Depravity: A Real Sickness is Growing in America.

 

Depravity is defined as follows in the Merriam Webster Dictionary:

1: a corrupt act or practice; the depravities of war
2: the quality or state of being corrupt, evil, or perverted the quality or state of being depraved

Florida’s First Lady, Casey DeSantis, was recently diagnosed with breast cancer.

Many of us know from personal experience with family members what a life-changing, terrifying nightmare of a moment it is when one first hears that a loved one has been diagnosed with breast cancer. There are, quite simply, no words in the English language to even get close to describing what that moment is like for family members and how deathly it is for the loved one herself. I write from personal experience, as My Lady received that news in the not-too-distant future. Life is never the same after that moment, in ways too numerous to list here, as this is about that horrible moment which occurred in another family, that of our Governor and First Lady.

It goes without saying that here in our family, we immediately prayed for Mrs. DeSantis and her family, which includes three very young children, and will continue to send prayers and hopes for a full recovery as long as this ordeal lasts, which we hope, again based on what we know of the treatments involved, will be mercifully brief.

However, that dread sickness which seems to be afflicting more and more residents in what has to be a – literal- hell of an existence, living the life of the depraved, the evil, the perverted, has caused the “Twitterverse” to erupt (an apt analogy, considering we often visualize hell as one eternity of erupting flames and volcanic fires?) with the most incredibly grotesque slurs and insults, obviously purely driven by political differences with the Governor.

A few of them are collected in an article entitled “Sick Twitter Trolls mock Fla. Gov. DeSantis’ wife, Casey, over breast cancer diagnosis”, which can be found here. While I’m about one century removed from a world when people had to receive “trigger warnings” before their delicate little feelings risked being exposed to an opposing viewpoint, I would caution that some of this sewage, for that is exactly what it is, is definitely not for the faint of heart. But I do recommend reading it as I would like to know if, after seeing some of the things which are being said about a person who just received some of the most shocking and depressing news anyone can receive, you feel my title is overblown, or an accurate of something truly evil stalking our land.

Here are just a few examples:

“Gonna be really hard to offer thoughts and prayers to Casey DeSantis, wife of a man who botched a pandemic that led to the deaths of 55,000+ Floridians,” chimed in another user with the moniker “Death Metal Viking.”

“My prayers go out to the families of the 50,000+ Floridians who have died from Covid because of desantis [sic],” still another Twitter user wrote. “Sorry I’m not wasting them on his wife.

“Not sure if it’s a gimmick for pity votes or not,” one wrote in response to a CNN story about the news.

“Can someone check if this is true,” added another user, “cause maybe he’s just looking for some sympathy and extra attention for his presidential run, when his wife miraculously beats the odds and becomes a survival story. When it comes to scum like Ron, I don’t give him the benefit of the doubt.”

I will never, never, never, never understand this level of stark, raving evil and cruelty and—yes—depravity. Just one more reason so many of us are beginning to wonder if this, the Greatest Nation ever devised by the mind of man, can stay together with divisions this deep and seemingly irreparable.

Meanwhile, we will continue to pray for Mrs. DeSantis and her family and have faith that most Americans will do so, as well.

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  1. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Yes, I heard the news, and immediately felt a kinship with her. One more reason I am ever so grateful I am not on any of those grotesque platforms. 

    • #1
  2. Jim McConnell Member
    Jim McConnell
    @JimMcConnell

    You expressed my thoughts exactly. I wonder not only at the depravity of thoughts from those individuals, but where did they learn such twisted thinking. Well, I know where it ultimately came from, but where did they get the idea that it was acceptable to express such thoughts?

    • #2
  3. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Jim McConnell (View Comment):
    but where did they get the idea that it was acceptable to express such thoughts?

    They clearly think they’re showing off for the Lefty crowd. Pretty disgusting.

