It's very difficult for people to treat someone better than they are being treated. It causes cognitive dissonance, for example, to smile compassionately at a person who is cruel to you. So while this tortured man most likely was never the aggressor, I see this behavior as a response to the abuses heaped on the people who are now doing the abusing. We all need to guard against this, for it is exceedingly difficult to respond with decency to a person who is indecent to you. Violence is just the next step.

Folk from the right are just as varied as folks from the left: you can't lump them. I think the far religious right feel empowered and their missionary zeal is stoked. I think the liberal elitists are terrified because they are realizing that in a democracy it doesn't matter if you are right, what matters is if you are popular, and elitists are not popular.

Violence needs to be punished according to the law, no matter who perpetrates it.