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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looking for someone to coddle your fragile sense of self-esteem, or tell you what you want to hear or to reinforce your outdated world view, then exit this page right now and go somewhere else.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...

 

February 19th, 2007

MAYBE WE SHOULD MAKE SYMPATHY ILLEGAL


In the past 40 years, the behavior police have done everything they can to control and modify our own, personal, fully legal choices. Smoking, gun ownership, fattening foods, spanking of children, lack of exercise, SUV's, charcoal, and everything else that has ever been fun have all been targeted by people who can't stand that you would actually choose, of your own free will, to do something they disagree with.

40 Years ago when America realized that smoking was bad for the human body, demands were made that warning labels be posted on all packs of cigarettes. When people continued to smoke, the behavior police's true colors were shown as they launched a now 4-decade long campaign to punish, demonize and ultimately outlaw smoking all together. Their motivation is simple; they can't believe or accept that you would have the audacity to make a choice they don't agree with.

The members of our society who are behavior police are all around us, cultivated by too many decades of tolerance and acquiescence on the part of the rest of us. Many of them want to control your behavior because they believe you are too stupid to make intelligent decisions for yourself, like knowing that fast food isn't healthy yet still choosing to eat it. Others want to control your behavior because they had a personal tragedy that they now feel obligated to force onto you by passing meaningless laws which will do nothing to stop the inevitable. Most notably are the idiotic safety laws that keep popping up to supposedly protect us from ourselves and other idiots (because we're all too stupid to handle life in the eyes of the behavior police). Laws mandating helmets for kids on bicycles, soda machines being yanked from schools and limits on purchases of cold medicines all come to mind as examples of this.

Recently, a new category of behavior police has popped up that is a sort of hybrid of hand-wringers. These are the people that want to pass laws to prevent things from happening that aren't even really happening yet. It's kind of like making something illegal before it's even possible. Imagine, if you will, the President announcing that effective today, no one in America could marry a space alien; it's akin to that… a sort of legislative pre-emptive strike.

To whit, last week, some idiot politician in New York decided that he can see the future and the future is that people are getting more and more incapable of making their own decisions and walking while chewing gum. Thank God for all of us, the nanny state is coming to the rescue. New York State Senator Carl Kruger says he will introduce legislation to ban the use of gadgets (yes, that's right he's actually using the term "gadgets" in his proposed law) while people are crossing the street. No more talking on cell phones, listening to I-pods or sending text messages while crossing the street because you are too stupid to multi-task and might be so distracted by the sounds of Gwen Stefani that you won't notice the 18 wheel truck running the red light and bearing down upon your poor, stupid, helpless soul. Thank the lord for Mr. Kruger and his future-seeing machine. I am sure, by the way, that outlawing this practice will immediately lower the number of pedestrian deaths. (Read about this dopey law by clicking here)


The truth, of course, is that none of these laws ever work. When Washington D.C became the only city in America to ban handgun ownership amongst its citizens, it immediately became the most violent crime ridden city in the nation, a title it still holds 25 years later. When we made it a law that children had to wear helmets while on bicycles, childhood deaths while riding their bikes actually increased because helmets don't stop your skull from crushing, but they do blind your vision in crucial spots. We continue to pass laws outlawing cell phone use while driving, yet study after study continue to show that cell phones are, at worst, the 9th most likely cause of accidents. No one cares, of course about logic and fact, though, they only care about FEELING good about themselves and FEELING like they are making a difference… truth be damned.

This brings us to a worlds-colliding moment. In Seattle, the Aurora Bridge has become known as the Golden Gate of the north, or more specifically, "Suicide Bridge." A whopping (brace yourself) 39 people have jumped to their death from this bridge over the past 10 years. As word of this epidemic raged, lawmakers have done all they could to stem the tide by installing 6 emergency phones and 18 signs that display the suicide hotline number around the bridge. This, all under the same misguided notion that laws and policies will prevent humans form making self destructive choices.

Now a new problem has arisen. As we have become a more sensitive society, the Suicide Bridge has begun to take its toll on the living. There are countless businesses in view of the bridge and its landing area 155 feet below its peak. 45,000 cars travel the bridge everyday and now the masses are being exposed to the horror of witnessing these seemingly non-stop suicidal jumps (which, once again just to remind you, occur at a rate of less than 4 times each year). As a result of all of this accessibility, the suicides are starting to hurt the mental health of workers and drivers in the area of the bridge who are forced to gaze upon the occasional jumper and/or the after effects of the fatal decision. One business, a Cutter and Buck factory, actually employs a full-time grief counselor solely to comfort people who must deal with the horrors of a total stranger jumping off a bridge in their line of sight. How dare the dead person burden the living with such images? (click here to read the news article)

Now, far be it from me to use logic and common sense in a nation that now runs on emotion and stupidity, but I have an idea I'd like to walk you through;

POINT ONE

Behavior police believe that passing laws to make things illegal will stop people from committing behaviors they don't agree with or like.


POINT TWO

In Seattle, there are 6 phones and 18 signs, along with the already existing laws against jumping off the bridge specifically and the broader law against harming yourself (or at least being protected and/or prevented from doing so to the best of law enforcement's ability), yet people are still jumping off bridges.


POINT THREE

The new problem is the sympathy and sadness people feel for the jumpers and for themselves having to witness people breaking the law by jumping to their own deaths.


LOGICAL CONCLUSION

Using the behavior police's own train of thought, it is simply time to ban and/or make illegal all sympathies. Kids are still dying while riding their bikes, people are still drinking and driving, adults are still smoking and eating trans fat, it's time to attack this problem at its heart: the heart. Let's pass a law to make it illegal to feel badly and/or judge anyone for anything, ever. I'm sure it will work and improve all of our lives dramatically.



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