I’m watching twitter conservatives go ballistic over Otto Warmbier’s death. Blaming communism, blaming Obama, ascribing his torture and death to all sorts of enemies. But apparently without any hint of recognition, that at least on a very basic level, our own society isn’t really that much better as regards valuing human life.
Let’s say instead of being in North Korea, Otto was here in the U.S. - he could be shot dead for any number of reasons just as asinine as stealing a poster, legally, and the same people would be rejoicing and wanking off to pictures of guns. Or somebody might just be walking through the rain with a bag of skittles (while black) and be murdered by a self-righteous gun owner, and although this might be frowned upon, and tried in court, still be found to be plainly legal to do. A person will more than likely go to prison longer for stealing money than for physically harming or killing a person.
The systems here in the U.S. and in North Korea are very different, obviously, but the basic problem is the same, on the scale of value to society, posters, no trespassing signs, packs of cigarettes, and other trivial things are accepted to be worth more than a human life. Considering the absolutely stupid, trivial shit we as a society are officially ok with letting people get shot or killed or imprisoned for - being mad at a different system placing so little value on a human life seems strange. The outrage is understandable, sure, because deep down none of us really want to see our fellows come to harm, but with the veneers of bullshit people apply to situations as justification for certain beliefs, it seems odd, clueless, hypocritical even.