Something to Consider

Jose Agostinho Pereira, Brazilian Who Abused Captive Daughter, Decapitated In Prison Riot

Many years ago, I spent some time at a sketchy-ass rave house in Norfolk. Had a buddy that spun there occasionally, and another buddy that made purchases there, so I'd tag along periodically, all done up in my ironic poor man's goth get-up, and dance to Aphex Twin. Found out from a cab driver I knew that cops were watching the place, and it had a weird vibe, so it wasn't tough to stop going. Sure enough, place got busted soon thereafter. The "proprietor" was busted for possession / distribution of various things, including the ecstasy he used to date rape young pretty Navy boys and a significant amount of child pornography. The one time I met him, I was really creeped out; this news justified that feeling.

Between stories I heard from people that knew him and another buddy that was doing time simultaneously for purse-snatching or heroin possession or something, he was fucked with the angry end of a broken broomstick within a few months of getting locked up. Not surprisingly, my reaction was something like, "the world is a better place than it was yesterday."

Still, something lingered. There's a part of me that wouldn't mind seeing every child molester and rapist face-fucked with a shotgun, a sentiment that I'm sure is shared with many people. There's the part of me that views these monsters as victims, as most of them don't just wake up one day, all like "I've got the day off of work, I'm bored, so I think I'll force sexual acts on somebody weaker than me"; these monsters are created, both by the prevailing narratives on which culture is based and the actions of other monsters.

I'm not here to ask what right we have as a society to punish those deviants that our society creates, not today. I'm here to say that I understand the urge to see every last one of these motherfuckers brutalized slowly, while critiquing that which allowed Pereira to be killed in such a way. The measure of our ethics is how we apply them when it's difficult to do so; you don't get to be a pacifist if you want to punch that jerk over there in the face, you don't get to be a human rights advocate if you would deny certain humans those rights. It's easy to say that stealing is wrong if you're never in a situation in which you could get away with theft. We don't get to turn off our ethics when we're pissed off, even justifiably so (as in the case of this horrible bastard).

So, like pretty much all of you, some part of me said "good" when I saw the headline, but this event came about as a result of the deprivation of human rights, plain and simple. Little will be done to prevent such events because it's so easy to hate these monsters.

I wasn't upset when that rave-hosting date rapist and pedophile was murdered in jail, but in retrospect, it should have been prevented. Not because he deserved a long, happy life, but because the brutal circumstances of his death directly resulted from ethical flaws ingrained in our culture that easily allow for innocent people to face similar ends. Not all consequences of shitty prison systems are chuckle-worthy like these two examples.