A peek inside my head.
It's one thing to be free thinking and open minded and quite another to be unyielding and steadfast in ones beliefs.
I've hit an equilibrium of sorts. Gone are the fallacial, emotional and totally unreasonable beliefs of my youth. They have been replaced with reliance on logic, reason and disillusionment of all the things that I was once brainwashed into accepting without question.
Some folks think I'm a kook, a right wing nut job or just a misguided fool. Others may say they agree with what I say but then go back to doing and saying the exact opposite five minutes later.
I have to say without question, my day to day interactions with other human beings has led to my particular state of mind.
Here are some things I've come to realize and accept.
Human beings are part of nature. Whatever we build, accomplish, make dirty etc... will eventually wiped away soon enough and in time there will barely be a trace of man's existence. Worrying about global warming, endangered species, forest fires etc... we are just pissing against the wind.
I'm not saying we shouldn't take care of our environment, plant trees and manage our resources, but I am saying, drill for some fucking oil, dig up some coal, fire up some nuclear power plants crank up that AC and go to Walmart.
Why is everyone so damned worried about where people put their naughty bits? It's a non issue. People are born straight or gay. If getting one in the pooper bugs you, stay the hell out of park restrooms. So much time and energy is spent worrying about stupid shit like other peoples bedroom habits. I bet you anything, that if folks just ignored the issue you wouldn't see all these fruitcakes wearing assless chaps and feather boas marching down main street trying to shock people and get attention.
Like I've said many times on this blog, laws are only for the law abiding. I doubt very seriously that if the U.S. suddenly had no police or judicial system, that we would turn into Somalia. Things would normalize quickly and whatever person decided to take advantage would be dealt with in short order. We for the most part are a civilized society with values and morals that transcend man's written code of law.
I think however, that we have become too reliant on government and often fail to take necessary and correct actions because we have come to expect someone in "authority" to do it for us. When someone does something "heroic" these days it makes the national news. More often someone MIGHT call 911 when they see a person being attacked..maybe.. if their favorite TV show isn't on.
There was a time not long ago where people took action and did what was right, on the spot without thought to their own safety or comfort.
I'm ashamed at how cowardly much of our nation has become. Knowing right from wrong is one thing, acting upon that knowedge it is quite another.
posted by Bill Rowland @ September 03, 2008
34 Comments
34 Comments:
Well said! DITTO!
We do have an awful lot of people that expect government or 'someone else' to take care of them and fix everything that goes wrong. It's sad and pathetic. They will give away the control of their lives and then complain when they don't like what is dealt them.
I think it is past time to pull the current government down and start a new. The French (for once) had the right idea. Lop off the elite's heads and begin a new. Not that I want to become a nation of surrender monkeys.
Hammer, it's Class Warfare, not cowardice. The "smart" kids all went to Law School, and want to make rules to keep the rest of us from getting out of line.
Ignore the media, and most politicians, and the Homeowner's Association, and folks start looking a lot more normal. When the chips are actually down, they'll be there.
Of course, people who rely on the gov't for everything are screwed.
I would say something but first I have to speak with my legal counsel.
No offense.
i will agree with you on most of your statements but one - i've YET to meet a gay person (either related to me or otherwise) who has ever told me they were born that way - they have always been able to tell me nearly the exact moment they "realized" they were gay.
two are cousins who i grew up around and the others are friends or people i've worked with.
IF - and that's a BIG IF - people ARE born that way, i have to believe they'll keep pure unto marriage in the eyes of God - HE never changes and civilizations have disappeared in the name of "homosexuality".
Sandy: thanks!
snail: exactly..they get the dregs and the bread lines.
phosgene: It is time. 99% of the laws could be scrapped and no one would notice but the lawyers.
Ted: When I lived in a more rural area I saw better people. In the big city I see sheep. Maybe I'm wrong I sure hope so.
jihadgene: This blog is not lawyer approved ;)
Nanc: I see gay animals like bulls, dogs, and monkeys so I figure it's something genetic.
When I was in kindergarten there were gay kids. They flitted around and wanted to kiss boys..I got my opinion from that. As far as god goes, they may have to answer for succumbing to said urges.
I have to disagree with Nanc on the gay thing. I assume I was born hetero because I never had an interest in other women. But I wasn't born with the desire to have sex with anyone. That came later and at that time I became aware of my preferences.