    • #3
  4. Dave of Barsham Member
    Dave of Barsham
    @LesserSonofBarsham

    I’m not sure when the culture hit this particular bend in the road (since it could have just been a lack of social media to know what other people are thinking in “real time”), but I remember it standing out to me when Margaret Thatcher died. The internet just oozed with a sick glee at her death. It’s not everyone, of course, but it certainly seems to be enough to make one sick.

     

    edit: I want to note that I’m sure throughout history people have thought those horrible things about people and politicians they don’t like. The difference now seems to be the utter lack of public decency to keep it to oneself.

    • #4
  5. Stina Member
    Stina
    @CM

    Being aware of this cultural morass is one of the reasons I had little patience for the “Trump’s uncouth” criticisms. He was a byproduct of the culture. If we’ve allowed the culture to degrade so significantly, you can not be surprised that it produces a crass man for President.

    This has been fomenting to some degree in the culture since I was in high school. It was only being introduced in the late 90s, but it existed and was ignored, tolerated, or approved as some new ideal of Free Speech.

    • #5
  6. Stina Member
    Stina
    @CM

    My prayers are with Casey and Ron.

    • #6
  7. Hoyacon Member
    Hoyacon
    @Hoyacon

    I blame the 60’s mostly.

    A contingent of the depraved have been out there since then.  We’ve just given them an outsized voice through technology.

    • #7
  8. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    Jim George: Meanwhile, we will continue to pray for Mrs. DeSantis and her family and have faith that most Americans will do so, as well.

    This.

    Twitter isn’t the real America.  It’s a slimy forum where anonymous slimeballs can vent their frustrations at those of us who have real lives . . .

    • #8
  9. DaveSchmidt Coolidge
    DaveSchmidt
    @DaveSchmidt

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    Jim McConnell (View Comment):
    but where did they get the idea that it was acceptable to express such thoughts?

    They clearly think they’re showing off for the Lefty crowd. Pretty disgusting.

    It is a form of virtue signaling.  Rotten at the core.  

    • #9
  10. OldPhil Coolidge
    OldPhil
    @OldPhil

    See, this is why I got off Twitter. Once I realized I was getting hopping mad every time I got on, it was an easy decision.

    • #10
  11. 9thDistrictNeighbor Member
    9thDistrictNeighbor
    @9thDistrictNeighbor

    Jim McConnell (View Comment):
    …where did they get the idea that it was acceptable to express such thoughts?

    If they are thinking at all, they believe the ends justify the means.  They not only think it is acceptable to express those thoughts, they think it is entirely acceptable to have those thoughts in the first place and then act on them.

    Stephen Sondheim pointed it out in West Side Story in 1957:

    Dear kindly judge, your honor, my parents treat me rough
    With all their marijuana they won’t give me a puff
    They didn’t wanna have me but somehow I was had
    Leapin’ lizards, that’s why I’m so bad!

    Right, Officer Krupke you’re really a square
    This boy don’t need a judge, he needs an analyst’s care
    It’s just his neurosis that oughta be curbed
    He’s psychologically disturbed!

    I’m disturbed
    We’re disturbed, we’re disturbed
    We’re the most disturbed
    Like we’re psychologically disturbed

    Hear ye, hear ye, in the opinion on this court
    This child is depraved on account
    He ain’t had a normal home
    Hey, I’m depraved on account I’m deprived!

     

     

    • #11
  12. Dave of Barsham Member
    Dave of Barsham
    @LesserSonofBarsham

    OldPhil (View Comment):

    See, this is why I got off Twitter. Once I realized I was getting hopping mad every time I got on, it was an easy decision.

    I never got really interested in Twitter for whatever reason but I now limit my exposure to stuff on Twitchy so that I can just pick out the funny stuff.

    • #12
  13. Fritz Coolidge
    Fritz
    @Fritz

    9thDistrictNeighbor (View Comment):

    Jim McConnell (View Comment):
    …where did they get the idea that it was acceptable to express such thoughts?

    If they are thinking at all, they believe the ends justify the means. They not only think it is acceptable to express those thoughts, they think it is entirely acceptable to have those thoughts in the first place and then act on them.

