Conservative political commentator Tucker Carlson created a stir last week when he stated, rather emphatically, that Philadelphia Eagles quarterback, Michael Vick, should have been executed a couple of years ago as a penalty for Vick's conviction for mistreatment of dogs.
As an ardent opponent of the death penalty, I'm not in favor of expanding its use for any reason, even for those convicted of committing vile cruelty to animals, but what I really find disturbing about Carlson's statement is the cavalier attitude it demonstrates regarding government sanctioned killing. In Carlson's world-view, if something offends the state, the state is justified in eradicating it via the death penalty, justice and human sensibilities notwithstanding.
That kind of thinking might give Carlson comfort when he and similar minded folks are in the majority, but majorities have a way of shifting with change in the political winds, so Carlson might want to reconsider his stance, just in case his fondness for bow ties should suddenly become equated with fashion sadism and some knucklehead commentator, or fanatic mob leader, should call for his execution because of it.
I recognize that many people love their pets and consider them part of the family. Some people love their ties too!
Sadly, Carlson's comment also illustrates the fact that latent racism continues to fester in this country, and that many in the public limelight are not shy about exploiting those sentiments for personal and political gain. Carlson would deny that fact, of course, but every black person in American would know he's lying.
Carlson wasn't calling for the death penalty for a white Bush Administration when it commenced an unjustified war in Iraq, causing the deaths of tens of thousands of people, or when the white President Bush and white Vice-President Cheney sanctioned torture of terror suspects, which resulted in a number of human deaths and disfigurement. Is white cruelty a more sanitized version, and thus, somehow more acceptable? Carlson must think it is, but he is wrong, and his willingness to condemn one black man's streak of cruelty and champion a crueler streak in white political leaders with whom he affiliates, belies his own racist attitudes.
As we turn our thoughts to the future on this first day of 2011, we should hope that lynching of blacks in America, an ugly blemish on our nation's past, will never rear its ugly head again. Unfortunately, with the likes of Tucker Carlson polluting our political discourse, our hope just got a little dimmer.
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