12/9/11

The phrase "Rule of thumb" comes from an old English law that stated you could not beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb...

And to quote a line from one of my all time favorite movies..."Boondock Saints"...'well, now, ya can't do much damage with that now can ya...perhaps it shoulda been called rule of wrist'...LOL...if you've never seen the movie, it comes highly recommended...as well as the sequel...but seriously folks...considering some of the laws of other countries that are still on the books to this day...I'm sure you'll agree the 'rule of thumb' law would be considered mundane...for instance there are a couple countries that go beyond cruel and unusual when doling our penalties and punishments...an example...a couple of Middle Eastern countries...where Islamic law is adhered to...and alcohol consumption is considered taboo...a first time offense for Drunk Driving not only lands the accused in jail for life...but if the soon to be imprisoned is married...if he dies while serving his term and his spouse is still alive she must finish out the sentence...the 'rule of thumb' law...as well as many other feminine restrictive laws have been abolished in this country...it is a shining example of a society making progress...however several of the laws we adhered to in the golden olden days that have been laid by the wayside in favor of more compassionate punishments have failed miserably...for instance public executions...somethiing that at one time...in this country as well as others...was extremely effective in curbing further violence...nowadays we sentence them to life in prison...or to death in a few states...and they sit in a cell for decades at the taxpayers expense...filing appeal after appeal...getting nowhere until finally they have exhausted all efforts and been given a date of execution...back in the day if you were arrested for suspicion of murder your ass got locked up...you spent at most a week in jail waiting for the Judge to come around...you were then granted a 2 to 3 day trial...and if you were found guilty your ass was hangin from a rope in the middle of town square for all to see within a couple days of being sentenced...sent a pretty strong message to those who came forth to witness the hanging...and I honestly think that is one area in which we as a society dropped the ball...I mean honestly...consider for a moment a nationally known newspaper covering the story of a serial rapist...a suspect is arrested...placed on trial...found guilty without question thru DNA testing and eyewitness accounts from several of his victims...in today's society this fuckin deviant gets to spend a life in prison at our expense...on my damn dime...and what is the message we send to other would be serial rapists???  That it's okay to commit seriously violent acts towards women and if you end up being caught...the worst that's gonna happen is you get free room and board...no hard labor...time in the yard to exercise...no bills...no responsibilities...other than the jail cell and being restricted to an area within the walls of the prison...it's equivalent to being grounded by your parents...now, on the other hand if we had simply taken a few of the old ideas and expanded on them we could have better served society...take the same situation...only this time upon being found guilty...the rapist is sentenced to...let's say an equally violent act of public humiliation...like for instance having his fifth extremity permanently removed by a miniature version of the guillotine and cauterized with the stump end of Kojak's cigar...air it on every local and national television station Friday nights @ 9pm EST...the rapist is offered no further medical care...no painkiller prescriptions...and is released back into society to fend for themselves the following morning...I'm pretty damn sure one half hour episode of this and the crime rate associated with rape declines by double digit percentages overnight...now I'm NOT saying we should go back to encouraging spousal abuse as a method of trying to achieve a level of marital bliss...but we DO need to take a serious look at what exactly we are allowing to be ingrained into the minds of our children as acceptable these days...I bring this up because of a tragic incident that took place in our little town of East Jordan this past Wednesday which culminated in the suicide death of a 12 year old young man attending the 7th grade...rumors were all too quick to place the blame on the epidemic of our times...schoolyard bullying...now altho I feel for the family involved I must confess I find it extremely difficult to believe this young man chose suicide as an escape simply because of name calling...suicide is quite often the result of a much deeper underlying problem that goes unnoticed or ignored by an individuals immediate peer group...back in the day...hazing...or bullying...was considered almost a right of passage...and most if not all of my generation were sunject to it in one form or another...hell I was a white teenager living in Hawai'i...in the '80's...and for those of you have never experienced being on the receiving end of racial bias...let me be the first to tell you it wasn't all palm trees and paradise...name calling was the least of my worries...protecting myself from physical harm and grave bodily injury by giant sunblocking Samoans and native Hawaiians played a much more prominent role...and even after we returned to the states...verbal assaults on an individual...their family members...as well as their suspected sexuality were commonplace...yet I don't seem to recall even one instance where I or any of my friends considered suicide as an escape route...no...as a matter of fact...if an individual continued to run his mouth recklessly and the recepient determined that they had heard enough the normal course of action was an afterschool altercation resulting in the premature extraction of a few of loudmouth Larry's teeth...or at least the attempt thereof...it did 2 things well...it quieted the offensive asshole making the remarks...and it placed everyone else on notice that you weren't going to condone such nonsense from that day forward...sure egos were bruised...some feelings were hurt...but everyone lived to see the next day...bullying is not the bastard step-child of teenage suicide...societies response to the situation is...we coddle the young...teach abstinence from violence...and endure remorse when a tragedy of this magnitude takes place...TIMEOUT has become the new age punishment...replacing the corporal punishment of yesteryear...you can't lay a finger on kids these days...physical punishment lands a disciplining parent in court on charges of child abuse...and yet silmultaneously we are held responsible for our childrens actions until they turn 18...and our only weapon of discipline is the ever effective TIMEOUT...WTF???  We have given absolute control of how our children act in the future to a group of individuals who aren't even old enough to vote...if you look at the humorous names I utilize to this day to describe certain segments of our population my ass owes the TIMEOUT chair an eternity of denim worn ass patterns...whatever happened to sticks and stones may break my bones but words will NEVER hurt me...how about teaching our children the time honored tradition of beating them at their own game???  I consider myself self educated when it comes to utilizing the English language...seldom...if ever do I engage in a war of words with someone and not come out victorious...simply because I have mastered our vocabulary to such an extent when I am thru with somebody they generally need an hour at the library with a dictionary to find out what the hell I just embarassed them with...but they don't run off looking for a rope or a razor...good lord I weep for future generations...now some might think I condone violence...well...to a point...and under the right circumstances I do...fight fire with fire as the saying goes...