against the murderer at all.

I believe the real fight is against showing that justice exists.

Some will say a livestream cheapens human life. I don't believe that for a minute. I think it strengthens justice. The reason executions were carried out in public for hundreds, even thousands of years, was to deter others from doing the same thing. People saw with their own eyes that crime had consequences, and it made them think twice.

Will a few radicals be inspired by this? Maybe a few. Some will go looking for what they've been taught is the ultimate martyrdom and a glorious kingdom waiting for them on the other side. But I believe that for most of those who once thought about doing something like this, it will be a deterrent. And let's be honest. We are never going to change the radical Islamists who are taught these things from childhood, not until they stop teaching them to their children. Hiding this execution from the public won't change a single one of them.

We have also spent a long time in this country going against the basic principle in the Constitution that a person deserves a speedy trial and that justice should be quick. In my opinion, our entire legal system needs an overhaul. Too many people make money from it, from the lawyers who get paid for every hour a case drags on, to those who get paid to hold prisoners year after year. What we have has become a money-making venture more than a system of justice. That's an article for another day. But when somebody finally steps in and says this man is going to pay for what he did, and you are going to see it with your own eyes, the people who have grown comfortable with endless delay don't know what to do with it.

We've been a very generous country. And yet we've watched horrific acts committed by people who are here illegally and by regular Americans who go down the wrong road. Turn on Dateline or 20/20 and you'll find hour after hour of graphic detail about how someone went wrong. We glorify these shows. We watch them over and over again and think nothing of it. And then when actual justice is carried out, when somebody actually pays for their crime, we're outraged. What is the problem here?

As It Was in the Days of Noah

The problem is the same one the Lord described in the scriptures. Why was everything taken away in the days of Noah? Violence. It filled their minds. It was all they thought about...

The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. (Genesis 6:11)

And the Savior told us plainly that it would come back again before His return...

But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. (Matthew 24:37)

We are living in that time. We are living in a day of violence, when everything is delivered to us violently: our news, our entertainment, our arguments, even the way we talk to each other online. The earth is filling up with violence again, and most of us are paying for the privilege of watching it.

I remember a friend of mine, a good member of the Church, who loved going to movies full of violent confrontations, military scenes, fighting, all of that. And I understand part of it. There's something in us that wants to be able to defend ourselves. We want to learn how to fight. We want to make sure it never happens to us or to the people we love. We've all seen videos of people who were attacked by robbers and prevented a tragedy because they knew how to defend themselves. That's part of our nature, and the Lord Himself has told us there are times when defending ourselves is right. After teaching the Saints to bear an enemy's attacks patiently, He said...

Nevertheless, thine enemy is in thine hands; and if thou rewardest him according to his works thou art justified; if he has sought thy life, and thy life is endangered by him, thine enemy is in thine hands and thou art justified. (Doctrine and Covenants 98:31)

So there's nothing wrong with being prepared to defend your family. But that isn't what's happening in our entertainment anymore. It keeps going further and further, and we keep following it.

I can't believe how violent even the kids' cartoons have become, the shows that should have nothing violent in them at all. Now somebody is going to bring up the old Looney Tunes. Yes, Daffy Duck got his beak blown around backwards, and the Coyote spent his whole life getting flattened by falling rocks and his own cannons. But he always popped right back up. There was no blood, nobody suffered, and the whole point was to laugh at a schemer whose schemes kept backfiring on him. That is a world away from what children are being fed today. Whatever happened to Mister Rogers? Whatever happened to Captain Kangaroo, Thomas the Tank Engine, and Winnie the Pooh? That is what children should be raised on. Instead, they are being filled with all manner of strange ideas at the youngest ages, with demon hunters and all kinds of bizarre things planted in their minds. We need to plant the seeds we actually want to grow, seeds of goodness and faith.

Young children can't always tell the difference between what is fiction and what is real. That understanding comes as they grow. Which is exactly my point. They are already seeing all manner of death every single day in this country, in far more graphic terms than this firing squad will ever show, and nobody is up in arms about that.

God Commanded Justice. He Forbade Vengeance.

Some will say a Christian should leave all of this to God. But there's an important difference that people miss. God condemns us when we take vengeance upon ourselves personally. He has never condemned lawful justice. In fact, He commanded it. The law of Moses could not be plainer...

He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to death. (Exodus 21:12)

The Book of Mormon shows the same principle at work. When Nehor killed Gideon, Alma did not take matters into his own hands. Nehor was brought before the judgment seat, and Alma pronounced sentence according to the law...

