Matt Walsh: “I honestly believe that we should legally bring back medieval-style torture methods for certain criminals”
Walsh: “Whipping, amputation, all sorts of innovative techniques, stockades, etc.”
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From the March 26, 2024, edition of The Daily Wire's The Matt Walsh Show
MATT WALSH (HOST): Okay. So needless to say, this man should be tried and convicted lawfully in a court of law and then executed. I actually think -- OK, now we're gonna get right -- we're just gonna get right into the stuff that gets me in trouble. But I'll just say that I honestly believe that we should legally bring back medieval-style torture methods for certain criminals like this one. And I'm not advocating for extrajudicial punishments. I'm not advocating for vigilantism. I'm saying, legally, a law should be passed allowing it. Maybe Florida can be the first to step up to the plate on this. They're the first on a lot of things. Maybe they can be the first on this. It'll be a constitutional challenge, of course. It'll be called cruel and unusual punishment. But, look, for thousands of years -- I mean, it's actually not unusual. Certainly not. I don't think it's cruel as long as you're -- if you're -- if the person that is sustaining this punishment is someone like this. It's not cruel and it's certainly not unusual. It's like the most usual kind of punishment, you know, arguably. And for thousands of years of human history in every society on Earth, they used physical punishments for certain crimes -- whipping, amputation, all sorts of innovative techniques, stockades, etc. And there are some crimes that warrant that, in my opinion. Some crimes that warrant the deliberate infliction of severe physical pain.
And, you know, what I'm trying to communicate is it's only very recently that such an idea is shocking to people. Totally shocked. For most of human history, if I were to argue this to you, you would be shocked only that I feel the need to state the obvious. You know, if I said that, OK, we need a legal punishment to inflict severe physical pain on a man who wants to rape babies, if I had said that to you, you know, almost any other time in human history, you would look at me like, of course. Why are you even saying that? As if this is a, what is there to argue about? Of course, obviously. How else are you gonna punish somebody like that? And even now, I don't think that anyone even really disagrees. I mean, does anyone disagree with the idea that this man deserves to experience severe physical pain lawfully, as a lawful punishment? Does anyone really disagree with that? I don't think anyone really does. People pretend to disagree because we've been conditioned into this idea that torture is always wrong no matter what. Maybe the problem is the word torture. Like, so let me amend my statement. Actually, I'll amend it. I don't think this man should be tortured. I don't. I think that we should legally inflict severe physical pain on him. And in his case, it would not be torture. OK? It would be, if we did the same thing to somebody who was arrested for, say, unpaid parking tickets. In that case, it'd be torture, cruel and unusual punishment. In his case, I wouldn't -- although it's methods that we may -- previously may have been described that way, in this case, I wouldn't call it that for him. I would call it -- corporal punishment is what it is. And that's what I would advocate.