As I was surfing The Internet the other day, I came across an article that discussed crime and punishment in Europe during the Middle Ages.
It pointed out that between 500 A.D. and A. D. 1500, punishment for most crimes in Europe was often performed in public. “Performed” is the correct verb because punishment was a theatrical event during Medieval times, with crowds gathered to witness floggings, hangings, beheadings, or just good old non-lethal humiliation such as hanging midair in a cage or having your head and hands locked in a wooden stock.
Even animals were put on trial. For example, pigs were sometimes tried and executed for committing violence against children.
I can relate to that.
Once, on our farm in Kansas, when I was about 6 or 7, I made the mistake of climbing over a wooden fence where we had about 15 or 20 Landrace hogs. I was curious, and all I wanted to do was pet one of the creatures. I hadn’t walked very far when I bent down and attempted to pick up a baby piglet. It looked like a puppy to me, and picking up a puppy was no big deal.
The mother of that piglet was not amused. That sow let out a scream and ran toward me, grunting and snorting. Luckily, my uncle was nearby and came to my rescue. He picked up a big clump of rock and dirt and heaved it, smacking the sow square on its snout. It stopped dead in its tracks, which was just enough time for my uncle to grab me and lift me over the fence to safety.
“Stay out of the pig pen,” he warned me. “Those hogs will eat you alive.”
To this day, I have tremendous respect for hogs, and since that close call, I have never sauntered anywhere a passel or team of hogs is gathered.
So, what is the significance of my encounter with that sow and her piglet?
Well, had this been the Middle Ages, that sow might have been put on trial for the attempted murder of a child and possibly convicted and executed.
By the same token, if I had been caught stealing a loaf of bread or a pail of milk in the year 1424, I would have been put on trial, and if convicted, I would have been subjected to whatever form of public punishment or humiliation the court decided I should suffer.
Our system of justice has come a long way since the Middle Ages. Or has it?
As I watch the ongoing public persecution of Donald Trump by Joe Biden, his Department of Justice, and various Democrat blue state prosecutors, it reminds me of crime and punishment in the Middle Ages.
The objective of the four indictments and 91 counts of Donald Trump is meant to humiliate him publicly and, if possible, to convict him and incarcerate him for the rest of his life, thereby ending his political career and scuttling any chance that he might occupy the White House again.
In case you have forgotten what Trump is facing in this modern attempt at Middle Age humiliation, here is a short list of the legal challenges he is facing.
- Trump has been indicted on 13 criminal counts by a Fulton County grand jury in Georgia state court related to his alleged attempts to overturn the results of Georgia’s 2020 presidential election.
- A federal grand jury indicted Trump on four counts in a criminal proceeding in Washington, D.C., also related to his alleged attempts to overturn the will of the voters and interfere with the 2020 presidential election results.
- Trump has also been indicted by a different federal grand jury in Florida on 40 counts in relation to both obstructing an investigation and his unlawful retention of classified documents after his presidential term.
- Finally, Trump has been indicted on 34 counts in a criminal proceeding in New York State Court related to hush money payments made to an adult film star during the 2016 presidential campaign as well as falsifying business records.
While legal experts agree that most of these counts are weak and even frivolous, a few say the 40 counts in Florida that charge him with the unlawful retention of classified documents are the most serious and problematic.
If convicted of that, Trump could, under Title 18 U.S.Code 1924, be fined and sentenced to five years in prison.
That, of course, would end any possibility of a successful run for the presidency and could ensure the reelection of Joe Biden in November—if, indeed, our mumbling, bumbling president actually manages to stay upright and cognizant that long.
But even if Trump manages to beat those four indictments with their 91 counts, his public humiliation will have been accomplished, thereby giving those suffering from TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) enough ammunition to make his life miserable if he manages to gain access to the White House.
The only things missing during Trump’s current persecution are the public floggings and the stocks.
Well, actually, the modern version of those public humiliations are the constant rants and ravings of our corrupt media—most of whom are intent on doing whatever they can to derail any possibility of a Trump presidency.
Even the most disgraced criminal in the Middle Ages was given the opportunity to address the masses before punishment or humiliation was imposed, but Trump has been denied that because the propagandists masquerading as journalists refuse to cover or broadcast his comments or speeches.
Thus, Trump’s harassment is complete. He is being publicly humiliated while a majority of the media are muzzling him via a nationwide blackout.
The legacy media are today’s royal inquisitors doing the bidding of Joe Biden and his henchmen and henchwomen at the federal, state, and local levels, where legal systems have been weaponized against Trump and anybody else who is declared an irredeemable MAGA Republican.
Trump and those who support him are not political opponents in the classic American sense. Instead, Biden has declared that some 75 million Trump supporters are extremists, terrorists, and mutineers bent on the destruction of democracy itself.
As such, just as in Medieval Europe, they must be silenced, imprisoned, or banished from society’s political and social sphere.
Welcome to the Middle Ages, ca. 2024
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