I recently met an oddly aggressive person on Twitter (a shock, I know, please pardon me, dear reader, for not having warned you to sit down first) and that made me think of a line from the delightful song, I’ll See Your Six.

The line I’m thinking of is

The things you will run into
the people that you meet
Walking all alone along
a New York City Street.

Twitter can be much like New York City streets. You meet the strangest people there. For much the same reason; just as in NY during the time the song is referring to crime was rampant and largely not prosecuted, there are very few repercussions for being unnecessarily aggressive with people on Twitter. I don’t mean that as a call for greater policing of Twitter, mind. Just an observation on the relationship between inducements and behavior in our fallen world.

And possibly also the observation that, like in the song, it is well to travel armed—as is appropriate to the circumstances—in such places.