I think we've become a society, or perhaps a world, that has become more attached to our TV's, and dare I say, our computers than human interaction. It's so easy to become isolated from our neighbors when we don't leave the house and that I what I think has led to our indifference. If it isn't on TV we can't seem to care about it.
I agree with a lot of what you've said - however, if you think back to the Wild West, there was quite a lot of lawlessness with no police around. Not everyone certainly, but many women and weaker men were at a disadvantage with no option for justice. When I think about it, maybe not so much has changed. Cops today are more concerned about getting their speeding ticket quotas than stopping crime.
You and me are a lot different, not same sex, nationality, continent, age, and plenty other, but.... definitely I agree with everything you say.
(although I think laws are quite usefull.)
Your thoughts about law enforcement and government make a lot of sense. In fact, I just read a book, (a fictional Christian book, if you can believe it) that agrees with your thought process. It makes sense. If we weren't all so busy doing what we're not supposed to do, we'd be doing the right thing without a second thought.
I agree with you. One thing that really irks me is the fact that people cannot stay out of other people's business. Let them do what they want....if it's not hurting you why should it matter. Omg-It's such a pet peeve of mine! If they spent as much time working on and evaluating themselves, as they do other people the world would be a friendlier less war filled place!
The last part of this post has a powerful message. Seriously, what good is knowing right from wrong if when the time comes to do right, you don't do it?
I love that line (the whole paragraph, really) about staying away from public restrooms. Too funny!
sqt: It's like brave new world, we are always plugged into something that distracts us from what is really going on. For me at least the internet is a coup on the powers that wish to keep us in the dark.
Jeannie: the wild west did have it's lawlessness buit it was tempered by the threat of a mob of people with pitchforks forming a lynching party for anyone who went too far into antisocial behavior.
The police fill out reports over dead bodies and give speeding tickets. The women being physically weaker is why I support the right to bear arms so feverently.
kitem: thanks :) Laws can be useful in business to keep our products safe and to punish those who try to cheat and steal in white collar crime.
terri: I guess you are right, people are always worried and second guessing themselves.
jessica: busibodies are usually doing things just as bad as the people they rally against. Tv preachers are an example of that.
scarlet: It's sometimes bad enough to where I lose hope, but every once in a while I'll read about someone returning lost money or saving someone froma burning wreck and it helps my state of mind.
Good points, Hammer. Sometimes I think people worry way too much about the rights of the few being more important than the rights of the many.
Square on the Head, Hammer
square on the head
Are you running for an office and forgot to mention it to your readers? You've hit it right on the head on many issues... After walking this earth for over half a century now...I can honestly say, all our increased knowledge and pro-active government... hasn't made it an across the board better life. Hoping I am not misunderstood, I believe we need to grow, but what are we truly doing with all this knowledge? Are we out for the betterment or is it done to fill selfish motives?
~AirmanMom returning to her blog...
Oh Hammer, I wish more places in this country "took care of things" the way that small towns and small town "fathers" did not to long ago.
let me tell you a couple examples if I may hijack the comments.
My mothers family grew up in a small town of about 400, and the supai indians were bussed in to school there. Two of the boys attacked my aunt and tried to rape her. My grandfather came in the house and seen her crying and ripped clothes, and when he found out what happened, he grabbed his gun and went for the bus. It had left. He told one old Supai man what happened and if they didn't take care of it, he would.
The boys didn't show up to school for two weeks, and once they did, they both had broken arms and litteraly beat and whipped with sticks. By their parents none the less, and all the tribe elders begged my grandfather for forgiveness.
Another instance is a teacher of my mothers (6th grade) Had a habit of rubbing the girls backs and leaning close to talk to them. Back then you didn't do that. A bunch of girls told their mothers, who got together and told their husbands. That night the teacher quit and had his house packed and he moved.
If we as a nation and as individuals took responsibility to squash wrong, and not take it. We wouldn't have alot of problems we have today, and if people weren't hurting you, they could live however they wanted.
Good post Hammer.
I think I'm a bit more immune / adjusted to some of the cultural differences but it's a tough job to change your thinking.
I remember longgggg ago, being in the park and a 'strange/unknown to us' child slipped from the climbing frame. I was closest so I grabbed him. [concrete floors back then] His mum [with a new born] was pleased, but someone else said something like 'you shouldn't do that as they might have sued you if you got it wrong.'
Still, I'm still learning. I should probably have a big L plate stuck on my forehead as a warning.
