It’s Not Hard to NOT Be a Jerk

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When someone you disagree with politically dies, no matter the circumstances, should you be happy? That’s a rhetorical question; I don’t really care what your personal answer is. Everyone has weird thoughts that pop through their mind over which they have no control, most of which are fleeting and ignored. The problem occurs when those thoughts are followed by a “…and the world needs to know this” action. The world does not need to know your every thought, or even most of them.

It's hard not to laugh when you see someone in a “blooper” video do something stupid or fall on their face somehow. You might feel phantom pain from it, but it’s still funny. It’s funny, at least in part, because we’ve all been there – there isn’t anyone who hasn’t done something stupid or clumsy. I flipped a grocery cart one night, drunk, with only a gallon of milk and some other small thing in it I’ve forgotten. I wanted to coast down the aisle, so I ran and jumped on the back. There wasn’t enough weight in the cart to do that, and the whole thing flipped, catapulting the milk about 10 feet behind me, popping it and making a mess. I felt like an idiot. But only because I was.

It, thankfully, was not filmed and posted online. I also didn’t tweet about it because Twitter had yet to be invented. It was my own personal stupidity, shared only with whoever grabbed the mop to clean it up (who I apologized to).

Nowadays, every thought has to be shared, no matter how stupid, or else it didn’t happen in the minds of many.

Social media is clogged with what was once a fleeting thought or a random moment in the mind of someone, taken from the head and shouted to the world. It doesn’t have to be, and it shouldn’t be.

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When a leftist murdered Charlie Kirk, Democrats cheered. They literally posed videos of themselves dancing and singing that a guy they’d never met and likely only heard about through Democrats with an agenda said about him. They were truly sick people.

I’m not saying they shouldn’t have had those thoughts – like I said, random and weird thoughts pass through the minds of everyone, all the time – but the telling the world part is where the stupidity occurs.

I’ll admit, when I heard that Rob Reiner had been murdered, my first thought was a bit of disbelief. It was unreal, as the sudden and unexpected often is. But then I did have some inappropriate thoughts – jokes, cold and dark, but jokes – that’s just how my brain works. I did nothing with them because the rest of me was aware of what used to be called common decency, and making a crack about someone just horrifically murdered because you didn’t like their politics is not something my parents would ever approve of. Even though they are gone, I am still, and will always be, their son.

That’s not to say I’m perfect. I have said and tweeted offensive things – some of those thoughts escape the brain. Nothing horrible, most stupid, but I’ve learned.

Now, there is no reward for learning. There is no endorphin rush for doing the right thing; no one’s follower count explodes and engagement payments increase because they weren’t a jackass.

We have elevated awful by rewarding it.

I’ve said it before, but there used to be a line between “famous” and “infamous,” with one being something people aspired to and the other being a cautionary tale. There is no difference anymore; it’s just about getting attention.

From random anonymous accounts to the President of the United States, people are now putting things out for the world to see for no reason other than attention. It’s stupid. (Trump’s tweet about Rob Reiner’s murder was stupid and dumb to do, no matter how big of a jerk Reiner was when he was alive.)

There are consequences for these actions. An average person can be fired from their job, because what company would want to be associated with a person cheering murder? The President will find it harder to get support from Republicans looking to get reelected next year, making that tweet another example of the equivalent of shoving a stick in your own front spokes while riding a bike down a hill.

Ultimately, life is better, both personally and professionally, when you stop being a jackass as often as you can muster it. It’s not hard, it’s really not. The world does not need to hear every thought you have on every subject, and if you think it’s cruel in a moment of tragedy, the world probably doesn’t need to hear it at all. You’ll be better for it, whether you realize it or not.

Derek Hunter is the host of the Derek Hunter Show on WMAL in Washington, DC, and has a free daily podcast (subscribe!) and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses, and host of the weekly “Week in F*cking Review” podcast where the news is spoken about the way it deserves to be. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHunter.

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