From time to time, humanity seems to go nuts.

I am not talking about cases like the mass murder by governments such as Stalin, Pol Pot and Hitler. Instead, I am talking about the times in history when we somehow degenerate into mob rule and the mob is a monster.

The classic case is what has come to be called simply The Terror in the wake of the French Revolution. Those who are unfamiliar with it should pick up a book on the subject and be prepared to be scared at all the similarities. Of course, my point with this blog is that we seem to be moving more and more toward a time when we are just as terrorized by the mob as in those days.

As I write this, a dentist who shot a lion in Africa is having his life ruined. Many think that is a good thing. That is what scares me. Personally, I don't know much about the case and refuse to take a stance, much less action, until all the facts come out. That attitude seems to put me in the minority these days. It is much more common for folks to act off of something they read off of facebook and not do any more research into the matter. I have read that the dentist didn't know that the hunt was illegal and was told they do it to keep population under control. But now because of legions of self- righteous social justice warriors, he has had his business destroyed, his life threatened and his family has had to go into hiding.

That is the world we now live in and it only seems to be getting worse as time goes on.

Right now, Jennifer Beals (former star of the movie Flashdance) is in hot water for leaving her dog in her car. A full reading of the situation points to it being a very short time on a rather chilly morning with no danger to the dog. That has not stopped many on social media to do everything up to issuing threats on her life.

One of the first cases of hounding someone like this I am aware of is the infamous Duke University lacrosse team rape accusation.

Those that think it was a case of frat boys getting away with rape should read a book such as "A Rush to Injustice" by Nader Baydoun and R. Stepahie Good or "It's Not About the Truth; The Untold Story of the Duke Lacrosse Case and the Lives it Shattered" By Don Yaeger and Mike Pressler.

The truth of the matter is that the prosecutor was white and running for office in a city that the majority was black. By going after a group a white men accused of raping a black woman, he thought he could get the support of the majority. Despite the lack of evidence, he pursued the case and his abuses of power led to him serving time in jail. The woman who accused the players is now sitting in jail after murdering her boyfriend. Despite this, there are still people who say that the players did rape her and they got away with it. The main reason for this continuing myth is that for some people, whenever there is a conflict between a black and a white, they will always back the former no matter the evidence. And none dare call that racism.

That was in 2006. Since then, facebook and such has taken off. Never have there been so many people so interconnected with information- and so idiotic about how they use it.

Back when there was only the major media, some stories were overlooked. Blogs and such have raised things that otherwise would have gone unnoticed. But one big advantage of the old media was that there were a group of guys who were worried about getting their pants sued off them for slandering someone. If someone ran a story about a Hollywood star who had sex with a 12 year old, and the only source was a vengeful ex- girlfriend with a history of mental illness, they probably would have sat on it until some other proof came up. Now, there is no barrier for the crazy to spread her story. Trying to get everyone on facebook that makes up a story about someone isn't possible, and so there is no consequence for spreading something untrue that will destroy an innocent's life.

In "It's not News, it's Fark : How Mass Media Tries to Pass Crap Off as News" by Drew Curtis the author lays out how mass media is now driven by the urge to be first with the most sensational story. It used to be that there was time to confirm what was said. Now, as soon as one source reports something, every other media has to pick it up or be left behind. The internet multiplies this by a factor of several hundred.

What you have are people that have no idea of the realities of something being the most vocal about it. People will make stuff up for whatever reason and then it gets passed around by others. It is like what Terry Pratchet once wrote, a lie is halfway across the world before the truth has had a chance to put its shoes on.

From what history shows, the actual people that do the killing is a small percentage of the movement. And there will always be lone nut cases. But the more voices calling for some sort of justice, the more the few that make up a small percentage seem willing and able to act. During the French Terror, there was only a few men arranging for the deaths, but hundreds of thousands calling for bloody justice. Today, there need only be a few with murderous intent, but they would not be as much of a danger if there weren't millions of people posting how they hate the death of a lion. Of course, few of those that do this will ever take responsibility for this, even though they probably know nothing about the full picture.

