When hateful people do heinous things, the fault most often lies with no one but themselves.
In the wake of a grotesque attack by four black youths on a disabled white man, which was streamed on Facebook Live, some people in the crank-left portion of the political spectrum blamed President-elect Trump’s rhetoric. Over in the crank-right portion of the spectrum, there were people blaming Black Lives Matter. Others blamed Facebook for providing the means for exhibitionists to draw attention to their depravity.
But blame in this case lies solely with the four wicked men and women who committed the assault. The fact that they forced their victim to shout “fuck Donald Trump, fuck white people,” does not deflect blame either to Trump or to the Black Lives Matter movement.
The moral compass of people who torture does not point toward a politician or a social movement. It points toward a personal nihilism, bad parents, toxic friends or social pathologies nurtured by a culture that discounts personal responsibility. None of those influences, though, is an excuse. The only people who should be excoriated and punished for this revolting crime are the people who committed it.
An egregiously stupid Washington Post blog leapt at the chance to make a political point, claiming Trump supporters would use the attack to confirm their faulty worldview. Another terrible opinion played pick-and-choose with justice, saying, “This country does not need me to speak out on crimes committed by black folk because nobody in this country is held more responsible for the crimes they commit.”
Efforts to blame people other than the assailants for this crime fit a fairly common pattern; news events, statistics, reports, et cetera are seized on by people with axes to grind as yet more evidence for the rightness of whatever view it is that they hold. Whatever they see on TV gives them the chance to ride their hobbyhorses once again.
That’s what happens in a culture increasingly unwilling to demand personal responsibility. When you excuse bad behavior because society has not perfected itself, has not yet eradicated racism, poverty, inequality, or for that matter greed, envy or plain viciousness, you ensure the availability of ready excuses for evil.
Everyone who finds assault unacceptable, and this particular act of predation despicable, should acknowledge the common ground of their shared values, and leave their political fights for genuinely political issues.
