Sacrifice to the ‘Gods’

 

Just when you think events can’t get uglier, people are now posting on Twitter that they hope President Trump will die from COVID-19. The depravity of these people knows no bounds. They hate President Trump to the degree that removing him from office is not sufficient; they now wish for his death.

In thinking over the statements from these people, I have wondered how the evil among their retinue continues to grow. Is it just a “natural” outgrowth of the irrational hatred of the President? Is it any worse than all the other lies and attacks he has endured?

It is worse.

How is Twitter responding?

Twitter is pledging to remove tweets rooting for President Trump’s death in the wake of his COVID-19 diagnosis.

The social media site’s communications department made the vow Friday evening, just hours after the Commander-in-chief was airlifted to hospital amid reports that he was having trouble breathing.

‘Tweets that wish or hope for death, serious bodily harm or fatal disease against *anyone* are not allowed and will need to be removed. This does not automatically mean suspension,’ an official statement from the company read.

Meanwhile, a tweet appeared, saying, “Listen, I don’t think Twitter is really enforcing it, so I hope Trump dies.”

It was followed by this one by the same poster: “Watch nothing happen.”

(I am not on Twitter, so I found this on the MSN site.)

Twitter has already stated that will need to prioritize tweets, since they can’t take enforcement action on every tweet.

* * * * *

It occurred to me that in a secular and anti-religious environment, something else is going on. I believe that these people, at a conscious or even subconscious level, see the possibility of Trump’s dying as a way to have a corrupt kind of justice, in two ways. First, If Trump dies, he will permanently be removed from “causing any further harm” to the country. But the second possible reason is even more shocking: Trump will serve as a human sacrifice to the virus “gods”; his death will satisfy the unseen, frightening “gods” that might take the lives of those who are at risk for the virus. They have already demonstrated their disregard for the sanctity of life in other areas: letting the elderly die and aborting children. They hope by offering this pagan ritual of sacrificing Trump that they will spare themselves and others who follow their cause. They will placate the gods.

Who will be next?

Published in Religion & Philosophy
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  1. Jules PA Inactive
    Jules PA
    @JulesPA

    Suspira (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn: It occurred to me that in a secular and anti-religious environment, something else is going on.

    Your idea of their sacrificing to the virus gods (Science!) is insightful. I think, further, that they believe in magic, just a little bit, They believe their wishes have power. That maybe they can cause his death with their malice.

    I’m not discounting people wading in dark arts with spells and such. 

    This world is a continuous battle of good vs evil. In small, and big, ways. 

     

    • #61
  2. Headedwest Coolidge
    Headedwest
    @Headedwest

    Bill Nelson (View Comment):

    Western Chauvinist (View Comment):

    Bill Nelson (View Comment):
    There are immoral people certainly, but they are not representative of the left or democrats.

    Reminds me of “mostly peaceful protests.”

    A protest is an event. People are individuals.

    Many of them are evil individuals.

    • #62
  3. Bill Nelson Inactive
    Bill Nelson
    @BillNelson

    Headedwest (View Comment):

    Bill Nelson (View Comment):

    Western Chauvinist (View Comment):

    Bill Nelson (View Comment):
    There are immoral people certainly, but they are not representative of the left or democrats.

    Reminds me of “mostly peaceful protests.”

    A protest is an event. People are individuals.

    Many of them are evil individuals.

    And you have spoken directly to how many? 

    • #63
  4. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Bill Nelson (View Comment):

    Headedwest (View Comment):

    Bill Nelson (View Comment):

    Western Chauvinist (View Comment):

    Bill Nelson (View Comment):
    There are immoral people certainly, but they are not representative of the left or democrats.

    Reminds me of “mostly peaceful protests.”

    A protest is an event. People are individuals.

    Many of them are evil individuals.

    And you have spoken directly to how many?

    Speaking for myself, I have seen many of them on video spouting hateful things. Remember when the rioters chased the people leaving a White House event? Did you see and hear them screaming? 

    • #64
  5. Bill Nelson Inactive
    Bill Nelson
    @BillNelson

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    Bill Nelson (View Comment):

    Headedwest (View Comment):

    Bill Nelson (View Comment):

    Western Chauvinist (View Comment):

    Bill Nelson (View Comment):
    There are immoral people certainly, but they are not representative of the left or democrats.

    Reminds me of “mostly peaceful protests.”

    A protest is an event. People are individuals.

    Many of them are evil individuals.

    And you have spoken directly to how many?

    Speaking for myself, I have seen many of them on video spouting hateful things. Remember when the rioters chased the people leaving a White House event? Did you see and hear them screaming?

