I have been struggling for several days now, trying to wrap my mind around the video embedded below. It was recorded on a cruise ship, the Carnival Breeze, as a fight broke out among passengers waiting for cheeseburgers at Guy’s Burger Joint, an outlet jointly owned by Guy Fieri of the Food Network and the Carnival Cruise Line. It was originally posted on LiveLeak, and then posted to Inquisitr.com, which offered some background information:

“The incident happened in front of Carnival’s Guy’s Burger Joint when three female passengers confronted another female passenger and started kicking her,” the Crew Center website claimed.

This shipboard “beef” over the waiting time for Carnival cheeseburgers apparently took place either in late September or early October, but the footage only recently surfaced on social media.

Departing from either Galveston, Texas, or Miami, the 1004-foot, 130,000 gross ton Carnival Breeze traverses the Caribbean for up to nine days at a time with a capacity of 3,690 passengers. The ship also has about 10 restaurants, although apparently tempers flared in this particular instance when only a few of them were serving at the time.

A witness to the cheeseburger controversy provided the Cruise Hive website with the following purported inside information.

“I was in that sailing, but was getting pizza when I heard about it. Most people were getting back on the ship and the buffet had closed. Only Guys Burger’s, the Deli and the Pizza place were open. The incident happened after the last port, Aruba. I’m not sure if Security got involved, but at the Q&A on Saturday morning, the question was asked about the ship’s jail & if the two women were held there. The response was no.”

“It’s not clear exactly what happened but from looking at the video it seems the brawl was between some women while either waiting in line at Guy’s Burger Joint or near the line….This is not how guests should act during a cruise and is totally not acceptable…Cruise Hive has contacted the cruise line regarding this on board brawl and will let readers know what response is given,” Cruise Hive added.

On the one hand, America is such a great country that even its lowly nekulturny, to use an apt Russian term for those with no refinement, can afford to travel on symbols of luxury like cruise ships. Now, I have never been on a cruise in my life, so I have no real experience to apply to the question of what type of people take cruises. But I always thought it took a fair chunk of spare cash, and that people one would meet there would have both ample funds and leisure.

But on the other hand, even people with money and leisure in America behave like this? What kind of place nurtures such folk among its monied class?

I am leaning toward the end-of-civilization hypothesis.