What Makes a Murderer?
No politics today. I intend to wax philosophical. Try not to snore.
I have just finished reading a tale by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Fancy’s Showbox: A Morality. In it, a man nearing the end of his life is haunted by scenes of crimes he never committed, but wanted to, or even attempted and failed. The verdict: Guilty as charged by his own conscience.
It put me in mind of one of my early quarrels with my religion, the statement by Jesus that “whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer.” Totally unreasonable, I thought. Thinking evil is not the same as doing it. If anything, the person who has strong grounds for a grudge but refrains from acting on it deserves kudos for self-restraint.
Then, many years ago, before the turn of the century, I had an epiphany that made the lesson more reasonable. A bigot spent the night at a bar tanking up and grousing to anyone who would listen about how much he hated interracial dating and marriages. While driving–more likely weaving–home, he saw the very thing he hated the most: a white man and a black woman. Being one of those good old boys who delights in his Second Amendment rights, he had the means at hand to do something about it. He shot and killed the black woman. I no longer recall if her white partner was injured.
The guy was caught, the whole sorry tale came out, and I had my epiphany. This was a hate crime born out of hate speech. The man spent the night working his hatred to a fever pitch at the same time he was boozing up to the point that he lost all self-restraint. By hating his brother–for we are all of the same family–he was already a murderer waiting for the opportunity to act. In doing so, he destroyed three lives: the girl who was studying to be a nurse, the boy who loved her, and the killer himself. Yes, he was quickly caught, convicted and sentenced to prison, so all he planned to do with his own life was gone as well.
What could have stopped this murder–besides the unlikelihood that he would grow a conscience? Maybe the people who he ranted to throughout the night. Their silence and possible agreement to what he was saying confirmed in his own mind that he was right, the world was with him, and only some pissy-ante liberal do-gooders stood in his way. I doubt that strong opposition to his ugly speech would have convinced him he was wrong, and might even have angered him more. But it might have provided the check of caution: the world was not behind him after all, and worse, one of those people denouncing his views might actually call the police to report that he was making threats just before that girl was shot. It might have been enough to make him put the gun back down, the interracial couple would have driven on blissfully unaware of their danger, and the next morning the almost murderer would have faced nothing more than a hangover.
I am not naturally a combattive person, but since this incident, I have become more outspoken, more ready to challenge hate speech before it turns into a hate crime. I saw that I had been guilty in the past of saying nothing because I did not wish to give offense to someone who is truly offensive. Silence in the face of evil may not amount to agreement, but it does amount to unspoken permission. Yes, the First Amendment gives even the monsters among us the right to spew their hatred, but it also gives us the right to throw their poison back in their faces before they can turn it into action.