A young man killed and/or wounded a few dozen people in Canada on Tuesday. It was one of the worst mass shootings the country has seen in years. We now know that the 18-year-old, who apparently killed himself, suffered from gender dysphoria and had "transitioned" into a "female" at the age of 12.
I haven't followed the case too closely, but I have seen headlines and video suggesting that authorities handling the crime are referring to the guy as a female out of respect for how he identified "socially and publicly."
I don't know about you, but I identify this criminal as a piece of garbage — I have a better term, but I'd lose my job if I printed it here — and I don't give a flying flip what his pronouns are or what he identified as "socially and publicly." The only people who deserve any respect right now are the parents who lost their children, the families and friends of those in critical condition, and the small community that will be forever impacted by this senseless crime.
It made me think of something that I kind of buried in my latest "The New Monroe Doctrine" column last week that a lot of you really seemed to enjoy. A Chilean reporter asked El Salvador's president, Nayib Bukele, what he thought of all the international organizations that accuse him of human rights violations because of his crackdown on crime and focus on the country's security.
His response was amazing. He began.
Yes, I've always said that all human beings have rights, and these are rights inherent to humanity, that's why they're called human rights. Others call them natural rights, others fundamental rights, and we all have them.
Prisoners have them, criminals have them, drug traffickers have them, gang members have them, rapists have them, murderers have them, people who have beheaded three people in the street have them, people who have planted bombs in places where there are children have them, people who have committed massacres have them.
They have them, they have human rights. Some people say they don't, but I believe they do. It disgusts me, but I accept it, they have them.
But then he added:
But why is the focus always on the human rights of those who massacre, those who kill children, those who rape women, those who cut off heads?
He goes on to talk about a little girl whose mother was bombed by gang members. Her mother died, and she lost her arms. And he mentions an old woman who didn't have the money to pay the gangs their extortion fee, so they cut off her hands. Now, she still has to earn a living, but she has to do without hands.
"Nobody looked out for their rights," he says, adding to the list the thousands of Salvadoran people who have died due to the gang activity and crime that had overtaken the country before his crackdown. "People who weren't harming anyone, who were working, walking down the street..."
He continued:
No human rights organization came along and said,'Look, you have to stop raping, you have to stop killing, or we're going to intervene, or we're going to spend our billions of dollars that we're given to operate, trying to prevent this from happening.' No, while this is happening, the human rights organizations are silent; they say nothing.
So, he says, the Salvadoran government comes along and arrests the criminals who were taking the rights away from the innocent people who are just trying to live their lives, and suddenly, the human rights organizations come knocking. He said they come and tell him that his prisoners do not get enough protein in their meals, and his response is: Do you know what the average Salvadoran with limited resources has to eat? Is he supposed to raise that guy's taxes so the gang members in the prisons can have more protein?
He admitted that his prison system isn't perfect, but it's the best in Latin America. They don't have the resources to make it a humans right utopia, but it's pretty darn good. Approximately 70% of the prisoners — not the murderers and rapists — are in rehabilitation programs and will be back on the streets within a decade. Right now, they participate in activities that make them more viable members of society, including cleaning up the country to make it better, too. As I reported Friday, Bukele is in the process of remodeling the country's schools, and these prisoners do a lot of the labor, which helps them save money.
"So, we have prioritized the human rights of honest people and then we look, of course, at the human rights of murderers," he said.
It's a simple concept, but it's one that seems to be lost in much of the Western world these days. The guy who's in the country illegally killed a girl, but many are focused on keeping him from being deported and ignore the rights of the victim. The serial criminal has been in prison 30 times, but let's give him the benefit of the doubt and a 31st chance and put an entire community in danger. The progressive mayors whose cities' murder rates are skyrocketing, but who are soft on crime because they fear it will cost them votes. The "trans" person who shot up the school, but screw the victims — let's make sure we get his pronouns right.
Related: The New Monroe Doctrine: The Plot Twists That No One Saw Coming
It's why Canada and parts of Europe and even parts of our own country are losing the trust of their own citizens and with it, their moral credibility.
It's why Latin America is changing. They've seen the cartels kill their friends and the gangs rape their sisters and the corrupt governments jail their fathers for no reason, and they've had enough. They want a Bukele who will come in and prioritize the rights of the law-abiding majority over the ones who commit the crimes.
That's not to say the criminals don't have rights; they do, as Bukele said. But once they kill, rape, steal, or exort, choices must be made, and they should not be the top priority.
Every society has a choice to make, and right now Canada is choosing pronouns and feelings, while El Salvador is choosing murder rates and safety.
In case you missed it last week, I'll leave you with Bukele's entire answer to the reporter. It's pretty long, but it's worth the watch. (Note: It's in Spanish but has subtitles.)
🇸🇻 Una periodista pregunta a Bukele sobre los derechos humanos de los criminales:
— Progresismo Out Of Context (@OOCprogresismo2) January 31, 2026
"Los que matan, violan, cortan cabezas y ponen bombas tienen derechos humanos, pero nosotros hemos priorizado los derechos humanos de la gente honrada".pic.twitter.com/VyihfssXeX
