When "culling the herd" hits your soul

Most of us have joked about it. "If they don't want to take the vaccine, then cull the herd." Or, "then they need to get to dying and decrease the surplus population." I've been as guilty of that as anyone. It's born out of frustration: frustration at hard-headedness, frustration at the lack of communal care, frustration at people who choose conspiracy theories over science.

But then you read a thread like this.

I haven't used "cull the herd" in a few months. Why? Because there but for God's Grace go I. Any one of us could have fallen into the Fox/right wing hole, and turned out like those now dying needlessly. Any one of us could have succumbed to charlatans and pettifoggers, interested in increasing their influence, even if that influence is only "likes" on social media. And, as Mr. Ruiz says, these are people who were loved, who will be missed, whose deaths will leave gaping holes in the hearts of those they leave behind. It's easy to lump them all into one pile: stupid, ignorant, fearful, uncaring. But everything is always more complex than that. Very few things in life are black and white.

But you know what is black and white? Those who prey on wounded people, those who use frightened souls to build their own power and wealth. The Tucker Carlsons, the Sean Hannitys. These are the people who need to be brought before the dock. These are the vile scum who abuse their audience, filling them with lies and fear to their terminal detriment. They are evil Pied Pipers, leading their gullible children under the mountain, never to be seen again. There isn't a circle of Hell deep enough for their eternal punishment. They are a threat to every single life they touch with their diseased hands, scarring them to such an extent that they choose death willingly. And many of them, once death has them in its clutches, realize what they've done. But it's too late by then, far too late. And Carlson and his ilk carry along merrily, executioners killing their own.

I'm not here to tell you how to react to stories like these. I'm just here to say that I can no longer be cavalier about needless death. Many steps lead to it, and my anger is for those who sang them into the grave. These are the ones which any decent society should hold to account for mass manslaughter. Their words are as death, and death is the result of heeding them. Cull the herd? Start and end with them. The world would be a much better place.