All the people who live there are bloodthirsty

My oldest was telling me about a certain website which shows very graphic portrayals of Mid Eastern countries and their supposed judicial system. One streaming video shows a man being punished for something or other, and this is the punishment: His entire arm is secured to a board. A hooded swordsman then proceeds, ever so slowly, to slice his arm up; first the tips of the fingers are sliced off in one fell swoop, then the hand, then halfway up the wrist, etc. You get the picture. In the meantime, the townspeople are cheering an enjoying the show. We discussed how different these people are from what we generally think of as the way we are (barring torturing our perceived enemies and shooting each other in the streets of the USA on a daily basis). I confided to him that, at times, I have had the thought that maybe we should just wipe them all off the face of the earth and be done with it. They will never be civilized if this is what they think of as acceptable punishment for crime, and they're certainly not gonna be willing or able to handle democracy, western style.
The thought of thousands of people gathering to watch something like that spectacle is sickening and makes the situation seem hopeless, right? We will never get anywhere with people who see torture as entertainment and who are so brutal as to enjoy the spectacle, right?
Well, no.
It is only if we allow our base thoughts to be our only thoughts, if we don't think beyond those knee-jerk reactions of disgust and hopelessness, then we're not thinking so well. These are what I call my "conservative moments"; the base thoughts I have before thinking things through. We could show a video of hundreds of thousands of people at an anti-war rally, or a civil rights rally, and maybe people in other countries would think "Oh, those americans all hate war, they all want civil rights. Would that be correct? Fraid not!
We've seen large groups in America enjoying lynching blacks, burning crosses and being electrocuted, but we don't all enjoy or agree with those activities, do we? We see thousands at anti-abortion rallies, but we're not all anti-abortion. We see thousands at Gay Pride parades, but we're not all bursting with pride, are we?
See my point?
They're not all bloodthirsty bastards, but we can sure be easily convinced that they are, can't we? Remember to think.