And thou hast shed the blood of a righteous man, yea, a man who has done much good among this people; and were we to spare thee his blood would come upon us for vengeance. Therefore thou art condemned to die, according to the law which has been given us by Mosiah, our last king; and it has been acknowledged by this people; therefore this people must abide by the law. (Alma 1:13–14)

Nehor was taken to the top of the hill Manti, and there he suffered an ignominious death (Alma 1:15). Captain Moroni faced the same thing during the war. The king-men refused to defend their country and fought against it, so they were tried according to the law and put to death (Alma 62:9). And look at how it was done...

And thus it became expedient that this law should be strictly observed for the safety of their country; yea, and whosoever was found denying their freedom was speedily executed according to the law. (Alma 62:10)

Speedily. Not seventeen years later. And it stopped the treason. The line God draws is between justice carried out by lawful authority and vengeance taken into our own hands. That's why we have different degrees of murder, first degree, second degree, and on down. Once each of us starts deciding for ourselves who deserves to die, we are in trouble with God, because if everybody did that we would become a vigilante society. There would be no order at all. Everything would be chaos.

Justice Delayed

The reality is that real justice exists. This man deserved the firing squad. If there's a crime in any of this, it's that it took almost seventeen years to happen. And that's true for nearly everyone sitting in prison today for murder. They hardly ever receive the death penalty, and when they do, it drags on for decades.

Just a couple of weeks ago, a woman in Tennessee somehow survived two doses of the lethal drug during her execution. She committed the crime. She was finally given the death penalty, and it failed. I don't know how that happens. And all of a sudden everybody is up in arms about how horrible it is, and she's lying in a hospital unconscious on a ventilator while they work to save her life. I'm sorry, but she committed murder. They should have given her a third dose and finished what the sentence required. Instead they're trying to revive her, and for what? So they can turn around and try to execute her again? She was given a death sentence, and that sentence needs to be served.

In my opinion, almost everyone who commits murder, and I am talking about murder, should face the death penalty. It should be carried out quickly, not at taxpayer expense for fifty or sixty years until they die of old age anyway. Criminals know they'll be taken care of. They have no fear of the justice system anymore, and why would they?

I appreciate what Donald Trump has done with many of the Tren de Aragua gang members and others who have been sent to the CECOT prison in El Salvador. It humbles them tremendously. They're shaved, the conditions are not pleasant, and they are absolutely humbled. Meanwhile, El Salvador's other prisons have put tens of thousands of ordinary inmates to work learning trades like sewing, mechanics, welding, and carpentry, so they can be of some value to society when they get out. The gang members aren't part of those programs, but the rest of the prisoners are being given a way to become useful again. We need real justice in our country again.

A Word to the Parents

There's one more thing I need to say, and some of you aren't going to like it.

I have watched people take their children to R-rated movies. I've tried to call some of them out on it, gently, and every time they just get mad at me. So let me say it here. If you are angry about this livestreamed firing squad, and yet you still watch R-rated violent movies, or worse, you take your children to see them, you are a hypocrite. You are teaching your children that violence is entertainment. You are teaching them that it's worth paying money to see something just because it makes you feel something, even when what it makes you feel is fear and disgust and darkness. Little by little, you are getting their hearts used to the very thing the Lord said would fill the earth in the days of Noah. I'm not saying that to condemn anyone. I'm saying it because I want you to think about what you're planting in them.

Now, I'm not telling anyone to sit their children down in front of this livestream. That's not my point at all. My point is that you've already been showing them far worse, and you paid for it, and you're telling the rest of us that one quiet, distant scene of real justice is what will scar them. Think about which one they are going to remember.

We All Face Justice

So yes, I think this firing squad should be livestreamed. Maybe it will put a sense of justice, fairness, and reality back into people's minds. Maybe some of them will wake up. Maybe some will finally see what's actually going on around them and recognize that we are all going to face justice one day.

And I'm telling you, justice before God will be far more exacting than anything we do here, because He sees everything. Nothing is hidden from Him. Every act, every word, every intent of the heart will be laid open. Our only hope is to get on the right path, turn to Jesus Christ, live the laws and commandments He and our Heavenly Father have given us, and accept Him as our Savior. That is the only way any of us will make it back. And it's the only way any of these people, even the worst of them, can escape the tremendous justice that is waiting for them.

In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

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