    How many and what %? There are a lot of people who might be wrong. But there are not that many who are evil. The vast majority of progressives are good and decent people.

    • #65
  6. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Bill Nelson (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    Bill Nelson (View Comment):

    Headedwest (View Comment):

    Bill Nelson (View Comment):

    Western Chauvinist (View Comment):

    Bill Nelson (View Comment):
    There are immoral people certainly, but they are not representative of the left or democrats.

    Reminds me of “mostly peaceful protests.”

    A protest is an event. People are individuals.

    Many of them are evil individuals.

    And you have spoken directly to how many?

    Speaking for myself, I have seen many of them on video spouting hateful things. Remember when the rioters chased the people leaving a White House event? Did you see and hear them screaming?

    How many and what %? There are a lot of people who might be wrong. But there are not that many who are evil. The vast majority of progressives are good and decent people.

    We are talking specifically of people who showed up to protests, a self-selected subset of progressives who are demonstrably less good and less decent that the larger mass. 

    • #66
  7. Headedwest Coolidge
    Headedwest
    @Headedwest

    Bill Nelson (View Comment):

    Headedwest (View Comment):

    Bill Nelson (View Comment):

    Western Chauvinist (View Comment):

    Bill Nelson (View Comment):
    There are immoral people certainly, but they are not representative of the left or democrats.

    Reminds me of “mostly peaceful protests.”

    A protest is an event. People are individuals.

    Many of them are evil individuals.

    And you have spoken directly to how many?

    I have observed them in action, and the destruction they have done.

    • #67
  8. Headedwest Coolidge
    Headedwest
    @Headedwest

    Bill Nelson (View Comment):

    The vast majority of progressives are good and decent people.

    Maybe I’ll meet one someday.

     

    • #68
  9. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Headedwest (View Comment):

    Bill Nelson (View Comment):

    The vast majority of progressives are good and decent people.

    Maybe I’ll meet one someday.

    And even if they personally are good and decent people, they enable those that aren’t.

    I’m not sure it’s a good idea to even be polite to those who enable the destroyers.  It suggests that there’s nothing wrong with what they’re doing.

    • #69
  10. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    kedavis (View Comment):
    I’m not sure it’s a good idea to even be polite to those who enable the destroyers. It suggests that there’s nothing wrong with what they’re doing.

    You bring up an important point, @kedavis. A person who did not speak out against the violence and destruction was complicit. I would also say, @billnelson, that it’s silly to speak about numbers or percentages. I don’t say that all progressives are evil; I say that enough of them are evil to lead the naive and idealistic into dangerous directions. And unfortunately, that’s what we are seeing. Perhaps we also need a definition of evil; what I think is evil, you may not.

    • #70
  11. Suspira Member
    Suspira
    @Suspira

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):
    I don’t say that all progressives are evil; I say that enough of them are evil to lead the naive and idealistic into dangerous directions.

    The issue isn’t are progressives evil. It’s that their ideology is evil, or leads to evil. 

    • #71
  12. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    Suspira (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):
    I don’t say that all progressives are evil; I say that enough of them are evil to lead the naive and idealistic into dangerous directions.

    The issue isn’t are progressives evil. It’s that their ideology is evil, or leads to evil.

    Precisely!

    • #72
  13. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Suspira (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):
    I don’t say that all progressives are evil; I say that enough of them are evil to lead the naive and idealistic into dangerous directions.

    The issue isn’t are progressives evil. It’s that their ideology is evil, or leads to evil.

    This framework makes me a little uneasy. My progressive friends object to people being called evil, because their actions are evil, not them (they say). If we call people evil, they say, we lock them into a type that doesn’t define them fully and keeps them from changing. Clearly, they aren’t evil all the time.

    But that’s a problem. When we say people aren’t evil, but their actions are, they are allowed to distance themselves from their actions. That encourages a lack of accountability. Of course, a person is not evil all the time; even a terrorist probably kisses his kids goodnight. But aren’t we called to not only name the evil act but attribute it to the person who commits it?

    • #73
  14. Jon1979 Inactive
    Jon1979
    @Jon1979

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    Suspira (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):
    I don’t say that all progressives are evil; I say that enough of them are evil to lead the naive and idealistic into dangerous directions.

    The issue isn’t are progressives evil. It’s that their ideology is evil, or leads to evil.

    This framework makes me a little uneasy. My progressive friends object to people being called evil, because their actions are evil, not them (they say). If we call people evil, they say, we lock them into a type that doesn’t define them fully and keeps them from changing. Clearly, they aren’t evil all the time.

