As a personal favor, would you read this?
I want to respond to your statement, Bushies...[t]ime get off your self-righteous morality high-horse and start paying a little more attention.
I'm speaking for myself here, not somebody else or some group. I voted for Bush, so you can lump me into your "Bushies" group if you feel the need. Politics is not the thing I am most interested in, the election is over, and I have tried to move on.
But, your post caught my attention, so here goes:
Let's assume, for the purposes of discussion, that I am a male baby boomer. Let's also assume that at some point in the past I was a little wilder than the average guy. I was a Bad Boy. I did things that I later realized were mistakes.
I learned some things from my mistakes. How I learned is not relevant, but you can be assured that I was paying attention on that day in Reality 101. One thing I learned was that if I continued being a Bad Boy, then at some point in the future, it would all catch up to me. I also figured out that most of the stuff I was doing hurt not only me, but also other people. I noticed that the bad things that happened to me seemed to have some connection to the bad things I was doing myself. It even appeared possible at several points that my entire adventure might be cut short.
I also realized that the difference between most of the people I was around and a few others was that after I did something I thought was wrong and then realized it was wrong, I felt bad
But a few of the people I was hanging out with didn't seem to care much about right and wrong. I was lucky enough to realize that they were Very Bad Boys and Girls, who did bad things and didn't care about the consequences. I realized that they didn't care about anyone but themselves. They did not appear to have any remorse.
I realized that if I continued, my future was not going to be very nice. I stopped doing the things that I thought were wrong. Then I looked at what I had done in the past and said to myself, "I can't change that, but I can change the future. From now on, I am going to do whatever I can to be a Good Boy."
I felt a lot better. I even started going back to church every so often, like my parents had made me do when I was a little kid.
That was 23 years ago. Right now I feel fine. Not only that, not much bad is happening to me. Mostly really good, only a little bad.
My attitude over the last 23 years about other people has evolved into something pretty simple. If I can trust somebody to not lie to me, steal from me, or cheat me in some way, then I'd like to be around them. If somebody lies to me, steals from me, or cheats me in some way, then I don't want to be around them. Pretty simple, eh?
I also learned that the people that acted like they were my friends and then lied to me, cheated me, or stole from me were the ones that caused me the most anguish, because they seemed to have one quality in common. That quality was that they assumed that almost everyone in the whole world was like them; that everyone lied, cheated, and stole. They also assumed that the small minority of people that didn't lie, cheat, and steal were just too stupid to see the truth, which was that almost everyone lies, cheats, and steals.
In other words, I realized that criminals think that people fall into two groups; criminals and people who are too stupid to be criminals.
I think that's why the media has branded George Bush "stupid". (For example, I don't see anyone saying that Bill Clinton is stupid because he doesn't know the definition of the words "is" and "alone". Those are pretty simple words.)
Now, I am not saying that you are a criminal. I am not saying that you are wrong and I am right. I'm not saying I'm perfect.
Here is what I am saying: you can tell me that I am "self-righteous" and I need to get off my "morality high-horse" all you want. Anything I haven't made up for yet, I'm working on.
That argument that I need to feel bad because I am not a criminal will not work on me anymore, because I don't lie, cheat, and steal. I don't do business with liars, cheaters, and thieves. I don't like them. They are not trustworthy. I ignore them simply because I don't want to waste my time trying to figure out if they are screwing with me or not. If you don't quite understand what I mean, write a letter to Jesse Jackson's wife and ask her if she trusts him. You think Bill and Hillary trust each other?
There's more. Not only do I feel this way about myself, but I feel this way about you, too. I firmly believe that you shouldn't trust liars, cheaters, and thieves, because the other thing you said is true: what goes around, comes around.
Scream all you want, but it won't change me. |
