There I am. At the end of a lazy Sunday, my sister and I are sat perfectly contentedly watching the absurdly brilliant science-fiction film Serenity. We enjoy the film, although at it’s conclusion we both agree that the source material, a cancelled programme named Firefly, was better.
We’re nerds, nothing wrong with that.
She leaves my room to go to bed. I lie there for a few minutes before walking over to my laptop. It’s about two years old and takes a while to turn on. Eventually, after my security software informs me that it needs to be updated, I can use it.
Windows Live Messenger pops-up out of no-where. A giant user-friendly button in the screen practically begs me to log in. I decide that I’m in no mood to talk to people and move my mouse to the close button in the top right hand corner of the screen. Now I have to decide what to do.
I pass a small amount of time posting on forums on the internet. I stick mostly to writing forums and dole out several hard-earned pearls of wisdom on the subject of writing. One person asks:
“How much should an author write a day?”
In a manner that I suppose is kind I inform them that professional writers try to hit about 2,000 words a day, but that I find this ridiculous. 1,000 good words are better than 2,000 dreadful ones. I look at the clock in the bottom of my computer screen. It is 11PM and I haven’t written a god-damn thing today.
I’m a hypocrite, shoot me.
In an attempt to distract myself from my obviously wasted day I go to a website named Facebook. It’s a free social networking website, the kind I should avoid when I’m in a bad mood. You might have heard of it.
Still not wanting to talk to anyone I set my chat status to “Offline” and continue to make use of the websites other features. I might be anti-social, doesn’t make me evil.
I have four notifications, which isn’t that many. I remember that I checked the website about an hour ago, when I began posting on forums. It doesn’t matter; notifications mean that there’s something new going on.
Two of them are comments from my friends. I read them quickly and don’t reply. The remaining notifications tell me two things: someone beat my score on “Tower Blocks”, an arcade game hosted on the website, and I have been invited to a group. A group on Facebook refers to a group of people with similar interests or beliefs.
They’re quite popular.
I click the invitation expecting to find something of genuine interest. I might be able to empathise and learn something new about one of my friends. The invite is to something called the “Justice & Criminality Association”, it was created by the friend who sent me the invitation.
I click to open the group’s page before I even consider accepting the invite. The handy “Basic Info” section at the top of the page tells me everything I need to know. The beliefs of the group are posted clearly in the “Description” sub-section. They are:
“Castrate the Rapist
Paralyze the Paedophile
Hang the Murderers
Cane the Thief
Proper Sentences, Let The Punishment Fit The Crime.”
My unashamedly Liberal mind balks at this. I examine the text for a full fifteen minutes completely mystified as to how anyone can think this way. The constant capitalisation on the last line makes me snigger. As does the alliteration on “paralyse the paedophile”.
I log off from Facebook with the invitation still neither accepted nor unaccepted. I forget about it for a while and listen to music. My favourite musicians are Green Day, Bon Iver, Nirvana and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!
I have an eclectic taste.
Then it starts to bother me. I know it shouldn’t; everyone has the right to believe whatever they want, no matter how stupid. No matter how wrong.
But it’s under my skin now, like an itch. I didn’t express an opposing view. Who was it that said: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing”? A website called Wikipedia tells me it was a man named Edmund Burke.
Good for him.
So, narcissistic that I am, I suppose myself “good”, and log back on to Facebook. The group is still there. I examine it further.
Some text has been added, I assume to try and justify the previous statement. The first addition is a misquote from the Bible. It reads:
“Eye For An Eye”
I’m not religious but I’m pretty sure that the actual quote is: “An eye for an eye”. It’s a petty correction on my behalf but I’m in a bad mood now.
The Bible shouldn’t be taken too seriously. Jesus contradicted most of it.
The second addition makes bile rise up in my throat:
“Prison Time Does Not Do Justice, And These Politicians Do Nothing... Human Rights... Rubbish.”
I can’t imagine how anyone can think that prison does anything less than caning a thief, as previously suggested, does. The other punishments are hardly in line with justice either.
Let us take for example; “paralyzing” (sic) a paedophile. Granted, it stops the paedophile from harming children; but so does imprisoning them. After someone has been “paralyzed” (sic) they require constant medical care, or is that just stupid? Do we just let them starve to death? Does molestation paralyze people? Most importantly: What do we do with the person who “paralyzed” (sic) them?
“Paralyze” (sic) them of course!
I shouldn’t be writing this, the end of the sentence makes that abundantly clear. Freedom of speech is a human right. So is food, water, clothing, housing, education, warmth and personal safety.
Human rights: rubbish!
The final addition states the motive of the group:
“Who Wants This Group/Association To Make A Difference, As I Will Once It Gets to 100,000 Members, Directly To The Prime-minister, and Public Speeches and Parades That We Can Unify And Make A Change.”
At time of writing the group has only 17 members. I know them all, one exceptionally well. I hope she joined as a joke, though I doubt it. The page informs me that the group is a “Political Organisation”.
So is the Nazi party.
I “ignore” my invitation.
I learnt something about my friend today. He didn’t learn anything about me. I didn’t empathise. Should people ever empathise with me again?
No comments:
Post a Comment