I found myself in an awkward position this week.
Don’t feel sorry for me. Trust me. In the end I don’t feel all that
sorry for myself since I am the one who stuck his hand in the proverbial
hornet’s nest.
It seemed so innocent at the time. I just wanted to point out that so
many of us these days like to rewrite the rules to fit our own perception of
how things ought to work.
You know. They should always work in our favor right?
Right?
No?
Let me just explain and maybe you’ll either feel sorry for me or you’ll
side with my worst critic at the time. I don’t know.
Our daughter just started High School in the last few weeks. Her school
does not offer bussing, so the children either make their own way home, or a
parent has to come pick them up. Unfortunately, the way the world is nowadays,
there is no way we’re letting our 14 year old daughter walk the mile or so home
all alone. Not happening.
So depending on which one of us, my wife or I, is available, we drive
over to the school around dismissal and wait for her. It so happens that the
place I wait for her has an area of the street in front of a residential
neighborhood that is painted in very large words, “KEEP CLEAR.”
Well after a few trips over I began noticing that this one particular
gentleman would come basically every day and park in that painted area to await
his child’s arrival.
Two things, 1) In most respects I couldn’t care less about this
person’s behavior individually. I mean, he, like everyone else has the right to
make whatever decisions he wants to so long as he is not physically hurting
someone. 2) It was not my goal to get this person in trouble and I deliberately
avoided providing any personal details when I did what I did.
Probably on the say fourth time this guy parked in front of me, I made
the decision to discreetly take a photo with my camera phone that captured a
small corner of the driver side rear of the car and the words “KEEP CLEAR”
painted on the street clearly shown. I then posted the picture on a Facebook
crime watch page for our city and basically pointed out that so many of us
these days only obey the rules when it suits us. We often turn a blind eye to
rules when they cause inconvenience or seem silly to our own way of seeing
things. I didn’t even call it a crime, I just pointed out that many of us just
don’t feel any compelling reason to obey the rules much anymore.
Again, I made an effort to not show the car’s license plate, the
person’s face, or even any street signs. I just called on those who are part of
our community to maybe think about more than just themselves. To respect the
law and how what they do affects the other people around them.
So.
So.
So, for a little while, the responses on Facebook were in agreement,
sarcastically humorous or curious as to whether this person’s behavior was
really all that egregious.
Then.
Then a couple of people came on. Trolls I assume.
And, it got ugly. Way ugly.
They told me that I ought to get a life, punctuated with a few really
choice 4 letter words. They schooled me on my being a dirtbag for Facebook
shaming this person. And… it went on… and on… and on.
Until.
Until I decided to take down my post. I took it down after it had only
been up for maybe 30 – 40 minutes. I took it down because I realized that
pointing out other’s thumbing their noses at the rules wouldn’t really change
anything. I realized that when people say, “If you see something, say
something,” it did not refer to a minor traffic violation.
But I mainly took it down because these other Facebook users had shamed
me to the point that it really stung.
It stung no matter what my intentions were.
It stung even though I was very aware of the irony of someone severely
Facebook shaming me in front of my whole community.
This is what we’ve become, a society of anarchists. We write our own
rules and laws and stuff our little personal constitution into the back pocket
of our mind to be whipped out viciously at the slightest provocation. We won’t
let anyone or anything cause us to place into question our personal beliefs or
our actions. It jeopardizes our core beliefs not only about ourselves, but
about our own worldview.
“Don’t you judge me!!”
We’ve truly lost our way.
Folks, this is what anarchy looks like.
All of us thinking that nobody has any right whatsoever to call us out
for anything.
We make the rules or at least decide when it’s ok to cross a boundary.
And many of us wonder why our politicians feel so empowered, especially
here in California to ignore us. To enact laws and taxes without providing us
with our right to vote on their decisions.
It’s why they no longer truly punish those who commit crimes in
California, at least if the monetary value is under $1,000. It’s why those who
run our state keep creating new laws that protect the “rights” of criminals and
not the victims.
Our country and our state are increasingly divided because those who
rule over us do not enact justice on those who should have incurred it. We have
one side who worships their false god of the “honorable thief.” A person who
does not exist.
Victim’s blood cries out from the ground and these days only God hears
them. Our rulers do not. And, our rulers don’t have any courage or desire to
stand up to the criminals in this country and truly bring justice by executing
harsh punishments that would truly bring back deterrents to future crime.
It’s as if they were not afraid that a civil war could come again. I
know many in this state and in this country who would not be afraid to enter
into a civil war if that’s what it took to bring back a respect for the rule of
law and a respect for our country’s constitution.
As for me, I stand in the middle of that great divide.
I believe that we need to be willing to have dialog between all
parties. I believe that we need to be unafraid to compromise where something
could be given up that is less important. However, I also believe that we
cannot live under delusions that freedom comes without cost. We equally cannot
delude ourselves that big government and unsustainable programs that ride on
enslaving us to unreasonable taxation in order to feed the machine are good
either.
Free is a myth.
So, I learned a small but valuable lesson earlier this week. Don’t
sweat the small stuff, but be ready to defend myself when a real threat occurs
because there are apparently many around me who don’t believe that there are
solid lines defining right and wrong anymore, nor are there many who believe
that the rules should apply to them.
So for now, I’ll keep watching my back. Doing what God says is right
and letting Him deal with those doing wrong around me.
Have a blessed week.
Mike <><
