belief in humanity

A gay Rutgers student killed himself by jumping off of the George Washington bridge after his roommate secretly posted live webcasts of him in intimate relations with another young man. The roommate and his accomplice, a female 1st-year student at Rutgers (all parties involved are/were freshmen at Rutgers), have been charged with counts of "invasion of privacy", which could lead to prison sentences as long as five years.

As one would expect, this horrible event has led to widespread discussion of internet safety, the trouble with social media networks, homophobia, privacy issues, social stigmatization of homosexuality, youth depression, bullying, the definition of a hate crime...and there have been calls to lock the 18-year old homophobes away, to charge the two of them with hate crimes, to pass stricter internet regulation policies, to expand education on how to use the internet appropriately, and more.

-

I read part of a series of essays today. It's titled "Women and Revolution", and it consists of the juxtaposition of a controversial essay by Heidi Hartmann (the President of IWPR) titled "An Unhappy Marriage: Marxism and Feminism", and a series of essays that critique it. There is one feminist economist who responds to the paper by writing about how with the progression of scientific methods and tools to delay or alter women's reproductive biological processes, sexism will recede because women will no longer be so restrained by their sex.

-

These stories sound unrelated. Shut up, I know that they both have the letters "s", "e", and "x" in them. I'm talking about the dissolution of any foundation upon which anyone in our world could base their faith in humanity, courtesy, compassion, or kindness. Why is that we have to resort to iron-fisted regulation of cyberspace and the ingestion of contraceptives or commitment to a surgical procedure to be able to expect humanity from our fellow citizens of a global community?

That's not right. Get some manners. Learn how to treat people with respect and an ounce of kindness. No one asked you to be friendly. No one even asked you to be remotely pleasant. Just try not to be a horrendous human being.