the best yelp review for teh asshole dentist who killed cecil the lion

[Syzygy321]

41. Kill the beast! Spill its blood! Watch it die!

I am utterly appalled by the lion's slow death. But the Internet mobbing of the guy? That is even worse, I think.

The tradition of a community coming together to express violent hate for an outcast (or outcast group) is ancient. Jesus (so goes the story) confronted the mob who wanted to stone the adulteress. The Puritans pursued witches and Quakers and anyone who didn't quite fit in. In my second grade class they went after the spazzy kid and in my third grade class it was the fat kid. And at summer camp they tormented a shy awkward girl who messed around with some boys and got branded a slut (yeah, that was me. I damn near killed myself that summer).

People will now argue, "But he is EVIL and he deserves it!". Well, he deserves punishment under the law, yes. But all this hatred vomiting forth - what does it do for the vomiters? Why are so many people now delighting in spewing invectives and fantasizing - publicly, communally - about this man's ruin, humiliation, and disembowelment? It's a bonding experience. It's people saying "We're all in the same tribe - the superior tribe! - because we all loathe and despise the same dirty filthy outsider. Let's destroy him! Cool! It's a party!"

Of course we have seen this many times before. On the Internet and off it.

These attacks on the dentist are not any kind of "justice". What do they accomplish? They simply feel oh so good and oh so righteous. They are expressions of delicious, intoxicating mob violence against an "acceptable" target that the majority has agreed on, and that no one will defend, and who is so vastly outnumbered that he has no hope of defending himself. The mob loves a defenseless victim who "deserves" the gang rape or murderous pounding they wanna give him.

Of course, I'm a Jew. Show me tens of thousands of people all screaming in unison for the annihilation of an evil greedy subhuman man who embodies everything we love to hate, and I get really nervous. And when those acreaming for his annihilation are the theoretically liberal people - the ones who preen and pride themselves on their peace and tolerance! - well, I start smelling smoke.

Like Simon at the bonfire.

Like my predecessors in the Waraaw ghetto.