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Congratulations!
You have finally landed on the one page on this entire site (and on the entire internet for that matter) that is purely without bullshit... my soapbox page. There are a lot of times during our show that, whether it's because of time constraints and other obligations, I don't always get to address some issues that I feel don't get the attention they deserve. There are even more times when I just don't feel like waiting until the show the next day to get some things off my chest. Thus, I have started the "Rob's Soapbox" page. If you have clicked on this page looking for someone to coddle your fragile sense of self-esteem, or tell you what you want to hear or to reinforce your outdated world view, then exit this page right now and go somewhere else. If you are in search of the last forum for reason and common sense left in the world, then sit back, relax, and enjoy. I make only one promise with this soapbox page... if you read long enough and often enough, you will eventually be offended. So here's my latest soapbox. Listen up, 'cause you just might learn something... |
August 17, 2003
The Asinine Things You People Say... Part 19
I have started referring to my "favorite" (insert sarcasm here) phone calls into the show as "Hall of Fame" calls. Anytime I see on my computer screen that someone is ready to make a complete ass of themselves by making a comment we have addressed 1,000 times before, I now use that term.
Over the next few weeks, months, Hell maybe years, I will document them all for you in this forum. Week number nineteen's entry is "Rob, you're over-thinking!"
I have railed against this complaint for years, usually with the retort, "No, I'm not over-thinking, it's you who is not thinking enough."
People get angry and frustrated with me when I take a news story and try to extrapolate it's impact on society to its final degree. For example, years ago when we started allowing people to absolve themselves of all personal responsibility by suing tobacco companies, I predicted it would be the beginning of a long and slippery slope. At the time of that statement, people wrote and called me telling me I was over-thinking. I was paranoid. I was being silly. No one was going to start suing fast food chains because they were fat. People wouldn't start bringing lawsuits against gun manufacturers because some human actually pulled a trigger. There was no way that an individual would sue a car company because a loved one died in an automobile accident. Sure enough, here we are ten years later and all of my "over-thinking" has proven to be fact.
Yet, people haven't learned their lessons.
We talk daily about the destruction of our society and culture and I am told daily that I am over-thinking. Last week, we were discussing a Chicago area school district which has now banned all students from riding their bikes near the school. They did this because ONE child was slightly injured last year in a car versus bike accident. ONE child. Like usual, we overreacted.
So my slippery slope argument was simple; if we're willing to outlaw bikes to keep the kids safe, I guessed, then the next logical step will have to be outlawing driving. I hypothesized that we will soon have "no driving zones" in a one-mile radius around schools across the country, all in yet another mis-guided attempt to be overly protective of our children.
When I said it, I believed it and meant it. Sure enough, someone called and told me I was an over-thinking idiot. "That would never happen, Rob," she said, "You're just being ridiculous."
The very next call we took was from a man who has a sister living in central California. He was calling to tell us that the town his sister lives in, and three surrounding areas, all already have "No driving zones" around the schools just as I described. There I go again, being ridiculous.
I understand that most people don't want to face the truth. The truth is a very scary thing, especially when you look around and really see what we're doing to our society. The fact is though that pretending it doesn't exist doesn't make it go away. Our society is cannibalizing itself through overly emotional policies and a complete dismissal of personal responsibility. So when you get right down to it, I'm not over-thinking, you're just not thinking…at all.
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