What’s The Difference?

I’ve seen hundreds of people posting and commenting on Facebook about the fact that Rush Limbaugh is dead. None of them are mournful, or upset. A few have expressed condolence to Limbaugh’s friends and family before pointing out what an absolute shithead he was and how the world is a better place without him in it.
I posted something to that effect myself. But, of course, Rush Limbaugh was a product of his time, he figured out early in his career that racism and hate would make him popular, and, boy, did he go with it. There are plenty of other people out there in radio, TV, and internet journalism who will pick up his Klan torch and keep marching. We really don’t have much reason to celebrate his death, and yet we do.
The era of civility, of speaking no ill of the dead, is over. We live in a world of total information, and people have a whole lifetime to prove they are good people. Limbaugh chose to go the other way, and that was his choice. He doesn’t get a pass just because he is dead.
On the other hand and contrariwise, I saw a Valentine’s Day meme just a few seconds ago, which is apparently a big laugh riot among the boys at the LAPD. It shows a picture of George Floyd, who was murdered by the Minneapolis police, and bears the caption “You take my breath away.”
Why do I find that tasteless, and yet I am gleefully participating in the virtual mass pissing on Limbaugh’s grave? Well, for one thing, we on the left didn’t actually murder Limbaugh. He lived to the ripe old age of 70. It’s not like Michael Moore put his knee on Limbaugh’s neck for 9 minutes while onlookers begged for his life. Although, admittedly, I’d have probably celebrated that even more.
It’s mostly because Limbaugh was a powerful, wealthy figure who had an audience. He actually made a difference in the world, and the difference he chose to make was to make the world worse.
George Floyd was neither rich nor powerful and, in that, he was a lot more like all the rest of us. He was an average person. Yeah, he had a minor criminal record. Probably at least half of the American public indulges in some criminal activity every day, whether it’s smoking a joint, failure to signal a left turn, or ignoring a building code violation that you’ve known is there for the last 20 years but if nobody’s taking you to court over it, what the hell. He wasn’t preaching hate to millions of people every day, and
none of us had even heard of him before he died.
The only people laughing about his death are the same kind of people who killed him. Cops.
Police are right up there with dentists as being the least funny people in the world. They really should just shut the hell up about everything and just focus on their jobs. Which should not include killing people.