Fort Hood attacker's execution by firing squad will be livestreamed | Hacker News Reader

Fort Hood attacker's execution by firing squad will be livestreamed

bbc.com

11 pointsmo706127 comments

We're going down a dark path. An uncivilized one. It will eventually touch people far more innocent than the criminal in this case.

>We're going down a dark path. An uncivilized one. It will eventually touch people far more innocent than the criminal in this case.

You need to update your priors a fair bit. The government has already sent innocent people to prison camps and gunned them down in the street.

Trump today is spouting some big surprise coming to do with Project 2025. These people explicitly spelled out the direction they would take the country with this document, and so many people chose not to believe them.

The plan was always to create a fascist authoritarian state and yet people are still only just waking up to it.

>yet people are still only just waking up to it

Some people, maybe. But Trump already had four years in office, he and his base were known quantities, their beliefs were broadcast all over the media and social media. Almost everyone who voted for him knew exactly what he was about, don't let them tell you otherwise.

To be fair Trump has done so much crazy shit that it leaves most people in a fog of chaos. I’m ashamed I forgot about the ICE tragedies already…been working too much lately. I’m most angry with people that stood by and did nothing to stop him when they might have had a chance. Whose career is so important that they’d rather keep it and live in these times with these tragedies unfolding.

The last public execution in my country ended up such bloody debacle that the crowd ended up attacking the officials. The death penalty was quickly abolished after that.

Would be nice if the citizens of the US had that kind of fire in their bones.

Fascinating you think they don’t

They let it get this far, but I truly hope they disprove my intuition in this regard.

I sincerely hope this is foiled by technical problems and treated as snuff content. A sickening thing to try and encourage people to watch.

And so the Trump Administration joins ISIS and Al-Quaeda in the “Livestreams Executions” club.

Absolutely despicable and very ominous sign about the return of barbarism. I hope the new American pope protests. Turning an execution into entertainment is not a Christian value.

> Turning an execution into entertainment is not a Christian value.

Neither is lying, cheating, stealing, etc, but they seem to do all that stuff (and much more) too. Maybe they're not actually Christians at all? (It's either that, or Christ stood for some really messed up things that I was never told about in church.)

It’s incredible how dedicated Hegseth is to being evil. So many regime officials are merely greedy or suck-ups, and he’s out here manufacturing completely pointless evil that Trump did not ask for and will not benefit from.

There are conflicting reports about Hegseth possibly running for president. So this may be a campaign stunt.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2028-election/pete-hegseth-...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/08/29/hegseth-de...

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/hes-doing-a-fantastic-j...

Hegseth has maintained a consistent, principled position for his entire tenure that the military needs to be visibly murdering people. He routinely posts snuff footage where they murder purported “narcoterrorists”. I really think it’s wrong to postulate any deeper explanation; he’s just an evil man who prefers to do bad things rather than good ones.

Plutarch Heavensbee accurately distilled the top-down strategy in this regard: https://youtu.be/bHSWCDqw_n0?si=lYiIKStXnNgxis38

if you've read enough history you know the authoritarian path the u.s is headed down towards.

this public execution buys implied consent to execute 'enemies' of the state. it also forces state governors aligned with the president to livestream executions of those on death row as 'deterrent'. then later go execute enemies of the state.

however as most people know through projects like the innocence project - some people on deathrow are innocent but are victims of racism etc.

This will fire up the jihadis and encourage the cycle. Very different than the obscurity into which the mastermind of the World Trade Center truck bombing was thrown.

Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50011771

Now where did we put that superior intelligence? It was just here a second ago …

A quick web search¹ shows these as the only other nations that still hold public executions: Iran, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Somalia.

Those aren't places whose approach to justice the US should emulate. Civilized governments did away with public execution a century ago²

In fact, one argument I recently have used in support of the war with Iran is that the Islamic Republic still holds public executions.

¹ https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-where-public-e...

² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_execution

Yes. In Iran they routinely kill enemies of the regime in public and/or hang them from cranes for display. I can’t fathom the folks that are currently the in crowd elites. I’d rather be dead than support a dystopian shit hole.

If you don't want to see it, you don't have to. Unfortunate that so many comments here are very interested in limiting other peoples' access to view justice, no matter how grim it is. Again: don't watch if you don't want to.

A fitting end for an utter monster.

I unfortunately consume a lot of video news, and it is kind of appalling to me, whatever the channel, whatever the news outlet, whenever they report a serious crime, the entire comment section turns into a bloodthirsty lynch mob that dehumanizes the accused. Not merely the guilty but the accused. And seriously dehumanizing. Like, calling them a monster, because that is not human. Calling them terrible names, denigrating their race, saying they deserve life in prison or death by any means or "justice" at the hands of a mob of prisoners, or if they already met a terrible end, gloating over it and reveling in the misery of a suffering human person.

So the first step to public executions and mob justice is dehumanizing the accused, or the convicted, and making them less than human with our descriptions, like monster. So perhaps it should be carefully considered about who the real enemy is, and pray for those who do evil; bless those who curse us; ultimately remembering that they are also human, with families, and souls, and feelings.

> "People need to understand that there's serious consequences for these types of things."

Why? Seriously, what is the point of demonstrating "serious consequences" for the crime of "military personnel mass-shooting other military personnel"? Is this a regular problem that needs to be corrected for? Do you think anyone in their right mind _doesn't_ already understand that there will be serious consequences for such an action? And if they're not in their right mind, exactly how do you think this will improve deterrence?

What an utterly boneheaded statement.

I recall the old Doctor Who episode "vengeance on varos" was my first exposure as a kid to the then sci-fi concept of executions streamed for - the public benefit, I suppose? Really disturbing episode, rewatched it a few years back and yeah - still very disturbing. Not a good episode in other respects either, and it was harshly criticized at the time.

And now my country is implementing that for real.

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