Get off of my lawn!

Something is occurring in Ames now that reminded me of being out in Omaha a year or two ago. I noticed when we were at an intersection to watch out as people kept turning left through a red light. Just blatantly running a red-light. My go-to Omaha source tells me 4 or 5 cars going left through the red is now the norm. She has been honked at from behind for not running the red! This phenomenon has really taken off here in Ames. Never thought I’d see it. Somebody’s going to get nailed. I suppose its been happening in big cities for decades. Society always breaks down in the cities first, then comes to the rural areas.

Its caused of course by cops not doing their job. Rudy Giuliani demonstrated this in New York with the ‘broken window theory’. He showed that if you didn’t tolerate the little infractions, the big ones took care of themselves. You end up being micromanaged by the city when traffic cameras start springing up everywhere. Then you start seeing people receive tickets for ridiculous infractions. The city will claim, “Oh we have to have these cameras (revenue enhancement) in the interest of public safety!” When of course the real answer is if your city employees the cops had done their job and let scoff laws know this wouldn’t be tolerated, we wouldn’t have this problem.

I see these little societal quirks as indicative of a bigger problem. An overall coarsening of society. It reminds me of the old days when half the population smoked. They would do it in rude and obnoxious ways, and did a lot to get themselves banned to the point where now there is not a bigger social pariah then someone who smokes cigarettes. Every generation likely thinks the world is going to hell in a handbasket as they get older, we’ll have to see if it is truly the big collapse. Or not.

One of the most irritating occurrences for an OCD person like myself, is watching Walmart shopping carts end up 3 or 4 blocks from the store. Abandoned. People just cavalierly steal them. In the same Walmart parking lot you’ll see people dump out their ashtrays onto the ground. Slyly set their drink cup outside their car door before driving away. Take up 2 parking stalls. All manner of rude behavior. Walmart is such a microcosm of society. When people no longer feel the need to do the right thing, when no one is watching, it makes you fear for the survival of self-governance.

As one of our founders said to the effect, “Our limited government is wholly inadequate for an immoral people.”

Self government only works for people who don’t need a nanny state. I think psychologists call it the “assholization” of society. I don’t want to get too technical though. The first trigger was at the credit union when I pulled up to the ATM. I would invariably notice on rainy days that people would leave up the lid on the envelope box so that all the envelopes would get ruined. They got theirs, so to hell with the next guy. Something tells me it doesn’t bode well for a culture when basic human decency is no longer the norm.

Our government of course wants to grow, so they foster the destruction of institutions that made America strong. Authoritarians thrive amongst a weak people.