Friday, September 22, 2017

Observing Cretins

I think, at age 69, I am beginning to show signs of growing up.

Case in point.  I changed where I dress at the Y each morning.  I used to be back in the southeast corner with all the alpha males and FoxNews Republicans.  After the day I told the loudest of that crew to "just shut the fuck up," I moved to the opposite (northwest) corner because I couldn't stay where I was, listen to that garbage, and still be a civil person.  Kathie and I have also been coming later after all the alpha males pack up and go out looking for Muslims to terrorize.  Yesterday, however, that same loud guy wandered over to my part of the locker room and started a conservative rant.  "North Korea is good; America is bad.  That's what the Left thinks," he proclaimed.  I kept my mouth shut, pretended to be engrossed in packing up my bag, and ran through all the obvious comments I could summon to lay waste this moron, but I didn't say anything.  I zipped up my backpack and got the hell out of there before I started using language not appropriate for the Young Men's Christian Association.

Another case in point.  Earlier that same day I was in the weight room when a FoxNews Republican (It's hard to spot them at the Y just by looking.  They don't wear ill-fitting baseball caps there.), the same guy who turns pale every time he sees me because he thinks I'm a drag queen (He overheard me one day telling a friend that if I ever decided to go in drag, I had a nickname--Hyacinth), walked up to the old guy whose wardrobe alternates between his Knights of Columbus shirt and his tee from the NRA proclaiming "The Second Amendment.  America's First Homeland Security," and started freaking out about lazy welfare recipients.  "I worked hard to support my wife and children, by God.  Why should my tax dollars have to support people who are too lazy to work," or words to that effect. Again, I didn't say anything.  Don't worry, I had a wealth of good arguments guaranteed to lay waste this cretin's argument, but what would be the point?

But I've heard this argument from plenty of people who I number among my friends.  All those people, even the cretin, well, maybe the cretin, would be glad to offer help to someone who is "deserving,"  someone who is destitute through no fault of their own, but they get furious at the idea of helping someone who is "undeserving."

My response to that is always, "What difference does it make?"  Look at two individuals in need of help.  One of them is a mother who contracted AIDS through a blood transfusion.  Her husband, let's say, was killed while defending his country in one of those far off places where we think we need defending.  She has a little girl in need of day care.  Her illness makes full time work nearly impossible.  Breaks your heart, doesn't it?  Now look at another case.  A single mother with four children, all of whom have different fathers.  The mother has no clue who fathered who.  The mother is a crack addict.  Worse yet, she is black.  What money she makes comes from her part time job as a prostitute.  If she voted, if she even knew how to vote, she would undoubtedly vote Democratic.

Why would that YMCA cretin and some of my well-intentioned friends gladly offer tax dollar help to the first lady and get furious at offering help to the second?  It is the same tax burden, right?  The cretin will feel the same effect, or lack thereof, no matter who gets the money.  The cretin, by the way, is a big time church goer.  I wonder what Jesus would feel about those two miserable ladies?

The only reason I can put my finger on that explains the different reactions to those two welfare scenarios, is that the cretin wants to punish the prostitute for being lazy and immoral, the cretin wants to act as some kind of judge who rewards the good and punishes the wicked.  I suppose seeing the prostitute and her children dead outside of the homeless shelter at Lawrence and Park Avenue would be some sort of evidence that goodness has triumphed, that America was becoming great again.

If Jesus saw that he wouldn't be able to stop puking.  But I'm not gonna tell the cretin that.