JimBowie1958
Old Fogey
- Sep 25, 2011
- 63,590
- 16,797
- 2,220
In my life I have only met a few really mean people. I thought most people were mean until I found out I had Aspergers, then a have since gradually realized that I just didnt understand people at all.
But this is why people used to have 'lines' they expected others to not cross. Cross these lines and you get a whole can of 'whopped ass' dumped on you. Lines like 'Dont ridicule a mans wife or mother,' 'Dont go after the children,' 'Dont slam on a guys religion,' etc all used to be fairly understood, but they are not universal concepts any more. Genuine 'MEan people' would do what they could to make you mad, feel sad or unwelcome, etc, but jsut short of 'crossing the line' into justifiable retribution. Most of them would go into professions where they could be mean as part of their jobs, like drill sergeants, prison guards, dentists and telephone switchboard operators, lol.
And there were other lines than Whoop-Ass lines. There were also Kill-the-Bastard lines, like if you are fighting a guy and he goes for his car (maybe to get a gun? get friends to dog pile you?) or he pulls a weapon, or if he completely degenerates into savage behavior, such as harming defenseless innocent people, attacking our peace officers or officers of the court. But most liberals dont seem to have much regard for innocent people these days. Maybe they really do, deep down, but whatever it is that makes them showcase the mothers of thugs as some kind of victims it all amounts to the same thing.
Used to be, criminals were mostly 'good and decent' people who just had to do an occasional 'fix' to their lives and supplement their income with a little crime. That is what their friends would say, defending the memory of their pal who died robbing a bank or breaking into someones home at night. 'He was a good guy, but he never should have crossed that line.' The TV series Lonesome Dove used that trope in a scene where one of their old friends had been riding with some outlaws across the Indian Territory and was with them when a series of murders were committed by the people he rode with. But his friends caught up, and as they were about to hang their friend, they knew he was a 'good guy', but that didnt matter; he had 'crossed that line'. One said, 'If you ride with an outlaw, you die with an outlaw,' and that pretty well summed it all up, friend or no friend.
Such standards kept the peace on the frontier better than disarming everyone does in South Chicago and the crime rates back then in Indian Territory were lower than Philadelphia's.
But we, as a culture, seem to have lost this notion that there are any lines at all. We are a nation of criminals and have no claim to innocence any more, and we all 'deserve what we got coming,' is the wide spread notion. We are all expected to sympathize with the mistreated, misunderstood monster walking on two legs instead of 'judging' him. There was a time when a persons behavior was considered to 'pass judgement' on themselves, but that era has plainly passed on.
We are all expected to forgive when some 'good guy' has their little moments of weakness, or has to pay the bills with some supplemental cash and a few bystanders get caught in the cross fire. Oh, too bad, so sad says the Chorus, but the monster is allowed to go his happity do dah way.
Not some, though. They dont forgive that shit, and if it happens to them they will do what they have to to protect their own and acquire closure for themselves. And 'I'm sorry' wont even slow them down, if they even hear that crap. And that is the problem for the munchkin society of today, way too many people wont ever drop their notions of 'not crossing lines'.
And that inevitably leads to another dead misunderstood criminal.
But this is why people used to have 'lines' they expected others to not cross. Cross these lines and you get a whole can of 'whopped ass' dumped on you. Lines like 'Dont ridicule a mans wife or mother,' 'Dont go after the children,' 'Dont slam on a guys religion,' etc all used to be fairly understood, but they are not universal concepts any more. Genuine 'MEan people' would do what they could to make you mad, feel sad or unwelcome, etc, but jsut short of 'crossing the line' into justifiable retribution. Most of them would go into professions where they could be mean as part of their jobs, like drill sergeants, prison guards, dentists and telephone switchboard operators, lol.
And there were other lines than Whoop-Ass lines. There were also Kill-the-Bastard lines, like if you are fighting a guy and he goes for his car (maybe to get a gun? get friends to dog pile you?) or he pulls a weapon, or if he completely degenerates into savage behavior, such as harming defenseless innocent people, attacking our peace officers or officers of the court. But most liberals dont seem to have much regard for innocent people these days. Maybe they really do, deep down, but whatever it is that makes them showcase the mothers of thugs as some kind of victims it all amounts to the same thing.
Used to be, criminals were mostly 'good and decent' people who just had to do an occasional 'fix' to their lives and supplement their income with a little crime. That is what their friends would say, defending the memory of their pal who died robbing a bank or breaking into someones home at night. 'He was a good guy, but he never should have crossed that line.' The TV series Lonesome Dove used that trope in a scene where one of their old friends had been riding with some outlaws across the Indian Territory and was with them when a series of murders were committed by the people he rode with. But his friends caught up, and as they were about to hang their friend, they knew he was a 'good guy', but that didnt matter; he had 'crossed that line'. One said, 'If you ride with an outlaw, you die with an outlaw,' and that pretty well summed it all up, friend or no friend.
Such standards kept the peace on the frontier better than disarming everyone does in South Chicago and the crime rates back then in Indian Territory were lower than Philadelphia's.
But we, as a culture, seem to have lost this notion that there are any lines at all. We are a nation of criminals and have no claim to innocence any more, and we all 'deserve what we got coming,' is the wide spread notion. We are all expected to sympathize with the mistreated, misunderstood monster walking on two legs instead of 'judging' him. There was a time when a persons behavior was considered to 'pass judgement' on themselves, but that era has plainly passed on.
We are all expected to forgive when some 'good guy' has their little moments of weakness, or has to pay the bills with some supplemental cash and a few bystanders get caught in the cross fire. Oh, too bad, so sad says the Chorus, but the monster is allowed to go his happity do dah way.
Not some, though. They dont forgive that shit, and if it happens to them they will do what they have to to protect their own and acquire closure for themselves. And 'I'm sorry' wont even slow them down, if they even hear that crap. And that is the problem for the munchkin society of today, way too many people wont ever drop their notions of 'not crossing lines'.
And that inevitably leads to another dead misunderstood criminal.
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