Dzhokhar Tasarnaev should be one of the most hated men in America, but instead he’s one of the most admired – by a certain group of people. Dzhokhar is the younger of the two brothers responsible for the Boston Marathon bomb. As you may recall, his older brother was killed in a shoot-out with police. Dzhokhar fled and ended up bleeding in a boat, where authorities found him. Since his incarceration a small but vocal group of girls has been filling social-media sites with claims that he has been unjustly accused, and even framed. Some of the young women reason, in the words of one tweeter, “I knew he’s innocent. He’s far too beautiful.”
Good looks trumps guilt? Kill and main dozens of people, murder a policeman, and if you’re cool enough you get off in the minds of the texting generation? What kind of misguided romanticism propels such thinking? Is it the celebrity thing? If your face is in the media you somehow get a pass, like Beyonce illegally in Cuba? Think girl-friend batterer Chris Brown. He’s back on top, his popularity never significantly suffered, and now he’s once again with Rihanna, the woman he beat.
American culture is truly out of control when young females pine after a killer. I know that misguided women sometimes fall in love with psychopaths in prison. But this was a very public crime, a terrorist act. I shudder to think if Bin Laden had been sans the beard and menacing gaze. If he had worn the loose locks, and beguiling gaze of Dzhokhar, would he too have been an icon of passion? I hope not. The love letters on twitter to the Boston bomber are yet one more sign of the fall and decline of Western civilization. How many more alarms do we need before we turn to God in penitence?
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