Several noteworthy deaths the last couple years, and the reactions of pleasure to them on Twitter in particular, have me wondering: What sort of inhumane, sociopathic ghoul must somebody be to celebrate another’s death, or to hope for it when news comes out of their illness, because they did not share the same opinion on a sociopolitical issue?
This is real, folks. Wake up to it. Yes, innocent grasshopper, people like this do exist, right here amongst us, and do think this way. Want examples? ***PROFANITY ALERT***
re: Nancy Reagan around her death:
Following Justice Antonin Scalia’s death:
And these are some of the tame ones…in my vault of screenshots, I’ve got dozens and dozens of examples, and if I wanted to spend/waste even more time, could save hundreds in any given year without much effort to find them.
In such original public posts, there’s no consideration at all for the families of these people (children, grandchildren, future kids in same family) who could see them. It’s just pure, unadulterated hate. The only reason I post them is for illustrative purposes, to prove they indeed are real, and the decision to do so was difficult and conflicted. In the end, they’re already out there, and need to be put in proper context of what they are: negative examples to be condemned and scorned, and to counter deniers of their existence.
My sentiments regarding those with death wishes also apply to anyone wishing a whole group with any given stance on issues would “just die off so the rest of us can advance,” or eagerly anticipating the passing away in bulk of human beings with whom they disagree on issues. I’ve seen this sentiment multiple times on social media and BLOGs from pro-“LGBT” and pro-abortion advocates, as well as vociferously anti-religious atheists, regarding religius conservatives. You’ll see me disagreeing with those groups steadfastly and straightforwardly on such issues — but never pining for their death or dancing on their graves. That is a sadistic and deranged mentality of extreme and irrational hate. Those who think that way exhibit the very sort of pathological heartlessness as they who threw Jews into Nazi gas chambers, or rounded up “enemies of the revolution” for Stalin’s and Mao’s purges.
No matter how much I disagree with you on an issue, or how awful I see your ideals to be, I am mature enough to see that attacking the idea is not the same as attacking the person, that condemning behavior is not the same as condemning you the person. Regardless of anything you’ve said or done or anything I say or do about it, you still are a loved and valued human being in the eyes of God, and I am commanded to acknowledge and understand that. I will not wish for your death; indeed I am far more likely to pray for your redemption and eternal life. If you consider that a “high horse” — your problem. The solution is simple: get out of the gutter, repent, seek forgiveness, and climb up onto this horse. I’ll offer a helping hand into the saddle.
Here’s another example of a death celebration, this one from a scientist, no less…directed at recently deceased TV meteorologist John Coleman.
Regardless what anybody thinks of Coleman’s position on climate (and mine doesn’t line up with his in most respects), this is despicable and diabolical thinking. Quoting from Max Planck doesn’t dignify it either; that it just shows what a thoughtless asshole that Max Planck could be (as well as anyone who relays such sentiment). Just because the guy was a great pioneer in physics doesn’t mean he was a demigod, and immune from criticism for his personal failings.
As a multiply formally published scientist, I find that attitude to have no place in science! Science is supposed to advance on its own merits, not by default through fulfilled death wishes. Any scientist who thinks the way to advance science is “one funeral at a time” needs to take a leave of absence and seek anger-management and/or anti-sociopathic therapy. And yes, I’d say the same thing straight to Max Planck’s face, while gazing directly into his eyes, if I could travel in a time machine and speak German.
To some extent the hate has been there all along. It goes with the human story, human nature — left, right, or apolitical — intrinsically and unavoidably, back to Cain and Abel, or to whatever other anecdotes you may find of death-wish-level acrimony in past times.
The difference today is that never before has the platform existed to display it in such raw, uninhibited, instantaneous ways, with worldwide distribution, as via social media. Don’t get me wrong here; social media isn’t all bad. As with any tool, the evil lies not in the tool itself (be it hammer, pencil, money, gun, car, or keyboard)—but in how it is used, and for what purpose.
It sucks to see the tool used for the above purposes, as a statement on reality, as a revelation of how some people think in their basal and primal state. To be sure, the tool can be and is used for great good as well—say, to marshal private aid more rapidly than ever to those befallen by disaster at scales ranging from personal to national.
Nevertheless, much as we wish to, we must not stick our heads in the sand and willfully make ourselves unaware of the level of pathological venom that fosters death wishes based on mere sociopolitical opinion. When attaining power, history has shown us what happens to those not favored, by those who would wish death on others whose ideals differ. They act upon that desire because they have attained the power to do so in some way. Consider Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, Idi Amin, Al Queda, ISIS…and countless thousands of lesser-publicized or smaller-number examples, right down to that lunatic who shot up a black church in South Carolina, or the killers of Coptic Christians in Egypt this very decade.
Whether overt (brutally honest) or passive-aggressive in nature (and above, I have offered examples of both), the death-wish mentality is the same. In many ways the overt haters do us a service and make our vigilance easy by leaving no doubt. It’s the passive-aggressive subterfuge (often advertising itself falsely as a good, or even as love) for which you really need to be vigilant, for at the point of removal of inhibition does the “passive” fall away and it become aggressive—by that point, quite often explosively or violently so.
It does not pleasure me to reveal these aspects. Yet as someone who (having spent two decades in the inner city) has seen both the most beautiful and ugly sides humanity has to offer, I see it as a necessary service, lest we be ignorant of what lurks out there, and of what it can become. This is provided on a “need to know” basis, as in: you need to know!
We cannot appreciate the good to its fullest unless we have stared into the eyes of the evil.
If we get to a secret-police or eugenic state here—and given the capabilities of the deep state and AI, melded with the increasing God-lessness of society as a whole, it’s not as far-fetched a possibility as you may think—the death celebrators of today would become the agents of death of tomorrow. Know about them. Watch them—and watch your own back.
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