Month: September 2017

That is one crazy statement, right!  I will explain.  Last night, I was watching the movie In the Heat of the Night.  For those who don’t know the movie the setting is Sparta, Mississippi in the 1960’s.  A black police detective from Philadelphia is pulled into the investigation and is entangled in the racial hazards of the segregated South, along with the murder investigation.  It was the Best Picture and Rod Steiger, who player the sheriff won the Oscar for Best Actor.  Watching the movie that was made in 1967, during a period in which I was witness to rioting going on a few blocks below me from my apartment in the City of Oakland, and knowing what watching that movie was like then and watching it 50 years later and to know what it is like to see it as a reflection on a period so long and yet so short time ago, it made realize that no one has really seen Romeo and Juliet and understood it completely since the time it was written.

It goes back to what my first History professor at UTEP taught me, and what I always tried to instill in my students.  It is the recognition that we can not judge the past from the present, as in order to understand what happened you have to know and understand the context in which it happened.

So in order to get a little feeling of what In the Heat of the Night was like seeing in a theater in 1967, even lectures in history of that time could  never recreate the same tensions, same exposed nerves, same passions and so on, is impossible to do.  The story lines for Romeo and Juliet and In the Heat of the Night are standards and often retold in many variations.  But, the only time In the Heat of the Night impacted the audience as it did when Sheriff Gillespie, asks the black detective what they call him up north in Philadelphia, spitting a racial slur?  The detective snarls back, ” They call me, Mister Tibbs.”

Knowing that, it is impossible to watch a production of Romeo and Juliet today and have anything close to the same experience the audiences had at Stratford-on-Avon.

Perhaps a little something to keep in mind for a number of reasons.

Let’s start real simply.  We have to start with the basic premise that you are responsible for what you do.  If you walk forward it is because you choose to walk forward.  Then we have to assume that you understand that if you choose to walk forward you will be in a place you were not before, and that you understood that with your action of walking forward you would have to be prepared to deal with any changes that came from that action.  Very simple. We are responsible for our actions and inactions.  Not only are we responsible for our actions and inactions, we are responsible for our own selves regarding our response to actions and inactions that act upon us.  If it rains, we are responsible for our response to it. So, we start with we are responsible for how we function in life.

Some of us perhaps are better than others at handling this responsibility than others.  I say perhaps because that is a matter of opinion on more than one level.  What is better, and how is “handling” defined?  You see, that is when it gets complicated.  Remember that the starting point is crystal clear.  We are responsible for our lives.  But, it gets so complicated, because we and they have opinions about how others are handling that responsibility.  Sometimes, the opinion is almost universal.  Sometimes we see what we know is a situation in which someone is not going to be able to live up to their responsibility for their lives, through no fault of their own.  Even that is subject to opinion. And the responses are based on those opinions.  Most of our fellow humans see starving children and make judgements about how responsible the children are for their situation and how best to respond to someone who is failing in that basic responsibility for one’s own life.  So we next recognize that how others are handling that responsibility and what our response should be to it is a matter of individual opinion.

Imagine 10 children, oh say 10 years old rock hounding in a large field.  In this case, their specific life responsibility is to find nice rocks.  After spending a few hours they return with the rocks they have found.  Each child is different, has different abilities, desires, motivations, limitations, all of those things that make every person and individual.  What the returned with is the results of their efforts or lack of, and their response to factors not of their control.  Not all places to look are equal and not all rocks are equal.  So, of course the outcomes where not equal.  That is how life works.  When looking at the rewards of their efforts, each child had their own opinion of how well they had done, and their opinion of how the other children had done.  They debated which was better, three pieces of petrified wood or the single geode the other had found.  There was one child who hadn’t found any rocks and was happy with that(he had been much more interested in collected ants which he now  held in a zip lock bag) and there was one child with three rocks that he had decided were worthless.  At the end of the day, they all went their way, and went on with the other aspects of living their lives.

Now, imagine the same trip into the field, and imagine a teacher taking rocks from some children to give to other children that the teacher, in their opinion would be more “fair”.  That teacher is a thief!  No matter how well intentioned he or she may be, that teacher is wrong.  First, each child was responsible for the outcome of their efforts and she, based on God knows what, tossed that aside.  That is wrong twice.  It is wrong by throwing out the results of the children’s efforts, and it is wrong because it assumes that the teacher’s opinion of the outcome is more important than all of the factors that went into making the results the way they were.  In their misguided effort to make life “fair” in their opinion, they have committed the act of taking someone else’s rewards of their efforts without their permission.  That is theft.

