Checking out the week's news, I found some reports that have me firmly convinced we, as a society, are going to hell in a handbasket. It seems that in our ever-increasing quest to become famous (if only for a fleeting 15 minutes) people will do almost anything. For example, there is the news report about some imbecilic teens who posted a video of themselves putting a kitten in a microwave. Which begs the question ... where in HELL did they get this idea? Why would anyone do such a thing? What is it with the abuse of the defenseless? Someone suggested the perpetrators may have been, in turn, abused and you know what? Could be true, but I am tired of that being an excuse for inflicting hurt. Done with it. My sympathy is tapped out. I have not one ounce of empathy, sympathy, caring for them. I don't care if they were beaten black and blue, hung from a tree limb by their toe nails. I just don't care. If you are able to tell right from wrong and you choose wrong, you should be held accountable. I don't care what you went through in your childhood. I don't care if you went head-first through a window. I just don't care. If you want to inflict hurt that much, then you should inflict it on yourself, do the world a favor and just blow yourself out of this world. You do not deserve to live. If you hurt, maim, kill, rape, torture, you should just be obliterated from existence. Sometimes I wish I could sit down with these people (and I use that term loosely) and talk with them, to see if we can figure out exactly at what point did they break. Because all of us at some point in our lives were happy, innocent, trusting, little souls. And, yes, I totally get it could be one cataclysmic event or a succession of small, yet still horrific, events that just led to that breaking point. Believe me, been there. Like a friend of mine says "I've been to the dark side." It ain't pretty. Truth be told, it is MUCH easier to choose to stay there, than it is to claw one's way back to sanity and life and Light.
There was a recent case in the "city" I live in and I use that word loosely because, really, I don't think it is a city anymore, it has become a gathering place for miscreants who perpetrate their acts and then use their horrible childhoods, their race, their ethnicity, as an excuse to skate free and clear, but I digress. There was a case in this ... city where an elderly man was shot by a juvenile in what is being called an "attempted robbery." This kid just rode up to this man who was getting into his car after grocery shopping, rode up on his bike, apparently tried to rob him, then shot him point blank killing him and then he ran away ... on a bike. Obviously, he knew he'd done something wrong, it's not like he stuck around waiting for the police to arrive, like one would do in an accident. So, he's not stupid. I don't think that kid wanted to just rob the man he killed. I think it was a gang initiation. Yesterday they announced the kid had been arrested. Has a rap sheet a mile long. They don't know whether they should charge him as a juvenile or as an adult. Oddly enough his parents, or at least his mother, was in court. So, where was she when her kid was out robbing people? Why is it that the parents of juvenile delinquents suddenly show up in court yammering about how good their child is? Going on about how that child is "the light" of their life. Good child. Goes to church on Sundays. Would NEVER do anything against the law! This is patently unfair! My child is INNOCENT. Really? With a rap sheet a mile long? Where are they when that "good child" is holding people up, robbing, beating someone? This "child's" attorney is saying his client is being railroaded, he had a head injury a while back, his childhood was terrible. Big whoop. I just don't care. Don't give a flying fig.
I say, you take a life unless it was in self-defense, you should pay with yours. Bottom line. I am tired of people, whatever their age might be, using their sucky childhoods as an excuse to be a criminal. I don't care. If you're able to tell right from wrong and choose to do wrong, you should be held accountable. He took a life, he destroyed a family. He has to pay. Life in prison? No. Death sentence, absolutely. We have to send a message that if you do the crime, you will pay. Today there are just way too many delinquents who have learned how to "work" the system. Way too many saying they are being arrested because of their race, ethnicity, whatever. I don't care if you are white, red, black, purple or polka-dotted, if you're born and bred in the USA, from another country, from another flipping planet, if you commit a crime you should be held accountable. Regardless.
Same goes for the stand your ground law. If you come into my house, I don't care if you are armed with a play gun or a butter knife. I am going to shoot you. Not going to shoot you in the knee, not going to shoot you in the arm. I am going to shoot to kill. Because you have no right, no business being in my home, threatening me. Now, a defense attorney would say "Well, how were you threatened? Did this person lunge at you? Verbally threaten you? Come at you with a life-threatening weapon?" Me: "Well, this person broke into my home, I'd call that pretty threatening, so yeah, I shot him." Attorney: "Well, my client had a very violent childhood. My client does not know any better." Me: "Really? Then, may I ask why your client chose my home, instead of my neighbor's, who is 6'3" and a linebacker, home?" Attorney: "My client does not know right from wrong!" Me: "Okay, (turning to speak to perpetrator) would you shoot yourself, please?" Perpetrator, sorry, Alleged Perpetrator: "Hell, no, @#$$%! I'm not doing that!" Me: "Why?" Alleged Perpetrator: "It $%^&*!@ hurts! I could die!" Me: "Ah, so it would be wrong to shoot yourself?" Alleged Perpetrator: "@!#$@#$! Yeah, it'd be #$$@! wrong!" Me: "Fry him." Rough childhood? Too bad, get in line. There's plenty of people who have had horrific childhoods and gone on to have productive, contributing lives. Who have chosen to make sure others do not go through what they went through. Those are the people worth talking about. Those are the real heroes.
