If you remember, not long ago there was a huge controversy about an Al Qaeda-linked website making available the beheading of an American civilian. People either clamored to watch the video, or speak out against watching it. I’m one of those who think it’s inherently wrong and stupid to watch the video. Now some college punk wants to air it on a closed-circuit college broadcast and force people to watch it because, “”It’s not that big of a deal. People show stuff this violent and horrible all the time.”

It is a big deal. It is disrespectful to the man’s family, it gives the terrorists exactly what they want (anger, disgust, fear), and you have to be sick in the head to watch the video in the first place. Some people say you should watch it, it’s the truth, it’s reality. That is a pathetic excuse. If I read in a book, or heard on the news about the beheading, I don’t have to watch it too. Why subject myself to such horrors?

It’s one thing to see the beheading of a person in a movie, because it’s not really happening, and it is used to set up an emotion or to tell a story, but to see it happening to a real person, is another matter entirely. I accept the fact that some people love to watch people getting seriously hurt, killed, or tortured to death, and I also accept that some people are so messed up in the head, that they don’t care too.