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Halloween Rant
Hello everyone, OK, first I would like to ask for a brief moment of silence for the death of innocence in our collective society. Some have accused me of growing somewhat cold and bitter in my relative old age, but I can't help but shed a proverbial tear in mourning for the death of something very dear to my childhood. I'm talking about the time-honored tradition known as Trick-Or-Treating. I remember when I was a child, when Halloween came I would put on my Scooby Doo outfit and my parents would take me all over the west-side of Hopkinsville. We would start in the early evening, and wouldn't quit until around 10:00. And boy did I ever rake in the candy. But many kids today won't have fond memories like that when they grow up. Most likely to cut down on vandalism and pranks, this year Hopkinsville set a Trick-Or-Treat curfew for 7:30. And as I drove down the streets on my way home from my current networking job, I couldn't help but notice that far more houses didn't have the porch light on than did--something like a 5 to 1 ratio. But worse than that, increasingly various towns and municipalities are doing away with Trick-Or-Treat all together. This legislation undoubtedly comes from the same people who think year-round school years are a good idea, and are doing away with recess. Excuse me, even prisoners get recess!! Remember the mother in "Miracle on 34th Street"? Some people just don't want to allow kids to be kids. These are the same people who are teaching a generation of youth nothing but contempt for the law with all of their inflexible "Zero Tolerance" nonsense. The only thing I have zero tolerance for is oppressive laws that are oppressive just for the sake of being oppressive. I could tell you some of the outrageously invasive rules that were in effect where my girlfriend went to college, but I would get in big trouble for it and it wouldn't be worth it. We're talking almost as bad as Bob Jones University here, folks. But I know that if I had gone there I would have gotten kicked out within the first semester, most likely on purpose to make a statement. However, at the same time we are moving in an opposite direction: the Boy Scouts are coming under fire for daring to set certain standards for their scout masters. They don't allow open homosexuality. Some decry it as "hate", but others have religious objections to homosexuality, and believe it or not we do have freedom of expression of religion in this country. Or at least we are supposed to. Some people may not like it, but no one is forcing them to make their kids be Boy Scouts. There are other, more liberal organizations you know. But I digress. Back to the issue at hand. Why is the beloved custom from our youth quickly becoming a thing of the past? Well, for one thing we have become the most litigation happy culture in the history of civilization. America has something like 6% of the world's population, yet about 90% of the world's lawyers. And this is slowly translating into one of the most sickening climates of fear that has ever existed, short of Nazi Germany or Stalin's USSR. If someone trespasses on your land without permission, and gets hurt, you can be sued for damages. Dare to speak your mind about something you feel strongly about, and offend some overly sensitive twit who belongs to some politically-protected group, and you could get sued. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if someone tries to sue me over something I might say in a future Rant. I don't think any of my friends would sue me, but I happen to know that it is already being forwarded and disseminated well beyond my circle of friends, and it will also be posted and archived on my website in the near future, so where it will end up and who will see it is anybody's guess. Bring it on is all I've got to say. I have already been personally threatened with a frivolous lawsuit from my former boss Adolph for daring to leave his lousy Popsicle stand and go work for myself in an unrelated business. Fortunately, my own lawyer and everyone else who knows anything at all about the case have told me that they don't believe he has a leg to stand on should he actually be so foolish. But even if someone does manage to win some bogus suit against me, I got a big surprise for 'em--you can't get blood from a turnip. My friend and business associate Chris could tell you how badly he was screwed in a recent divorce he went through. So could another friend of mine named Dave Carroll. In fact, that is a common trend that happens to most men when they get divorced when there are children involved. The man could be one of the most solid upstanding members in the entire community, and the woman could be some lowlife crack-whore, yet the woman will get custody of the children nine times out of ten, and the man will have to pay a large portion of his earning to her every month--money which isn't even tax deductible. I've seen it happen too many times, to too many good guys, and it scares me to death. If and when I ever get married, my wife will have to understand that divorce will not ever be an option. Part of what makes the whole thing so frightening to me is the total arbitrariness of it. My dad was in a horrendous car wreck that wasn't his fault. Both his knees were injured, two of the disks in his back were shattered, and he had a concussion. He has had to have two rounds of back surgery, and even after six years is still in a lot of pain. The doctors said there is no way he can ever hold down a job again. He was an excellent cop for over ten years, and a renowned local expert in martial arts--but all of that is history for him now. His life as he knew it is pretty over. Yet he had to fight tooth and nail with the other guy's insurance company, and ended up having to sue them--he won, but can anyone guess how much he got for all of his pain and suffering and loss? $100,000, of which his lawyer got 1/3. That barely covered the medical expenses he had already incurred. Never mind all of the continuing check-ups and physical therapy and medicine that he would need. My parents are now living off of the pitiful $500 a month he gets from the government for disability, what my mom brings in, and what little my brother and I can pay them in rent. Not much. But yet if he had been a woman, and some man had pinched his butt or made some kind of lude sexual joke in front of him, he'd be set for life now! Am I the only one whom that stroke of injustice infuriates to the point of rage?!? Anyway, you guys might ask how all of this relates to Halloween? Well, there are all kinds of scenarios where people can be sued for the heinous crime of merely being generous with the neighborhood kids and allowing them to Trick-Or-Treat at your house. I pulled in these three example from MSN, in no particular order, but if you think real hard I'm sure you can come up with others just as ridiculous yet entirely plausible. - Your 8-year-old next-door neighbor cuts across your front lawn and trips -- maybe on leaves, or her own feet. It's unclear, because it's dark outside. She falls and breaks an arm. You could be liable from $100,000 to more than $1 million. - A local hooligan saunters onto your property. You kick him off your property, using unreasonable force, and his leg is broken. Again you could be held liable for insane amounts of money. - You throw a big bash and an intoxicated guest crashes his or her car on the way home. Many states have laws or legal precedent that hold a host responsible for any injuries or property damage done by a guest who has left a party after consuming too much alcohol. A party host can be held responsible for payment of medical bills, vehicle repairs, lost time from work and claims for a wrongful death, which can result in huge monetary settlements. This last scenario has destroyed many college fraternity chapters, and that along with the cancer of "political correctness" infesting our nation, threatens to wipe out the entire Greek Fraternity / Sorority tradition that has thrived among institutions of higher learning since ancient times. I'm sorry, but I see a common denominator here and it is lack of responsibility. It is about greedy lawyers in cahoots with sell-out judges who are setting insane precedents so they can pillage and plunder from victims of irresponsible people who feel they must blame and collect from others for tragedies of their own making. Case in point: the Big Tobacco settlement. Now I will probably offend many on this list by saying this, but I kind of agree with my dad that there should be no smoking in public restaurants. I am all about personal freedom, but when your freedom impairs my health--sorry! But are the tobacco companies responsible because you were stupid enough to take up the habit of smoking? Could you not read the big bold Surgeon General's warning on the side of the pack. Hey, you took the gamble and you gotta take the consequences pal. The same thing goes for the gun manufacturers' suits that were highly politically motivated, and thankfully have been mostly thrown out as frivolous. But the modern-day gun-grabbers learned their tricks from the Nazis and the Soviets, who had to disarm their citizens before they could enslave them, so don't expect them to give up easily or fight fair. (As promised, my full-fledged gun control Rant is still coming.) Anyhow, since it is Halloween and all, I decided to devote this rant to some real life horrors that are all around us and will probably affect many of you at some point in your life. If you aren't frightened by these horrors, you should be. Be afraid... very afraid. And vote your conscious next Tuesday. Peace, Elmo Click here to return to the previous page. |
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