You make me sick

1 million Web users click to see beheading:

What’s wrong with you people?

Dan Klinker operates a Web site carrying Monday’s video of a hooded man cutting off the head of U.S. contract worker Eugene “Jack” Armstrong. More than 1 million users had clicked those images into their personal computers, he said.

Six Internet servers, according to Klinker, are “barely able to handle the traffic” of 50,000 visitors per hour who are angling for a peek at the grisly death of Armstrong.

The site Mr. Klinker runs specializes in these kinds of videos and images. Apparently, he has no regard for the families of the victims and only cares about his bottom line and catering to his mutant clientele.

It’s worth noting that there’s more than legal and political activism at work here: the shock sites also profit from posting these videos. They sell ad space to other lurid entertainers on the Net, and, perversely, the beheadings seem to enlarge their audiences.

And from the head mutant himself…

Dan Klinker, a Dutchman who founded the “shock” site (no link for you), said in an e-mail interview that he deploys “spider” technologies to crawl the Internet looking for grisly footage to post on his site the moment it appears online.

Klinker defends his editorial decision to show the gruesome videos on his site. “Without sites like we wouldn’t be able to see the full picture of war,” he said. “We put on everything that is legal and could have news value.”

So it’s not like these videos find him. He actively scours the web looking for that crap.

At least someone agrees with me…

Experts in post-traumatic stress disorder are familiar with the morbid curiosity of the human mind. At the Palo Alto VA hospital, Fred Gusman helps combat veterans deal with the visceral horrors of war. It is a natural thing to be curious about the grotesque and awful — but the value of satisfying that curiosity is another matter.

“There is absolutely zero benefit to seeing it,” said Gusman.

The closest parallel to this dark quirk of human behavior is the tendency of people to slow down on the highway when a gruesome accident comes into view.

“It is this feeling of wanting to look, when part of you says ‘I really shouldn’t be looking at this,’ ” Gusman said.

See, if you actively search for these videos you’re nothing more than a rubbernecking freak. You don’t want to be outraged. You’re not exercising your “right” to have access to information. You’re doing nothing more than to satisfy an internal lust for these grotesque images.

What galls me, even more, is that these mutant assclowns that run these sites wrap themselves in the mantle of free speech. Yeah, I’m sure this is exactly what the founding fathers had in mind when determining the basic tenets of freedom of expression. They don’t care about bringing information to the people or exercising their right to free speech. They only care about the money and they decided the best way to get it was to appeal to even lower than the lowest common denominator. I’m sure they get giddy with excitement when another gruesome execution killing has been announced by terrorists. It means more money in their wallet. All the money they make is made from the blood of innocents. When you go to these sites and view these videos whether you know it or not you’re putting blood money into these death dealers pockets. Do you think the families of the victims see any of this money? Where is their right to privacy? Where is their right to not have the grisly death of a loved one splashed across the internet? All obliterated so that these “heroes” of free speech can collect their bloody paychecks.

You make me sick.