When I hear about 9-11, or Katrina, or the bridge disaster in MN, I ask myself, who are these individuals that came to strangers aid? Was it only warriors of God? Was Minneapolis’ finest there to serve and protect? Was the military around to help lift these large slabs of concrete off of our neighbors?
I was not at any of these tragedies, but as our infrastructure crumbles, I am reminded of who the real heroes are, just regular people. People who may have, what the moralists call “flaws”.
I understand that there are amazing and dedicated police officers and emergency workers out there that care about their jobs, and the people they help, but the moralist individuals who label, class, and segregate the delinquents from the upstanding white guy.,:sarcasm emphasized:, are running the show.
To many of you, this may seem like a stretch, but let’s really think about it. Let us take a hypothetical couple who came upon the scene of one of these disasters, John and Sue Resqew. John pulled several people from out of harms way and Sue bandaged them up and made sure help was on its way. Sue also comforted these people in their greatest hour of need.
There is a problem though…
John Resqew likes to drink and smoke pot. He was arrested in the past for selling a dime bag to a police officer. He has tried meth, coke, and heroin, although he didn’t really like them, and he enjoys a whopping psychedelic experience on mushrooms every summer with his friends as a way to center himself.
Sue isn’t much better, she had an abortion when she was 24 years old, and has sex out of wedlock. She stripped once at an amateur night, just for the thrill of it, and enjoys going out and getting drunk with her girlfriends, one of which she’s had several lesbian experiences with.
Now, here is the dilemma, Moralists would tell you that John and Sue are horrible people, corrupting our youth and burdening the economy. “These people should be in jail!” they scream. But here is my question, what would have happened to all the people they helped? How much would you care about John’s drug habits while he’s pulling you from the middle of a catastrophe? Why do we lower our opinion of them when when our lives are not in danger?
The answer to these questions are obvious, and that is why prison is a bad idea, and moralists are stupid. Humans fuck up, we experiment, we live and love and fall down all the time. Some of us have people to keep us out of trouble, many of us do not. When someone is doing wrong by all of us, it is up to all of us to fix the problem. Our fearless leaders sure have not done anything to make it better here. I do not have the answers, but I have the capacity to see where systems do not work, and we are in the middle of one that broke down many moons ago.
Some of you may disagree, but you are dinosaurs. Extinction is imminent, there is a massive fire, and you won’t get up to check the thermostat.