"The midterms are less than a month away. The sad thing is, even though close, we might be too late. Humpty Dumpty might be too broken to fix. How bad is it right now? We will be lucky to make it to the end of the year."
I was going to call this post "our wild, wild, west." But that would not be accurate. Our "wild" concerns our new national persona of ignoring our civil laws. Ignoring our criminal laws. What do I mean? Example - last week, a woman was observed walking out of Home Depot with a shopping cart full of stuff. She decided not to pay for any of it. The store's security team caught her and told her to come back in the store and pay. She did not. She had a partner in crime waiting for her by a car. They loaded it up, and took off. Another crime committed.
Yesterday, the Republican running for Governor of New York (Lee Zeldin), was at a speaking event. While he was there, a two groups of thugs got into a shoot out close to his house (his daughters were in the house doing homework). Two of the thugs were shot, and hid out under Zeldin's front porch. Zeldin is a sitting member of the New York House, and lives in a nicer neighborhood. Bottom line - there is no place, anywhere, which is safe.
What in the world has happened to us? How all of a sudden (it seems like), we are like a bunch of naughty kids who refuse to obey rules? Only this is worse than naughty kids, as the games being played by the thugs can turn deadly. And in cities all over America - they have.
How does this all start? Besides learning from parents not to have any respect for law enforcement. "Broken windows". Not enforcing minor crimes. The new rave is something which seems harmless, but is putting some small business owners in financial jeopardy. A bunch of kids go into a restaurant, order a meal, eat the meal, and then run out without paying. It is called "dine and ditch", and it is spreading. What will these young people do next? Maybe B+E crimes. Maybe carjacking. Whatever. They are entitled to do so. Why? In America we are becoming wild. Wild, wild, everywhere.
Meanwhile, as our law and order system of justice starts to dissolve, the bad guys in the world continue to go to town. Oh, and one of them would love to nuke us into dust, just to teach us a lesson.
The midterms are less than a month away. The sad thing is, even though close, we might be too late. This Humpty Dumpty might be too broken to fix. How bad is it right now? We will be lucky to make it to the end of the year.
Don't forget another element of this. What is the long term effect of telling a child from birth that they have been oppressed (e.g., by vague boogeyman terms like "racism", "inequity", "corporations", "profit", "capitalism"/"greed", "colonialism", "patriarchy", "climate", made up "rights") and that their condition is not their fault? It justifies the taking back of what they have been taught to believe was somehow indirectly theirs to start with? Example: "Dine and dash"? I can't afford to pay because [boogeyman] keeps me from making enough money, and the evil business owner is making an evil profit. Come to think of it, I shouldn't have to pay at all because I have a "right" to eat. And by doing so, I am doing my small part to hurt and tear down the oppressive institutions that have put innocent little 'ol me in this situation in the first place. Therefore, I don't need to have any intention of paying in the first place, and the greater the damage, the greater the justice.
ReplyDeleteWe can still make it harder on punks like this--whether legally or not.
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