    Stephen Sondheim pointed it out in West Side Story in 1957:

    Dear kindly judge, your honor, my parents treat me rough
    With all their marijuana they won’t give me a puff
    They didn’t wanna have me but somehow I was had
    Leapin’ lizards, that’s why I’m so bad!

    Right, Officer Krupke you’re really a square
    This boy don’t need a judge, he needs an analyst’s care
    It’s just his neurosis that oughta be curbed
    He’s psychologically disturbed!

    I’m disturbed
    We’re disturbed, we’re disturbed
    We’re the most disturbed
    Like we’re psychologically disturbed

    Hear ye, hear ye, in the opinion on this court
    This child is depraved on account
    He ain’t had a normal home
    Hey, I’m depraved on account I’m deprived!

    AKA, the search for “root causes”.

    • #13
  14. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Even if DeSantis were the anti-Christ, that doesn’t redound to his wife. 

    Some people just aren’t cut out for the Christianity thing. 

    • #14
  15. CACrabtree Coolidge
    CACrabtree
    @CACrabtree

    Hoyacon (View Comment):

    I blame the 60’s mostly.

    A contingent of the depraved have been out there since then. We’ve just given them an outsized voice through technology.

    Tend to agree with you.  Social media has made lions out of cockroaches.  Before platforms such as Twitter came along, anyone who would have made sick comments in public (such as those mentioned by Jim) would have gone home with a mouthful of bloody Chiclets.

    • #15
  16. James Salerno Inactive
    James Salerno
    @JamesSalerno

    This is why we need national divorce. We cannot share a country with these people. This is also not a fringe group. The mainstream left promotes and encourages this behavior.

    • #16
  17. David Foster Member
    David Foster
    @DavidFoster

    There have always been people who enjoyed exercising cruelty.  In Elizabethan England, they went to bear-baitings and visited the mental institution called Bedlam, where they could throw things at the ‘lunatics’ and poke them with sticks.

    Some people who are not themselves fundamentally cruel will do cruel things to be part of the Group.  In Goethe’s Faust, the virtuous Gretchen, after realizing that she is pregnant (by Faust), is talking with her awful friend Lieschen, who (still unaware of Gretchen’s situation) is licking her chops about the prospect of humiliating another girl (Barbara) who has also become pregnant outside of marriage. Here’s Gretchen, reflecting on her own past complicity in such viciousness:

    How readily I used to blame
    Some poor young soul that came to shame!
    Never found sharp enough words like pins
    To stick into other people’s sins
    Black as it seemed, I tarred it to boot
    And never black enough to suit
    Would cross myself, exclaim and preen–
    Now I myself am bared to sin!
    Yet all of it that drove me here
    God! ws so innocent, was so dear!

    A lot of people today seeking “sharp enough words like pins to stick into other people’s sins”, or what they imagine are sins, and “exclaiming and preening” while doing so.

    It’s not clear to me that there are more cruel people than there used to be; perhaps they are more open and their arena is more political.

     

    • #17
  18. kylez Member
    kylez
    @kylez

    That is .2% of the Florida population dying from Covid. 

    • #18
  19. James Lileks Contributor
    James Lileks
    @jameslileks

    James Salerno (View Comment):

    This is why we need national divorce. We cannot share a country with these people. This is also not a fringe group. The mainstream left promotes and encourages this behavior.

    And if it’s your neighbor making the tweet, do you make him move? 

    • #19
  20. James Salerno Inactive
    James Salerno
    @JamesSalerno

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    James Salerno (View Comment):

    This is why we need national divorce. We cannot share a country with these people. This is also not a fringe group. The mainstream left promotes and encourages this behavior.

    And if it’s your neighbor making the tweet, do you make him move?

    Divorces are messy. Figure out who gets to keep the dog, or continue throwing dishes at each other.

    • #20
  21. DaveSchmidt Coolidge
    DaveSchmidt
    @DaveSchmidt

    James Salerno (View Comment):

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    James Salerno (View Comment):

    This is why we need national divorce. We cannot share a country with these people. This is also not a fringe group. The mainstream left promotes and encourages this behavior.