OK, the same field trip as above, but this time, the teacher doesn’t take rocks from students to give to others, but the teacher convinces the students to take a vote on it. Using the teachers position of authority, the teacher gives the students their opinion of what would be “fair” and a quick lesson on democracy and asks them to take a vote on it.  The children are convinced of the teacher’s opinion of “fair” and vote to take the rocks from some to give to others.  It is no longer theft.  But, it is still wrong and for the same two reasons as above.

Finally, in the trip, the students return and two of the kids decided to share their finds with two other students.  One of the children had only found two rocks, but gave one to another friend who had found three of their own, but the two friends determined that what was right for them was what they had done.  Another child who had found a fistful of nice pieces of petrified wood felt bad about another child who had found none and gave him a nice piece of petrified wood, which the student proceeded to lose when he dropped it to go collect another dozen or so ants.  No wrong was done here.  No one’s opinions were overruling basic laws of life in order to take from others.

I hope you can recognize the Socialist/Communist and all others who would take from others based on opinion dictators.  Large and small.  Taking a vote to take other people’s stuff doesn’t make you a thief.  But, it doesn’t absolve you of the crime you have committed.  You are welcome to have the opinion that others with much should give some to others who don’t.  That is your opinion.  You have the natural right to give away your rewards of your efforts to others.  But, just because a majority votes to take another person’s rewards of their efforts, it doesn’t make it right.

Think about being a kid and going to a friend’s house and deciding he had much cooler toys than you, and lots of them so you were going to take a few home.  Only when you grow up do you end up thinking that is cool?  That is a right that you grew into.  That is a right you learned that was right as you grew and learned?  Oh, if that kid has a party and a few friends at the party vote on it and they all take toys home?  Now, it is ok, because that is democracy.  At what age do you learn that.  When did your parents start teaching you that.  Early on, middle school, high school?

Those receiving unearned taken rewards of other’s labors are being given another gift, a horrible one.  They are being given unjustly taken rewards that provide just enough comfort to deprive someone of motivation to take responsibility.  Here is the kicker, the monster that is.  You see, if you are not responsible for outcomes in life, if everything is “not my fault”, or someone else’s fault, there is no reward or credit for your actions in life.  As I used to tell my students, if you aren’t responsible for that “F” then you can’t take credit for that “A”.  Stealing their shot at an “a” by taking points from other’s scores and giving those points to the failing student to allow them to pass with a “D” is wrong.  It is dishonest.  And theft.  The A student did better than he will get credit for.  In life, he has been cheated because he will be represented by that grade as less than he is, others he meets will be cheated because they will not give him his due, and the poor bastard that got the free points is now really in a pickle. I used to say that sending a child onto the next grade only to fail is about as right sending a soldier into battle without a rifle.  Oh, and how kind is it for that child to be in the next grade to become the recipient of the now altered perceptions of their fellow students that next year.  Everyone loses.

Promoting charity is one thing.  Each person can make up the own minds.  You know what that is called?  Freedom.  When someone else makes up your mind for you that is the exact opposite of freedom.  Democratically voting to steal someone’s freedom is still wrong.  How many times did we see the Soviet Politburo unanimously vote to do what was wrong under communism? There was a reason they had to build walls to keep people in!

The thing is, even when the Soviet Union fell apart and people celebrated their freedom from the crush of the Iron Curtain, the communists didn’t all of a sudden wake up and realize they were the dictators the people had been freed from.  No, the simply do what the left has always done when their name comes to represent the truth of their failure, they simply change names.  In the United States, that kind of assault on freedom was so antithetical to all that America represents that the Communist Party could never take root.  So, Americans who would be communists if the had their way, and that includes all socialists, as eventually people get more and more tired of the basic premise socialism and communism share-taking from one to give to another.  For you who don’t see it, just because you are a Socialist or a Communist, if you think taking from others is right you are the same as the rest.  The basic thought is the same.  Your opinion of what you think is “fair” outweighs that person’s freedom.  That is the definition of a tyrant. Put your selves right there with Mao, Stalin, Fidel, and Hugo only you weren’t as ambitious.  Your tyranny is on a smaller scale, perhaps.  I don’t care if you are Mother Teresa, if you money was taken without the person’s consent to do what you do, you are a thief.  One who does good, maybe.  Kind of like Al Capone, right?

When you go to church and they pass the collection plate, I urge you to donate your money.  Those of you who are little tyrants should show the courage of your convictions and reach into the person next to you that you thinks isn’t giving enough’s pocket-book or wallet and take out some more of their money for them and put it in the plate.  Tell them that it is your opinion that they are giving enough.  I know it is church and all, but if you could somehow get video of that, I like to see it.