    But that’s a problem. When we say people aren’t evil, but their actions are, they are allowed to distance themselves from their actions. That encourages a lack of accountability. Of course, a person is not evil all the time; even a terrorist probably kisses his kids goodnight. But aren’t we called to not only name the evil act but attribute it to the person who commits it?

    It’s the absolute certainty of their position, combined often with the belief of their own superior compassion and intellect, that tends to push the progressives in the direction of doing evil in the long-term, when they have access to the levers of power.

    They can’t believe their ideas are failing when put into practice, because those ideas go against human nature and self-interest. So they decide there have to be people sabotaging those ideas, and those people can no longer be allowed to have a say in the political conversation. But as they take those dissenters out and the problems continue, the net gets cast wider and more and more become Enemies of the State, including people who may have been ostensible allies at the start.

    In their minds, everyone else is evil, therefore, whatever they do is both good and justified. And from Stalin to Maduro, the path the left has taken in that direction has never deviated in the past century.

    • #74
  15. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Jon1979 (View Comment):
    In their minds, everyone else is evil, therefore, whatever they do is both good and justified. And from Stalin to Maduro, the path the left has taken in that direction has never deviated in the past century.

    Great points, @jon1979. I especially liked yourlast sentence. I wonder if it’s fair for them to call us evil, when they label us because we refuse to accept their belief system. They condemn us in the worst, ugliest terms. There is no interest in or room for exchange of ideas or beliefs. Sounds pretty evil to me.

    • #75
  16. Bill Nelson Inactive
    Bill Nelson
    @BillNelson

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):
    I say that enough of them are evil to lead the naive and idealistic into dangerous directions.

    Evil people exist certainly, but it is rare. These “evil” progressives are your neighbors, co-workers and likely relatives. Do you tell them they are evil? No.

    They may be wrong, but not evil.

    • #76
  17. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Bill Nelson (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):
    I say that enough of them are evil to lead the naive and idealistic into dangerous directions.

    Evil people exist certainly, but it is rare. These “evil” progressives are your neighbors, co-workers and likely relatives. Do you tell them they are evil? No.

    They may be wrong, but not evil.

    Again, I’m not talking about all Progressives. Those who are just following the crowd are just foolish and may not have evil intentions. But those who celebrate the violence and riots; those who say that I’m a racist because I’m white; those who call people Nazis and Mussolinis–they are evil. In Judaism, when you try to destroy a person’s reputation, it’s evil.

    • #77
  18. Bryan G. Stephens, Trump Avenger Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens, Trump Avenger
    @BryanGStephens

    Anyone who thinks socialism works is in the service of evil

    • #78
  19. Bill Nelson Inactive
    Bill Nelson
    @BillNelson

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    Jon1979 (View Comment):
    In their minds, everyone else is evil, therefore, whatever they do is both good and justified. And from Stalin to Maduro, the path the left has taken in that direction has never deviated in the past century.

    Great points, @jon1979. I especially liked yourlast sentence. I wonder if it’s fair for them to call us evil, when they label us because we refuse to accept their belief system. They condemn us in the worst, ugliest terms. There is no interest in or room for exchange of ideas or beliefs. Sounds pretty evil to me.

    You are using generalizations to justify an extreme dislike of a group. These are the people we live with and interact with. Let’s abandon emotional responses and use dialogue. But first we must respect our fellow human beings.

    • #79
  20. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Bill Nelson (View Comment):
    You are using generalizations to justify an extreme dislike of a group. These are the people we live with and interact with. Let’s abandon emotional responses and use dialogue. But first we must respect our fellow human beings.

    We are so far apart that we are going to have to agree to disagree. I treat everyone with respect, no matter what they believe. I judge them on what they do and say, not what they think. I have a very dear friend who is Progressive and we never, never discuss politics. I have no patience, because she is ignorant of the facts and is not at all interested in being informed. It is not my job to educate her; at those times I have presented different facts, she ignores them; when I present her with information that contradicts her own ideas, even people like Thomas Sowell, she finds a way to reject them. I have yet to find a Progressive who wants to have an open sharing of ideas. I’m not saying they’re not out there, but I’m not interested in seeking them out, nor do they seek me out. And finally, we are not required to respect everyone. I believe in treating people respectfully, but I am not required to respect them. Respect must be earned. 

    • #80
  21. Bill Nelson Inactive
    Bill Nelson
    @BillNelson

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):
    In Judaism, when you try to destroy a person’s reputation, it’s evil.

