I don't know what everybody's getting so upset at Pat Robertson for. I mean, sure, it's not exactly neighborly to call for Hugo Chavez's assassination, but neither is it necessarily un-Christian. The Bible, after all, offers no shortage of grounds on which you can put a man to death. All we need to do is catch him on one.
Think he's ever masturbated? If so, Genesis 38:8 says he's finished. Exodus 12:12 lets us off him if he's ever struck another man with a deadly blow, a particularly helpful passage if we let Robertson do the deed himself with a blunt object -- they can exit stage left together. I don't know if Chavez ever hit his parents, but Exodus 21:15 finishes him if he did. Better yet, he sure seems like he was stubborn and rebellious as a kid, a juvenile heritage that we can stone him for (Deuteronomy 21:18). If Hugo's got any friends who pray to a God other than the fearsome overlord of the Bible, we can take him down for letting them live (Deuteronomy 13:6). But screw it, we can basically throw all this out and follow Titus 1:10 which says, in essence, that there are tons of talkers and deceivers, many though not all of them Jews, who we can silence for the good of the community. I'm sure Hugo fits in that category fairly neatly.
So enough of this pious squeamishness. Compared to the Bible, Tony Soprano is an all-too-merciful wimp. Chavez has had it coming to him for a long time. But then, so has Pat, George Dubya, any number of on-air evangelists and on-pulpit preachers, your humble host, and all you sinners reading along. The Bible, if read unmercifully, is a cruel, indiscriminate tome that leaves little room for saints and none at all for sinners. So what a shame that the current crowd exults in the blood and gore, justifying their actions through obscure rules meant to regulate the social behaviors of a tribe of nomads rather than following the professed verbatim quotations of the peaceful man-lord they worship as savior.
