Please stop posting links to the video of the recent fatal shooting of a senior citizen on Facebook Live and then writing about how much this horrific act upsets you.
Why?
Because the veneer of humanity is much thinner than you may realize. Especially with the big talking coward in The White House right now.
This kind of thing is contagious. The more attention the killer gets, the more likely other unhinged minds will follow his example.
It’s fine to write about the Easter shooting of Robert Godwin Sr., 74, of Cleveland, but please stop posting the brutal video of his execution by a passing motorist. The killer asks the gentle old man whether he knows the woman who had apparently just left him, then tells the woman he’s killing the complete stranger because of her, and then does it as Godwin begs for his life.
The kind of sadism depicted in this video is contagious for some of the weak minds among us. It makes the unthinkable thinkable.
Particularly now, with the human hive mind that is the Internet, and the poor and faltering middle class stressed by the awful labor market.
We have to be good to one another amid these Cynical Times. That means we have to learn to lead ourselves again, by doing things like refusing the temptation to link to this video.
We don’t need another needless law or fake leader here. We don’t need any poser leadership from the political aristocracy. We just need good people to work together voluntarily on this, from every group and political viewpoint.
The contagious nature of real violence is the same reason the free press of our nation’s past routinely suppressed coverage of teen suicide. This was basically a murder-suicide. The shooter took his own life today, according to law enforcement officials.
We’re a society. That means acting together to advance the greater good and our shared interests. When we do that we tell the Trumps of the world to step off.
It’s not about Facebook making money from the advertising that runs beside this horrible video. It’s about helping our fellow Americans in an age in which corporate profit growth has replaced humanity.
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