    And if it’s your neighbor making the tweet, do you make him move?

    Divorces are messy. Figure out who gets to keep the dog, or continue throwing dishes at each other.

    If we are going to have a civil war, as some are suggesting, it will be more like the 16th century British Civil War (AKA The War of the Three Kingdoms) than the American Civil War.  Perhaps, if we are more fortunate, it will be closer to the Glorious Revolution.  

    • #21
  22. David Foster Member
    David Foster
    @DavidFoster

    DaveSchmidt (View Comment):
    If we are going to have a civil war, as some are suggesting, it will be more like the 16th century British Civil War (AKA The War of the Three Kingdoms) than the American Civil War.  Perhaps, if we are more fortunate, it will be closer to the Glorious Revolution

    Think Spanish Civil War.

    • #22
  23. 9thDistrictNeighbor Member
    9thDistrictNeighbor
    @9thDistrictNeighbor

    David Foster (View Comment):
    A lot of people today seeking “sharp enough words like pins to stick into other people’s sins”, or what they imagine are sins, and “exclaiming and preening” while doing so.

    And you can venture back past Goethe and head straight to Luke,

    The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank thee that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 

    • #23
  24. DaveSchmidt Coolidge
    DaveSchmidt
    @DaveSchmidt

    David Foster (View Comment):

    DaveSchmidt (View Comment):
    If we are going to have a civil war, as some are suggesting, it will be more like the 16th century British Civil War (AKA The War of the Three Kingdoms) than the American Civil War. Perhaps, if we are more fortunate, it will be closer to the Glorious Revolution

    Think Spanish Civil War.

    Worthy. 

    • #24
  25. Old Bathos Member
    Old Bathos
    @OldBathos

    The stunningly asinine belief that every COVID death in Florida was the result of failing to impose policies that did not prevent a single COVID death anywhere else in the world combined with kneejerk dehumanization of a woman who happens to be married to a GOP politician…. these are deeply pathetic people.  Imagine a life centered on tweets based on summaries of the Cliff Notes of whatever MSNBC pundits believe at the moment…  Not worth hating someone that pitiful.

    • #25
  26. Ansonia Member
    Ansonia
    @Ansonia

    Hoyacon (View Comment):

    I blame the 60’s mostly.

    A contingent of the depraved have been out there since then. We’ve just given them an outsized voice through technology.

    I blame the 60’s too—-not for the malice and hostility toward perceived enemies, which I think was and is absolutely always there, but for the belief that we should all “let it all hang out” and express our “stinkin’ thinkin’”. There was this belief in the late sixties and early seventies that refraining from spewing this bile at or about people was  insincere and unhealthy. This belief became very mainstream.
    I’m ashamed to say I have more than a touch of this get-ugly disease. Recently I recommended online that the chant “F—k Joe Biden” should be replaced with “Drop dead, Biden”. I regret it. There must be some chant people can do to signal that they oppose Biden, so as to find out they’re not alone in that opposition, some chant that doesn’t sound like the gutter or a wish for his death.

    It probably helps to stay off Twitter, since the Hate Talk  illness is highly contagious. Before you know it, you could find yourself saying things that have the potential to stigmatize, say, an innocent 11-year-old boy—-things you’re saying online just because you feel threatened by what are, or what you think are, the actions or policies of the child’s dad.

    • #26
  27. Max Knots Member
    Max Knots
    @MaxKnots

    Stad (View Comment):

    Jim George: Meanwhile, we will continue to pray for Mrs. DeSantis and her family and have faith that most Americans will do so, as well.

    This.

    Twitter isn’t the real America. It’s a slimy forum where anonymous slimeballs can vent their frustrations at those of us who have real lives . . .

    Yes. I have avoided the platform because of the old saying, “it’s no good wrestling with a pig because they like it and you still end up smelling like excretions.” (or words to that effect) It always sounds to my like a high school lunch room…

    • #27
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