Saturday, March 14, 2015

The Negative Train

I am going to stay on the negative train a while longer.

Curt Schilling and his daughter, Gabby, were viciously, moronically insulted - verbally attacked - after Curt posted congratulations on his blog regarding her acceptance to Salve Regina University. She will attend the school and also play on the softball team.

A number of neanderthals posted disgusting sexual remarks directed at Gabby. The kind of comments that would make a father want to lock his daughter up at home and never let her leave.

The anonymity of social media apparently encourages open expression of the basest of attitudes.

That is the definition of cowardice.

It also exposes the vile thought process that exists and thrives in many people who live on and hide behind social media.

Is it like this everywhere in the world? Or only in this country. I am trying to understand if this is an American disease or a disease of humanity.

I did a little research regarding hate speech and freedom of speech just now but the "facts" were all over the place. Frankly I just don't have the time today so I'll continue to shoot from the hip.

There are a few recent incidents jumbled up in my granite-like skull that suggest a common ignorance and viciousness that bothers me.

There is the Curt Schilling thing. There is the Ahmed al-Jumali thing. There is the Sigma Alpha Epsilon thing.

These are only three very recent incidents in a long list of incidents that suggest a mind set that is dangerous, uninformed and vile.

Some suggest the seeming frequency of these things is amplified by social media. That it has always existed on this level but is now more immediate due to smart phones, twitter etc.

I believe it has always existed, but I also believe it is accelerating in frequency and viciousness regardless of how it is reported or experienced.

I don't know why.

I hoped, naively, when 20 children and 6 adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012, that somehow that would trigger a mas revulsion that would put an end to violence and hatred and killing and verbal and physical abuse.

I did not believe in my soul that that could happen, but I wanted it to happen. I thought if the massacre of 20 children was not enough to alert the world to the  nasty direction we were headed in, then we were in deep trouble.

Since then it has only gotten worse on all levels.

I have been watching a documentary series on Africa on Netflix.

When I see predators creep up on essentially innocent animals and kill them, it upsets me. But I recognize that it is survival of the fittest at its most basic level and that it is natural.

When I see humans do it to other humans it destroys me.

It can be verbal, physical, racial, sexual, dysfunctional or coldly pre-planned, it is still humans feeding on other humans and it is vile.


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