While awaiting the results of the Iowa Caucuses, I watched "The Obsolete Man" episode (1961) of one of TV's great series - The Twilight Zone. Burgess Meredith plays a librarian condemned to death by "the State" in a bookless and godless society.
The judge in his "trial", a chancellor of the State, is played by Fritz Weaver.
The condemned man gets to choose the time and place of his execution. The librarian chooses to be killed at home by a bomb before a television audience. He lures the chancellor to his apartment and locks him in - to share his fate.
The librarian starts to calmly read from a bible he's hidden away. The chancellor becomes increasingly agitated; the librarian releases the chancellor just before the bomb detonates when he asks to be released "for the love of God".
When the judge returns to court, he's condemned to death for disgracing the State, thereby becoming obsolete.
Rod Serling, the creator and narrator of the Twilight Zone, closes the episode by noting that in actuality, "any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize worth, the dignity, the rights of man - that state is obsolete".
Here's hoping that our next president does a better job recognizing the worth, dignity, and rights of all people than the incumbent.
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