Scales of cruelty

For as long as I can remember, which in this case is way longer than usual, I have been a fan of dark humour.

- Jonathan Kronstadt

In my early years, when one tests limits, this took the form of crudely horrible jokes about lawyers, Helen Keller and one abhorrent family. Because I like you, I won't go into detail.

These jokes were cruel, as kids can be, but aimed at abstractions, as we knew little to nothing of the targets of our immature venom. But like most kids, when we'd seen or faced enough of the low-level but devastating cruelty our peers could dish out, we came to understand that actual cruelty is never funny.

The United States is, at present, being run by a collection of sadists, sociopaths and supplicants, with the worst of the lot clustered in my hometown. Two related statistics are enough to demonstrate the Stalin-like level of their depravity.