There are any number of things missing from modern society. Just listen to conservative commentators long enough and you will hear a long list. There’s the broken homes, there’s the lack of God, and then you get into the really offensive stuff. If we believe them then all of these things are to blame for all of the problems we have today.

So, speaking of shame is certainly ironic. It is ironic because we spend a great deal of time talking about how all of these things are just red herrings and then we land on the shame. Yet, this is different. It is nearly impossible to articulate, but we will give it a try.  Defamation of character is a serious deal. It causes someone to experience shame when they shouldn’t. We certainly feel for Depp if that is the truth, but unfortunately, some people are taking the wrong lesson from all of this. I bet you thought Kyle Rittenhouse went away, but apparently, he has been inspired by Depp. I know you thought he went away. I know you thought his 15 minutes of fame were up. I know you thought he would at least have the presence of mind to keep quiet until everyone had forgotten who this little son of a bitch was. I was right there with you. He apparently never learned anything from that experience.

As complaints go, this is a relatively minor one. After all, three people and their families never got justice for what happened to them. They were gunned down in the street and they were treated like the criminals. Hell, you had the judge in the case refuse to call them victims and then turn around and allow the defense to defame their character in open court.

That judge doesn’t feel shame. He should, but he doesn’t. Obviously, Rittenhouse has been robbed of this experience as well. It definitely impedes his moral development. At the very least, we had hoped that he would realize deep down inside what he had done. We are robbing people of that experience. We have robbed Rittenhouse of that experience.

Shame is the thing that keeps you from seeking the limelight after something like this. Shame is the thing that makes you realize you need to seek forgiveness or some sort penance even if your privaledge somehow exonerates you. Shame is the thing that aids in moral development. It’s the thing that tells you that you’ve done a horrible thing when you’ve killed three people.

Shame is the thing that tells you to go away. It is the thing that is missing all too often. It’s missing in this case because too many people have called this jackass a hero. It’s missing because that’s what he’s internalized and so he doesn’t understand why the mainstream media would say anything different. The best defense against defamation is the truth. The MSM has that in spades. Shame would have told him to leave well enough alone. Sadly, that shame wasn’t there.

File under This will Give You Whiplash, Trump filed suit today against The NY Times for an opinion piece claiming libel and defamation. He didn’t like that the piece pointed out the obvious that his campaign had a quid pro quo with Russia to damage Hillary for Trump’s benefit.  As we are all painfully aware, Trump spews a stream of insults, falsehoods, lies, and defamation in a continuous stream, including public and private figures.  His case will be almost impossible to prove, and this being NY state court, the case will likely be dismissed in short order.  No matter, though, Trump loves to threaten legal action against critics as a tactic to silence them.

This won’t work, but it just shows how far we’ve fallen that the president of the United States is now attempting to use the courts to punish his political critics.