A society cannot choose to endorse some sins and expect to leave the others behind. You choose one, you choose them all. Duh! To the point, you cannot choose to legalize and promote things like lust, drug use, greed, and pride, and expect to remain free from slothfulness and selfishness. Double duh!!
Right now, there seems to be a war on cops. Why? Because we asked for it. We all asked for it. The rich and the academic upper crust opened the door to not only sin but also to entitlement to sin, and now the poor are paying the price of wanting the same freedoms to sin. Entitlement to entitlement. The leaders of our country have failed us because we have failed to ask our leaders to hold us accountable to any commonsensical direction.
The rich look at the riots of the poor and wonder how the poor can feel entitled to break into their neighbor’s business and steal stuff just because someone pissed somebody else off. Lose a sporting event, however, and it’s not just the poor or uneducated looting and burning their neighbor’s castle is it? We are like the father who let his teenage daughter go out clubbing alone in a foreign country and then wonders why she disappeared, likely murdered. Why are we not all pointing our fingers at the father who failed to be a leader and protector when he let his daughter walk alone into risky behavior? Similarly, we should all point fingers at ourselves when the obvious source of the poor’s sense of entitlement is all of us!
Just look at ourselves. Look closer!
I see a man bullying a shop owner and taking whatever he wants. Then, later, when he is walking in the center of the street like he is immune to any civil rules, he is confronted by a cop is somehow shot and killed. Am I really supposed to then feel sorry for him? Seriously? When his parents cluelessly claim he was a good boy and didn’t deserve to die, am I suddenly supposed to forget that he was a bully who felt entitled to steal from his neighbor and then ignore the police? When I’m wondering how his parents could fail so stupidly in seeing that their son was a bad person and that perhaps they, themselves, failed as parents… I then must look closer and wonder where the role models were for these parents. I look around and see politicians, businessmen, and even religious leaders being accused of major crimes and all of them claiming innocence. Where has gone the man who can stand up and say right from the start “Yes, I did it. It was terrible of me to do this and I’m sorry. No excuses.”
I see the media being completely uphelpful and possibly even evil in their spin. I see a cop trying to manage a situation at a pool party that looks unmanageable. I then see Wolf Blitzer become the first of the star personalities on CNN to edit the video to make it look more sensational. Previous to Wolf coming on the air we could seen the officer being taunted by other men and then, when one of them reaches for his back pocket, the officer draws his weapon. Hey! Duh! Isn’t that what officers are trained to do? If someone was in my face and then appeared to reach for something unseen, what would I do? I would not respond well, I’m sure. But Wolf, apparently, is better than that and is the first on CNN to edit the taunting out so it appears the cop pulled his weapon without provocation. CNN is all too happy to report on the manhandling and the draw but I don’t think I ever heard any news source mention the taunting.
I see the media being completely unhelpful in their spin. I see a mother smacking her boy upside the head several times for trying to join a riot. We cheer her attempts to teach right from wrong. Yet, any smacking of kids not justified like this by video is reported as abuse by the media. This has given kids all the power in knowing how to make their parent’s lives (and other adult lives) miserable simply by whining a bit to the right people or by taking video out of context. When we see video of a belligerent teenager being manhandled by a cop, we cry foul again for some reason I still don’t quite get. And, yet, we have to listen, once again, to a parent claim how sweet their child is. Barf. Why bother trying to raise a child anymore? America has become a stupid place for raising children.
I see the media being completely unhelpful in their spin. I see a law breaker not cooperating with the police and eventually being taken down by a hold that restricts blood supply to the head (and should not restrict the air supply as reported). Watch that video again and really look at it. Break it down play by play. I am absolutely positive that you will see that the officer releases this supposed “choke hold” much sooner than what you remember the media telling you. Yes, some tragic things can happen when you don’t cooperate with the cops but, then: Is it really the cops’ fault then when things go bad? Sometimes, yes (as in 16-rounds or rough-ride or 20-tazings yes), but other times, no. Be smart about what the media spins to us. Do we really want to be a bunch of whiners like the black guy I heard on the media lamenting that now he has to teach his children to be cooperative around the cops if they don’t want trouble? Duh! I’m pretty sure that’s what my parents taught me and I’m white! Is that where we went wrong? African Americans stopped teaching that? Again, look closer, all of America stopped teaching that when we started teaching entitlement. Just ask any school teacher these days if the parents are any better than their entitled and whiny children. Likely not — it appears to me most of us are promoting entitlement in our children — and likely by example.
I see all traditional religions under attack. If religion is popular at all any more they are the ones that create their own gods — gods that are okay with our chosen set of legalized sins such as lust, drugs, greed, and pride. Whereas, I’m pretty sure the Hebrew Bible, New Testament, Quran, Guru Granth Sahib, etc. all have teachings against lust, greed, and pride. But, no, in America today it is more important that you embrace your temptations as your right to identity than it is to overcome your temptations to be a better person.
If I have a temptation to sleep with anything that moves then, dammit, that is part of my identity and I have a right to it! Even if I wreck my family to claim it, I not only have a right to it, I also have a right to be loved by America for my struggles to embrace my “true” identity. America sees a gay cowboy to feel sorry for in the Brokeback Mountain story. Ugh, we’re screwed. I see a Bruce-Jenner-like man that abandoned his family and probably deserves the loneliness the story gives him. We’re so screwed. America wants me to embrace by my hidden sexual temptations/orientations (believe me, they are there) and become a home wrecker instead. We’re so… so screwed!
I suspect most traditional religions have something similar to the idea that idleness is of the devil. And, yet, here we are with idle populations running rampant in America and the rest of us bickering about it when these populations are only our own creation. With the drive promoting the absurd notion that everyone must go to college to succeed, we have killed off all the skilled labor training programs we used have in the middle of the last century. Those who don’t want to go to college no longer have a path for success and, thus, languish in idleness. We all broke it, not they. We are so obsessed about college these days it has become another entitlement with lots of cushy amenities. Even if someone (such as I have) builds a meaningful life without a degree, they will still not be able to even submit an application to many jobs they are otherwise qualified for; purely because they do not have a degree — some online application systems don’t allow submissions to go through without a degree.
In all this madness to persecute religion and legalize sin I see even the Supreme Court of the Unites States guilty of populism. In 1890 the Supreme Court decided the federal government could define what marriage is (and even what type of cohabitation is allowed) — because it was popular to hate Mormons at the time. In 2015, however, the Supreme Court decided the federal government cannot define what a marriage is — because it is currently popular to hate all traditional Christians, who are believed to hate gays, even though such hate would hardly be Christ like. (And, somehow, the Acts of Congress in the 1800s defining against a Mormon view of marriage still stand.) I’m so confused. With our government so easily swayed by populism, we should change our motto to “In God we don’t trust” or “In celebrities we trust.”
Look at ourselves. Look closer! With both media and government promoting hate, lust, drugs, greed, and pride, it’s our own idiotic fault slothfulness and selfishness are rampant.
So, get off your butts and do something! Do something meaningful. Do something for your country. Don’t base your vote for leaders on selfish parameters. Do something right. Be vigilant. Be bold and report crime. Don’t be a wuss. Don’t give terrorists a place to hide. Be a good person and be a better parent. Be a role model of good things and not a role model of idiocy.
Hey! America! You make me sick. Stop it.
Why did I name Bruce Jenner and no one else (except, maybe, Wolf Blitzer and CNN)? Because he premeditated and publicized the selfish entitlements he claimed which opens him up for direct commentary. I can’t say for sure any of the others did.
Call me Varley, it would please my mother 