A couple days ago, someone on Twitter wrote a nasty reply to one of my tweets. I clicked on this person’s username to find out more about them and to view the rest of their tweets and found that their page was filled with exceedingly vicious content ridiculing and insulting Ashli Babbitt, the woman who was killed by a police officer while protesting at the Capitol building on January 6, 2021.
First of all, in his/her bio, this person (and I use that term loosely) bragged about having been blocked by an account dedicated to remembering and seeking justice for Babbitt, as well as an account dedicated to supporting the January 6 defendants. The fact that someone would brag about having acted nastily towards people who stand up for justice and fight back against authority is messed-up and bizarre.
This “person” repeatedly tweeted images of Babbitt bleeding to death on the floor of the Capitol building, accompanied by words ridiculing and insulting her and calling her a domestic terrorist.
In response to tweets about an artist’s tribute to Babbitt, the “person” responded with something to the effect of “my dog creates tributes to Babbitt twice a day,” accompanied by a picture of a dog going to the bathroom.
The “person” suggested to those who wish to commemorate Babbitt on the anniversary of her death that if they cannot find a suitable picture of Babbitt, they should instead use a picture of Timothy McVeigh, Charles Whitman, or another name from a list of murderers.
The “person” claimed that Babbitt’s family and friends were to blame for her death for failing to attempt to persuade Babbitt to change her political views, and that if they truly loved her they would have intervened to try to change her views as opposed to accepting her for who she was. (This despite the fact that trying to change who someone is as opposed to accepting them is immoral and the opposite of love.)
In tweet after tweet, this “person” repeatedly ridiculed and insulted Babbitt, the January 6 defendants, and anyone who had the audacity to express support for them.
In short, this person went out of his/her way to take the side of an authoritarian government against a woman brutally killed by said government. This person, who lives in a society where the political establishment and the majority of the population shares his/her views, and therefore where he/she gets his/her way on essentially every policy issue, chose to ridicule and insult a woman who was killed for questioning authority and expressing political dissent. This is incomprehensible, disgusting, repulsive, and despicable.
Tonight, I returned to Twitter to look up this person’s account again for the purpose of composing a blog post criticizing them, only to find that their nasty reply to me, and their account itself, appear to be gone.
So instead of rebutting the person’s disgusting statements point by point with screenshots, the only thing I have to say in this blog post is that a tiny sliver of justice appears to have been done. Whether the “person” deleted their nasty reply to me, deleted their account entirely, or had their account deleted by Twitter for violating its terms of service, the world is a better place without such nastiness in it. It is always a victory when a blog post rebutting someone’s disgusting statements turns out to be unnecessary.