This past week, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced that Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan would be publicly executed by firing squad on December 3rd. This execution will be livestreamed. Hasan was a former army major and psychiatrist who murdered thirteen and wounded thirty two others on November 5th, 2009. He was a second-generation Palestinian immigrant who yelled “Allahu Akbar” during the attack. Despite his communications with Al Qaeda terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki, the Obama Administration declined to charge him with terrorism, which had adverse effects on the ability of the families to claim benefits for the deaths of their loved ones. In 2013, he was court-martialed and convicted for the shooting. In 2025, the Supreme Court declined to hear his appeals, opening the way to his execution.
His justice was long overdue, yet upon the announcement of the public execution, many came out of the woodwork to countersignal the administration and morally quibble with the idea of public executions.
Chief amongst them was Lila Rose, the pro life grifter behind Live Action. Rose is feminist papist who holds to the modern papacy’s condemnation of the death penalty, yet goes so far to call it satanic.
Nothing she says is factually true. If anything, a martial society is more readily equipped to defend itself from existential threats rather than a society pacified through vice and lulled by peace. Sparta did not have walls for this reason. The Second Amendment speaks to the need for a well-regulated militia, meaning that society had to be equipped to perform violence on a moment’s notice. Most notably, this was necessary against the savage Indians in the frontier territories. For centuries, the English tradition required men to be trained at arms, most specifically the English longbow. Even now, America retains the Selective Service (the draft), so the habituation of violence is a necessary good for society. If one cannot stomach a public execution, then they are unfit to defend their people nor can they be trusted in leadership.
Public executions further serve the public good in serving as a deterrent against violence; Western Europe spent centuries executing a small percentage of its population for crimes, leading to a reduction in violence in later centuries. Public executions work. What does not work is the penitentiary system devised by Quakers that teaches that criminals can be rehabilitated into society. The Imago Dei is not being violated in a public execution, nor is a murderous criminal worthy of human dignity.
In the Bible, the primary means of execution prescribed by the Mosaic Law is stoning. This was a public mode of execution where the community would collectively execute the malefactor. A stoning is far more violent and prolonged than a firing squad, hanging, or an executioner’s sword. Lila Rose asserts that God prescribed that which Satan loves.
Rose was not the only one to condemn the execution. Predictably, sour grapes from the administration, like Joe Kent, condemned it under the guise that it would “be a stain on our morality” and create more terrorists—as if that would be more impactful than the Iran War. As Kent associates with the “pro-Palestine right,” it is unsurprising that he would condemn the administration on this issue. The same goes with Erick Erickson, who, after insinuating that William Wolfe was in league with Islamists, condemned the notion of a public execution of an Islamist. The kids call this type of behavior “moralfagging” for a reason.
Lila Rose exists to fundraise off the issue of abortion, as Live Action does little apart from using donations to solicit further donations while doing little on the issue of abortion. The activist class has been unsuccessful in all but two statewide ballot measures. Condemning the death penalty, which is a most necessary termination of human life, and victimizing women who get abortions is the reason the Pro-Life industry has been an abject failure. President Trump delivered the overturning of Roe, yet they have often repaid him with attacks and disloyalty as he exposed that they lacked a game plan for a Post-Roe America. With women like Lila Rose, be not surprised that abortion will continue to be a losing issue for the right.
One Response
Every State, City and town in America have Capitol Punishment as they have armed police, these are agents of the State and can kill you without a trial if you are perceived to pose a violent threat to them or others. Even most college campuses carry a death penalty, though the Liberals there have never realized it apparently. If Rose does not wish to disarm the police she is in favor of the death penalty as is the Pope whose body guards are armed.