Cheers
Hammer, I so agree with you on most of this. I would like to see some new punishments come in to fit the crimes however. I would like to see Castration for the male child rapists who are convicted. I would like to see slavery come back so that the idiot who was driving drunk in kills people on the road...can serve out his time being a slave for the family of the ones he killed...stuff like that...
I don't know...maybe I have a warped sense of crime and punishment...
Janwt: oh so true..like all these supposed hate crime laws that make things extra illegal.
fyrmandoug: thanks :)
airmanmom: I wonder too if all these advancements has done one bit of good for the human race.
burfica: great story! Oh how I wish things were like that again!
maddy: See that's exactly what I'm talking about. People have told me that when I stopped a 3 year old from running into the highway..the parents were like..mind your own business! But at least I knew I did right.
Flyinfox: I completely 100% agree. The punishments should fit the crimes and then some.
I think however, that we have become too reliant on government and often fail to take necessary and correct actions because we have come to expect someone in "authority" to do it for us.
I am so there with you, and have decided it is my responsibility to be the one in authority - at least where my family is concerned!
Great post Hammer!
Hammer, I suspect that you and I are on the same page politically more often than not.
Still, one thing you said I have to take serious issue with, namely "If getting one in the pooper bugs you, stay the hell out of park restrooms."
I don't much care if you're gay or straight, but I do care if you're slinging jizz in an inappropriate place. Park restrooms were built for the purpose of taking a shit while you're visiting the park. They weren't built in order to let the gay cruisers have a place for anonymous sex.
So, I'm visiting the park having a picnic with my family, and if nature calls, I'm supposed to go out and crap in the woods and get poison ivy up the keister, 'cause the Colon Commandos have commandeered the park bathrooms? I've got to have my kid piss behind a bush because some pervert might jam his knob through a glory hole in the bathroom stall?
Au contraire, mon frere!
It's not about whether being gay is bad, wrong, or immoral. It's about having the common decency to perform sex acts in a non-public location. A public restroom stall is not appropriate, nor should it be allowed.
If you're man enough to take it up the ass, be man enough to go to a gay bar and pick someone up, then find a hotel somewhere. Stop making public places your personal sex locale.
Just my 2 cents...
Dana: hell yeah, someone has to take charge and I don't mind doing it either.
El Capitan: lol great point. We have a place here in a semi upscale area called olmos park where all the gay bathroom and behind the bushes sex takes place, politicians, judges, school teachers all go there for their butt reaming and felching..the park is totally unusable for recreation at times..that's unless you don't mind getting an errant face full once in a while.
I agree..these places need to be cleaned up but it seems that the powers that be are using these places as a butt romping version of needle park.
Hammer, I can't comment much on your post other than it was interesting and I understand your points. Most of which I believe your correct in stating.
My bigger observation, actually my wife made this last night during Palin's speech. Does she look like a much thinner Monica L. from the Clinton cigar years? I'm just saying...
mike: I was thinking that when I was looking for poster ideas. Weird huh?
Yeah!!!! Standing O!!!!!!
these are the reasons i keep coming back for more....not only are you witty, interesting and a good writer, but you make sense and use your own brain rather than blindly following along with the majority of people who are too lazy to think or too stubborn to consider alternative ideas.
alaina: thanks!
Barbara: that's about the nicest thing anyone has ever said about me. thank you!
Nowadays you get sued for not minding your own business. That won't stop me from doing the right thing though.
Without reading the 30 previous comments left here, I hope I'm not repeating but, the biggest problem with doing the right thing anymore is, if something goes wrong while doing the right thing, some fucking lawyer will sue you and ruin your life. Regardless of how much good was accomplished.
Lawyers, government and the people who want more of and utilize both excessively are what's wrong in this country.
Very well said my brutha. Thing is, it's ourt stable political culture that would keep us from turning into Somalia, or Haiti. But as we steadily drift into the sort of culture where we look to a patron in Washington to fix our needs, we drift in the direction to a Somalia or Haiti. It's a slippery slope.
"There was a time not long ago where people took action and did what was right, on the spot without thought to their own safety or comfort."
Never heard of Kitty Genovese, Hammer?
James
James: the Kitty Genovese tragedy partly inspired this post. A big crowded metropolis social anonymity, overbearing govt and punitive self defense laws are a big part of what cause people to lose touch with their social responsibility.
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