The Harambe incident was tragic. Does anyone actually think the child’s parent wanted him to fall into the pen? Well of course they didn’t. But that hasn’t stopped rageaholics from screaming the parents should be arrested or from posting death threats against them. Conservative journalist Matt Walsh made perhaps controversial comments about this and now he’s getting death threats too. A Twitter thread yesterday about the UCLA shooting quickly degenerated into a screaming match between pro- and anti-gun advocates. That two people were dead apparently was irrelevant. Friends have been driven off Twitter because a joking tweet they made riled some faction who responded with hundreds of savage tweets.
In these unfortunate situations, no one appears to care much about facts, trying to find out what happened, or realizing the other person might actually be a human too. Instead, it’s just pit bull attacks by mostly cowardly morons hiding behind their keyboards, demonizing whoever their target is. Most of them almost certainly would not hurl such abuse if they were speaking to the other person in the same room.
All of this is seriously unhealthy to everyone involved and to the country as a whole. I make a point of following news and opinions from people I don’t generally agree with (like Matt Walsh) because I want to know what all sides are thinking and – now hold on for this shocker – they sometimes might have good ideas and say things I hadn’t thought of.
A high school history teacher said “When compromise breaks down, war breaks out.” He was talking about relations between countries. However this is true internally, within a country too. The country is more fragmented and at war with itself than it was in the 1960’s. Now we’re about to go into a vicious general election campaign for president, while will only make things worse.
I don’t know what the answer is. But it sure isn’t screaming at each other.