Tuesday, July 10, 2007

It must be the crazy season . . .

It seems like I'm not getting much written and posted these days. There are a lot of things I would like to write about, like the bullying and mostly brain-dead U.S. customs agents and their insolent and indolent ways. They chew their wads of gum, move as slowly as humanly possible, and take every opportunity to insult their masters. But they, like most government employees, don't see the taxpayer who pays their salaries as their master. No, quite the contrary. They make it very clear that they are in charge and like the sadists many of them must be, enjoy cracking their whips. Why do people put up with this stuff?

Oops. I wasn't going to write about that. It just slipped out.

I also want to write about idiots, but can't seem to get the time. What idiots? Anyone who climbs on board any cause of the day and, without giving it an original thought, and often without even having the capacity for an original thought, accepts it as gospel and, in fact, becomes quite evangelical about the thing. Please spare me.

Crap. I wasn't going to write about that either. What has gotten into me?

It's a crazy world. Everything seems to be topsy-turvy. In one of Robert A. Heinlein's books, he describes a sort of crazy season during which nothing is as it should be and hardly anyone acts as he should. That is the way the world strikes me at this moment. Hell, that is the way the world has seemed to me for years. By the way, if you know which Heinlein book it is that I am thinking of here, please let me know. I'd like to dig it out and read it again.

I speak with my son about the state of the world sometimes and take care to remind him that we live charmed lives. We have nothing to complain about. Everything is wonderful, we can do what we want, when we want, with scarcely anything to worry about. Until we we leave home, of course, then there is lots to worry about. Haters and malcontents are everywhere, looking for any excuse or opportunity to let their demons out and create some mischief. Human life means nothing to them. Reality means nothing to them. Logic means nothing to them. Every perceived injustice that rattles around in what passes for a brain in these people is your fault, or mine.

It's not true of course. Have you personally done anything to piss these people off? I haven't, unless of course they don't like to be reminded that they themselves are their own worst enemies. The innocent individuals who die needlessly while these misfits spread their consuming hatred haven't done anything to deserve their fate. And yet the slaughter goes on. And still the establishment media encourages us to be more accommodating, more compliant, more forgiving, because, you see, we are all somehow at fault for every ill in the world. How that can be, or why it should be so, is a mystery to me.

I am not at fault for these things and neither are you. I am sick of being accommodating. I want to be left alone. And I want you to be left alone too. I want everybody to mind their own business, take care of their own family, and to stop whining and bitching about everything.

So, there it is. My little diatribe for the day. It just bubbled to the surface and had to be written down. I couldn't help it. It's not my fault.

Sorry. I just couldn't write that last sentence with a straight face. Of course it is my fault. Everything I say and do is my responsibility. Everything you say and do is your responsibility. I have never been a slave-owner, didn't take part in the crusades, treat women and minorities as equals, and have been told at least once that I was a nice guy, so I won't take any blame for anything in which I have not personally taken part. But I do stand by my words, and I do think seriously about things, and wish that all the trouble-makers in the world would do so as well.

And that, my friends, is what happens when I read the daily news.

5 comments:

  1. You're preaching to the choir.

    As for the bandwagon causes of the moment, it's damned tedious and pretentious for celebrities and particularly actors-- people who PRETEND to cry for a living-- to tell us how we ought to be thinking and viewing the world. Their hypocrisy is manifold, and insulting.

    Also, I'm getting crisis fatigue. Pretty much every day there's some reason our media tell us we need to be terrified and in fear for our lives. They've gotta have some big earth-shaking lead story to get attention and attract viewers/readers, and it's exhausting. Actually, between the bible thumpers and the fear-mongering enviro folks, I'm just disgusted with the whole mess and have vowed just to live my life. If the acid rain and the antichrist come for me, well, so be it.

    And that bit about personal responsibility - well, you hit the nail on the head. People screw up, and as children and adults in our society, they have been coddled all along, so when you try to hold one accountable, they wine and bitch and act like it is in some way YOUR fault that they screwed up-- that you made it bad because you RECOGNIZED they screwed up. I'm seeing a lot of that in apartment management, and I can't wait to get out of the business.

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  2. phlegmfatale: It's too bad we can't sit down and have a beer or a (insert poison of choice) together and swap horror stories about being a landlord or managing residential rentals. Can you top this one: I inspected an apartment in one of our buildings years ago, after receiving complaints from other tenants. The apartment was occupied by a young couple and (I believe) two children and a dog. One of the bedrooms had been set aside as a dog bathroom and there were piles of petrified dog shit everywhere. The couple seemed surprised that I was upset.

    The business you're in is one in which you get to see the dregs of society, and not just with welfare tenants. Economic status has very little to do with it sometimes. There are just people who have no clue or don't care and they live their lives as if no one else mattered or even existed.

    We sold all of our buildings back in the late 90's and won't ever be landlords again. There were many good, responsible tenants, but it is the few who spoil the situation for everyone else.

    I like your term 'crisis fatigue.' That pretty much sums up how I feel sometimes.

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  3. Gotta tell ya, this is a great post. I agree with you and phelgmfatale.

    A friend just told me that,Daniel Radcliffe the young actor from Harry Potter has just signed a $50 million contract to do films 6 & 7. Unbelievable! So much can be done with that kind of money.

    The, "It's my parents fault cause they beat me", or the, "I had a bad childhood" doesn't cut it. You have a choice to break the chain or continue that path. People need to assume responsibility for what they do and say. Things would be so different if they did. But it's always easier to blame others. That way they can keep complaining and have their pity party too. URGH!!!!

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  4. Sounds like you watched the Fried Earth concert or went to it, or something.
    I really haven't had much trouble with the bureaucrats, but I don't leave the country that often, and when I fly, I try to find a lady TSA agent to do the luggage inspection, as the same rapor seems to be easy to develop with them as with a counter clerk.
    I have a totally different take on cops than the average libertarian, because I remember the radical leftist 1970s, and how they could hardly break wind without some mulleted, effeminate-voiced sodomite from the ACLU filing a lawsuit on the ape's...I mean "suspect's" behalf and getting TV time to bitch about it in depth (it's incredible what a lawyer with the IQ of a doorknob can make out of next to nothing).
    As a result of a decade of that leftist, socialist tactic, the police here in the States will do nothing but show up after the fact, file a report, and then "file-13" it. The only way you see law enforcement, is if a big shot of the community, or someone else who could make waves is the victim. Since I know what happened to cause this, it seems a natural response.

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  5. lady g~ -- thanks. I wonder sometimes why people with megabucks, like the Hollywood leftists and guys like Bill Gates, don't take a few dollars directly to the individuals who need it, instead of handing it over to governments or agencies to distribute 'aid.' People don't need hand-outs. What they need is the opportunity to help themselves via low-interest loans and training in how to help themselves.

    Galt: I watched a few minutes of the show but couldn't stomach any more. The U.S. has indeed become a place where everyone is afraid of the lawyers and the courts. Look at that poor couple who was sued for many millions of dollars because they lost a guys pants when they dry-cleaned his suit. Only in America, at least so far.

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