In this day and age, asking people to be quiet until all the facts are in seems to be seen as a sin. Requiring that they have actual knowledge in the subject and a full picture to work from somehow damages their self-esteem. People will share memes on facebook that builds on their anger without ever doing any looking into the matter.

This manifests itself from time to time with campaigns against people that have somehow pissed off some group with an agenda. The mob goes into action. Maybe they can't do anything against some terrorist in another nation, but they can make life hell for someone in the US. Buoyed by the rising swell of anger by people who are too mad to wait until they actually know the full story, a small portion of the mob posts personal information, gets people fired from their jobs, threatens them and shows up on their doorstep. This is what we are seeing with the dentist. No one will take responsibility for their actions and no one will stop to think about what they are doing. This is the nature of the beast.

Don't look to the government for help. In a democracy the politicians have to play to the majority. When Spike Lee gave what he thought was George Zimmerman's address to the world (it was someone else's home) no one brought charges against him. The same goes for Mia Farrow with her tweeting the address of the dentist. And the outrage against these acts that could possibly lead to the death of another have been celebrated instead of leading to their denouncement. The mob loves it when evil people are smitten, even if those people may actually be innocent. That possibility never occurs to those seeking justice. They want action, and they want it now. There is no time for facts to come out, no need for the fuller picture that may need special training to understand. The mb wants blood and it will have it.

There is even a new word out- doxxing. It means to do things like post the address and personal information of the target, as well as their relatives, encouraging violence against them as well as contacting schools and/or their employers to try to get them fired/expelled. This is how common it has become that there is a word for it. Doxxing is a tool used by those termed Social Justice Warriors, who roam the internet looking to bring society to a golden age by making the lives of everyone that disagrees with them a living hell. If you have a picture of a confederate flag on your timeline, or make fun of the president, etc. chances are you might be targeted for doxxing by some group.

How do you survive in that sort of environment? This web page deals with self defense, but how can you protect yourself against this sort of thing? With some crime, you can lessen your chances by not going into dangerous places, but the victims of this lynch mob mentality rarely do anything that would really seem to lead to what happened later. Read about the Duke Lacrosse team in the books I mentioned. They could not have seen what was coming at them. It can happen to any of us due to a mistake, a vengeful acquaintance willing to lie or many other factors.

Again, what can we do? Let us say that you wake up one day to find that you are the victim of a false accusation and it has gone viral. Your address has been posted. Your job calls to say they will have to let you go out of fear of what could happen to the company. Pictures of your daughter have been posted, her school listed and several people have posted that they would like to rape her in order to make you pay for your crime. Hacking groups have drained your bank account and canceled your credit card. And cars with guys are driving by suspiciously. What do you do?

I do not have the answers. We need to start thinking about it. It probably will never happen to most of us, but if this trend continues the odds of it happening will rise. There may be a need to stay with friends, maybe friends of friends that will be harder to the sleuths to find and post the location on line. A bit of cash on hand in the house for when you have to flee the crowd might be in order. If you are really rich and/or likely to be the target of such mob action, a safe house of some sort might be in order. But for most of us, consideration of our options and non-intrusive measures such as the cash on hand is much more practical.

This is the world we live in. We may rail against the injustice of the social justice mobs, but we can't deny reality. Individually the members of the mob might be harmless. But feeding on and supporting each other with their righteous anger, they are dangerous in groups. Like zombies, they may not have a lot of brains but they can ruin your life, or worse. Maybe the recent fascination with zombies in things like "The Walking Dead" are our society's unconscious acknowledgement of the fear we have of our neighbors and the mob.

As I said, I don't have answers at this point. I don't see how this trend will be halted. I don't know the best way to avoid and keep oneself safe from the vengeance of the righteous mob. But I hope I can cause people to start thinking about how they would deal with it if and when the mob sets its sight on them.

Hello, I hope you don’t mind me mentioning that I have several books that I have translated from Japanese related to ninjutsu and sell them through this site. Please take a look around if you are interested. By mentioning this, I hope my wife is satisfied that my ranting online serves a positive purpose for making us a little extra cash.