There’s an aspect of this I haven’t seen stressed.
Sterling, Bundy and Deen committed no crimes. Nobody has even claimed they were harmed by their actions.
They are to be destroyed because they are Bad People, and everybody knows we demonstrate our own Goodness most effectively by destroying Bad People.
The whole thing reminds me of Athenian or Roman Republican “justice.” In these trials no “evidence” was excluded, so trials tended to degenerate into both sides enthusiastically throwing dirt to show that the other side are Bad People.
The jury’s verdict was by definition not so much on whether the defendant had committed the particular crime of which he was accused, but as to whether the jurymen thought him a Bad Person who should be punished for being Bad.
That’s more or less why Socrates got it in the neck.
While we no longer hold criminal trials of this sort, the Court of Public Opinion is being used to destroy lives every bit as effectively as a criminal conviction.
BTW, insofar as the Bundy case goes, I’ve posted a (partial) defense of his most egregious comments on a number of fora, including FR. Nobody has yet attempted to debate the point with me.
BTW, those leading the charge in these cases are exactly the same people who a few years ago were claiming “dissent is the highest form of patriotism.”
So where is it written that Bundy’s dissent doesn’t qualify?
In order for a totalitarian regime to survive, it must create and endless series of “boogeymen” to be vilified and destroyed.
Today’s targets: “Racists” and “Homophobes.”