Friday, March 23, 2012

It would be very easy...

...to be condemning of the police or other authority types for their tendency to hastily resort to using tasers or other means of self-defense when dealing with turbulent situations.

However, spending one day to go out shopping, and the bus rides back home were enough to remind me what kind of volatile social climate this culture really is.

At one point there was a woman sitting in the back talking on her cell phone, going off about some other lady she's been having problems with---referring to her in expletives and other derogatory terms, running off about how "the next time I see her I'm spitting in her motherfuckin' face"...
...the driver finally had to get on the internal P.A. system and ask that she "refrain from using profanity on the bus".

Then, later on, some woman opened a window because the air conditioning on the bus was set a bit high and she was cold.
(Granted, it was a bit chilly inside the bus I'll admit)
Well, the driver told her she had to close it (because apparently the policy is such that windows are to remain shut while the air conditioning---or heater---is running).
But the passenger was defiant and proceeded to verbally argue with the driver in a combative manner, even cussing him out once or twice.
Strangely enough she was still on the bus when I got off.

But the point I'm trying to make is that people in this society are so loud and aggressive
---the way so many shout back-and-forth at each other when they're out-and-about on the streets walking around, or even when driving around, the way they "have to" yell out at each other.

And the way so many people are cocky and inconsiderate of the presence of others around them when in public places, often hogging aisles and doorways in stores and restaurants, or just standing around on the sidewalks in large groups forcing pedestrians to walk on the grass or step out in the street in order to continue walking.

The radical sense-of-entitlement so many people have that makes them so bossy and despotic.
This inability to discern between "standing up for oneself when wronged" and downright extortionism that seems to be the common modern-day norm.
...loud-mouthed and imposing...
obviously having "Constitutional Rights" implies entitlement to getting what one wants at the expense of those-who-don't-matter-anyway.

Oftentimes I find myself wishing I had my own taser the way so many people come off so menacing and like such chronic "loose cannons".
I'd be willing to use it in the most sticky situations, even if I wasn't licensed or authorized to have such a weapon and doing so meant getting locked up and "criminalized".

I can sort of understand if those-in-authority have low opinions of the general public and if they view most people as being so potentially "threatening" enough as to necessitate a policy of a no-nonsense "don't take a chance, just be ready to get them before they get you" type of mindset.

I, too, feel quite uneasy around a lot of "average" people myself...
...of course I also feel quite uneasy around a lot of authority figures as well.
...But that's probably because, as an social outcast, no-one's likely to "take sides with" me in any situation no matter who they are.

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