Editorial: In the outrageous Facebook beating, let's stay focused on what makes us outraged

Perhaps the most important question for us as a society in the wake of the, yes, sickening beating of a mentally disabled man by four people who showed the crime on Facebook Live as they were committing it is one we don't ask often enough about such outrages.

Can we divorce ourselves from our politics for a moment and examine the case in purely human terms?

In that context, almost all Americans - all people of the world - will agree, regardless of their ethnicity, their religion, their hometown, their gender or their political affiliation. This crime was an abomination, and it deserves to be prosecuted with the full force of the law.

Thankfully, we have strong laws that can be applied to the perpetrators. The two men and two women are charged variously with hate crime, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, aggravated kidnapping, vehicle theft and robbery. Their lives are going to be very miserable for a very long time - as well they should be.

Thankfully, too, we also have all kinds of resources that can help the traumatized victim - starting with the compassionate police officers who discovered the suburban man walking the bitterly cold Chicago streets wearing shorts and visibly distressed, then tracked down the suspects. All those resources should be brought into play, for this young man, too, is going to be very miserable for a very long time.

All these are human and institutional reactions to acts that offend all of us as a society and each of us as humans. They are the primary concerns.

There are, of course, other issues that cannot be ignored, though it also cannot be ignored that the minute we begin focusing on them, the minute we begin debasing ourselves with cynical complaints that deepen our social and political divisions. Some national politicians could hardly wait to contend that somehow "liberals" will be slow to judge this case as harshly as they would if it were four whites torturing a black person instead of the other way around. Some liberal civil rights proponents rushed to express fears that the four black suspects will be treated more harshly than white suspects have been in similar cases.

Similar cases. Consider that phrase for a moment. The sad fact is that there are so many outrageous, sickening, offensive, disturbing, heartbreaking similar cases. Are they symptoms of a society gone mad? Products of a generation hooked on social media? Read a couple of history books. It won't take long to realize that such actions have occurred at the hands of small-minded, heartless, cruel individuals back to the beginning of time. They've been done in the name of every race and religion, every cause and political creed, exploiting whatever technology was available at the time.

Do we need to be aware of the social, cultural and religious circumstances that may be at play in every given case? Of course, they bear examination, even if only in the vain hope of finding ways to eliminate them as excuses for human cruelty. But the greater need is to focus on the laws, justice system and institutions we've put in place to ensure that people who debase us all with unspeakable acts of inhumanity will be stopped and punished. And to assure that the people they harm will be comforted and cared for.

These are the behaviors that define us as people and as a society - not the vile aberrations of a minority among us, much as we may lament that its outrages are not nearly infrequent enough.