Ever spend a day in municipal court or traffic court?
Don't.
You already know that there exist some, er, intellectually challenged folk. And there are those bereft of common sense. "Dumber than a bag of hammers" could describe the first group; the valiant members of the US Army gave us "He couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were printed on the bottom!" to describe those belonging in the second.
What you don't, really, really don't, want to learn -- have unpleasantly thrust into your consciousness, really -- is just how many adults properly belong in both categories.
Parents, I swear to this: teach your kids to read and write and to do arithmetic, and they'll grow up to rule the world. There is no competition.
My favorite example: a man was appearing in front of the court because he was cited for not wearing his seat belt while driving his car on Mesa Street, one of the main drags here in El Paso. Mind you, I yield to no one in my opposition to seat belt laws and to the necessity of privately-owned streets. But today, in El Paso, Texas, in the real world, streets are public, not private, and are patrolled by police, and seat belt laws exist. And all licensed Texas drivers know that such laws, and such police patrols, exist.
Pesky word, that: "knowledge."
This genius actually spoke aloud to the judge, asserting that the reason he hadn't been wearing his seat belt was: "There wasn't time, Your Honor. The officer was right there."
Well.
So you're in a parking lot and you pull out into a busy thoroughfare without noticing a marked police car. You are basically in the bag-of-hammers category and that is not an unjust conclusion.
Contesting the citation in court, and arguing that there wasn't time to avoid the ticket by putting on the seat belt because the officer was right there, Your Honor, puts you deep, deep, deep into pouring piss out of a boot territory.
Gentle readers, these people pilot 2000-pound (and larger) vehicles on our streets. They own firearms. They could secretly be breeding pit bulls with backhoes. They work in establishments producing goods and services upon which we depend (Mr. Wasn't Time was wearing a suit. My god...). And there's more...
What's going on in New York City right now? The Republican convention, right? It's an election year, folks, and these people vote. They are urged to vote.
They follow other urges, too: they breed.
Posted by Craig Ceely at September 1, 2004 07:11 PM