Same goes for politicians who prey on the elderly, on the vulnerable, who use loopholes to rig elections. Who, when on the campaign trail go on and on ad nauseam about family values, the sanctity of marriage, truth, justice, apple pie and the American way. Then they get caught with their pants down, wonking an aide, or soliciting sex in a public bathroom, or sending pictures of their privates to some skank who they met through the internet or making money from some skeezy, barely legal, scheme. And here comes the public apology, the beating on their chest, the "I'm only human" speech. Really? Mind you, I'm just as human as the next person, but at least I do not run for public office on a platform of "family values" while I'm having an extra-marital fling or sending pictures of my privates to people ... side bar: WHY, can someone just tell me, WHY do people do this? And a LOT of these people are PARENTS! Do they even think their kid, or kids, will one day read about this? That would be an interesting dinner-time conversation. "So, Dad, tell me, do you ever hear from Ms. Vinyl Pants?" or "So, Mom, ever hear from your 8th grade student that you ... uhhhh ... tutored?" Puhleeze.
The public is steered towards focusing on the inane while the really important issues get pushed to the back of the line. We march and yammer against same-sex marriage while children are beaten to death by the very people that gave them life. We focus on taking "God" out of the pledge of allegiance because it "offends" some people, while on the other side of the world our men and women have to up-armor their vehicles from other vehicles that have been destroyed, harmed by IEDs or in attacks. We petition for no large sodas, while people are going hungry right next door. Where in hell have our priorities gone where we worry about sodas making us fat, but don't care about people going hungry, going without medical care because they just cannot afford it? While people are sleeping under bridges? While thousands of innocent animals are euthanized every single year because irresponsible owners do not get their pets fixed, then dump them when they cease to be amusing? But, hey, super-size sodas are no longer being sold! Big win for the human race! Why is a fund-raising drive necessary for a kid to get life-saving surgery while people are sunning themselves on million-dollar yachts? What is wrong with you people that you turn a blind eye to the suffering in the world? I have always wondered how on God's green earth people could work in concentration camps and then go home to their families at the end of the day. How could they march families into gas ovens and then sit down with their children at dinner. How is that possible? How can people hold up signs saying "God hates (pick your theme here)" and claim to be Christian? Because, at least the way I think, God and hate do NOT go together. As a matter of fact I think it is a testament to God's love for us that we, as a race, still exist. Because if it had been me, I'd have pulled the plug on the human race a long time ago. Why are white supremacy groups proliferating? True, there's an overwhelming abundance of crime, but putting on really ugly boots, shaving one's head and claiming to be superior because of one's skin color (or lack thereof) is not going to solve the problem. I have one friend who was getting chummy with one of these groups and I told him "You realize, the minute they find out you're part Cuban, you are out of their little club, right?" But no, he said they were "quite nice" actually ... until they heard his last name and ooopsies! All of a sudden, he was not their friend, Frank (name has been changed to spare him at least some embarrassment), he was a dirty spic. And while we are on the subject, could someone tell me how that term originated? I never heard it until we moved here from L.A. and someone called me that my first day of school here. I thought they were talking about the detergent Spic and Span and calling me dirty, so I slugged them. And, yes, my parents got a call from the office. It wasn't their last.
It is time to be held accountable. From the very tippy top of our thoroughly-corrupted on BOTH sides of the fence political system. Responsibility for one's actions has gone out the window. It is never one's fault, it's always someone else's or the result of something that happened in one's life. Bull. Yes, life can blow, childhood can be horrific, but as a society we need to be held accountable. Goodness knows, I can be one of the most irreverent, religion-challenging people ever, but you know what? I grew up saying the pledge of allegiance, saying "one nation under God ...." and it did not bother me one bit. I know what I believe in, I know what I hold dear. And nothing, no words, no laws, no whatever can challenge my beliefs, my faith. Those who feel threatened by the word "God" must be very, very insecure within themselves to want the word taken out.
We need to, as they very vulgarly say these days, grow a pair, own it, admit it. Until that happens, we are just standing on really, really shaky ground.
Well, I have weebled and wobbled, vented and raged, time to go garden a bit. Until next time, be safe, be blessed and for Pete's sake, be kind to each other.