    It is sinful, but the sinner can be redeemed. Hate the sin, love the sinner.

    • #81
  22. Jon1979 Inactive
    Jon1979
    @Jon1979

    Bill Nelson (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    Jon1979 (View Comment):
    In their minds, everyone else is evil, therefore, whatever they do is both good and justified. And from Stalin to Maduro, the path the left has taken in that direction has never deviated in the past century.

    Great points, @jon1979. I especially liked yourlast sentence. I wonder if it’s fair for them to call us evil, when they label us because we refuse to accept their belief system. They condemn us in the worst, ugliest terms. There is no interest in or room for exchange of ideas or beliefs. Sounds pretty evil to me.

    You are using generalizations to justify an extreme dislike of a group. These are the people we live with and interact with. Let’s abandon emotional responses and use dialogue. But first we must respect our fellow human beings.

    Not everyone is the Alpha in any camp. But it’s the Alphas who tend to be the ones in charge, and the ones who end up deciding the problem is their own ideas haven’t failed, it’s the people who are foiling those ideas from coming to frutition who are the problem (and must be eliminated).

    You can be a Beta and be a progressive, or you can be a perfectly mild-mannered progressive who upon hearing certain key words, reacts like the guy in that old “Niagara Falls” vaudeville bit and starts spitting out the kind of Two Minutes of Hate you see on social media (and there are also hidebound people on the right — I saw a commentor in the replies over at Instapundit this morning attack Jon Gabriel because he was against Trump in early 2016).

    The point is the Alpha and the emotional prone-to-anger Betas are what get you eventually to situations that have plagued leftist governments around the world for 100-plus years. Even if you’re an Alpha whose heart starts out in the right place, the blackness of hate for critics and the inability to admit your plans stink eventually becomes all-consuming.

    • #82
  23. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Bill Nelson (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):
    In Judaism, when you try to destroy a person’s reputation, it’s evil.

    It is sinful, but the sinner can be redeemed. Hate the sin, love the sinner.

    That is a Christian saying, and it’s not in the Bible. It’s up to G-d to decide on redemption, not me.

    • #83
  24. Bill Nelson Inactive
    Bill Nelson
    @BillNelson

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):
    I have no patience, because she is ignorant of the facts and is not at all interested in being informed

    Your use of the word “friend” may be suspect.

    • #84
  25. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Bill Nelson (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):
    I have no patience, because she is ignorant of the facts and is not at all interested in being informed

    Your use of the word “friend” may be suspect.

    I understand your comment. I love her and respect her in so many other areas; we’ve known each other 20 years. But I do not respect her political views. But I’m invested enough in the friendship to just make politics off limits. Just like some people can’t discuss religion (I love to discuss all religions), I have to be selective about those with whom I discuss politics.

    • #85
  26. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    Suspira (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):
    I don’t say that all progressives are evil; I say that enough of them are evil to lead the naive and idealistic into dangerous directions.

    The issue isn’t are progressives evil. It’s that their ideology is evil, or leads to evil.

    This framework makes me a little uneasy. My progressive friends object to people being called evil, because their actions are evil, not them (they say). If we call people evil, they say, we lock them into a type that doesn’t define them fully and keeps them from changing. Clearly, they aren’t evil all the time.

    But that’s a problem. When we say people aren’t evil, but their actions are, they are allowed to distance themselves from their actions. That encourages a lack of accountability. Of course, a person is not evil all the time; even a terrorist probably kisses his kids goodnight. But aren’t we called to not only name the evil act but attribute it to the person who commits it?

    Yeah, this locked-in thing sounds like it means something but it really doesn’t; consider mass murderers or serial rapists. They spend a huge proportion of their time not murdering and not raping. 

    So what? 

    • #86
  27. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    TBA (View Comment):

    Yeah, this locked-in thing sounds like it means something but it really doesn’t; consider mass murderers or serial rapists. They spend a huge proportion of their time not murdering and not raping. 

    So what? 

    And my calling a murderer a murderer doesn’t lock him into that behavior, either. 

    • #87
  28. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    TBA (View Comment):

    Yeah, this locked-in thing sounds like it means something but it really doesn’t; consider mass murderers or serial rapists. They spend a huge proportion of their time not murdering and not raping.

    So what?

    And my calling a murderer a murderer doesn’t lock him into that behavior, either.

    Indeed. Although locking in is my preferred way for dealing with murderers. 

    • #88
  29. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    TBA (View Comment):
    Indeed. Although locking in is my preferred way for dealing with murderers. 

    Gosh, TBA, you’re good! Fast!

    • #89
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