There is a boring, snooty, self-righteous school of thought that the judicial killing of a human being is a grave and dignified sacrament of the state. It says that where the law provides for the government to take a life, that is about as serious a decision as, in peacetime, it gets. This school of thought has it that the preceding judicial process must be exhaustive; that the condemned, no matter how repulsive their crimes, should be treated with respect by virtue of their status as human beings; that the whole punitive apparatus must see the process through with the sort of impersonal solemnity appropriate to its momentous arrogation of the right to take a life. Black caps, drawn curtains, ceremonious and exact procedures, shuffling clergymen…all that stuffy malarkey.

Why should any public execution be given away for free when it could be pay-per-view?

Why should any public execution be given away for free when it could be pay-per-view?

This is not the school of thought to which Pete Hegseth subscribes. The peppy go-getter who so inspiringly parlayed a gig as a Brylcreemed himbo on cable news into becoming Defense Secretary of the world’s only hyperpower has decided that if we’re going to execute our ne’r-do-wells, we might as well have fun while we’re doing it. F*** em, right? They’re sinners. It’s what Our Lord – who........

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