dir/old_school/rant: G o i n g   t o   C o u r t

I like to think, the minute you pay a bill, any kind of bill, said payment should be assessed to your account and when your account is queried it should resolve that question. The system of me mailing a check to an office, where a worker, opens the envelope, takes the check, sends it on to another worker who then deposits it, thus sending notice to another worker who then notates I have paid it, seems like all the human interaction we should ever want in that process. It continues on though, where a person then, prints out a form, and then gets a unique sticker (made by other workers) staples that sticker to your form and then mails it to you, where you then have to affix it to your car. You already have a license plate, it already identifies your vehicle uniquely, so the sticker process seems like little more then justification of employment for workers. And this is no big argument for less government; it is a argument for more efficient government. Keep the fricking employees, just do something more meaningful with them and for us, since we pay there salaries.

I don't toss in fairness either, it makes sense that if you try to do something fair, fair might result in you being taxed for the value of said vehicle you have the money to purchase and it of course stands to reason that if your ride Is lined with luxury you can better afford it (a higher tax) then the guy with the vinyl bench seat, but fair to me equates to an arbitrary number. Own a car? Pay five hundred bucks a year.

But if you want to do a tax of wealth, a system of extracting money from someone for the purpose of getting more money from him or her for some other reason, why not do it based on the nature of pollution? This becomes problematic I know, because then the people driving the shittiest cars, usually people who would love to have your jaguar are left to foot the bill. Though my environmentalist friends would begin the big CAFÉ discussion with me, which is fair, this sort of tax would also include the near emission exempt standards which trucks fall under. This is where it gets all sticky and none of this has shit to do with while I was in court, but lets sum it up anyway and then move on.

1. Ad Valorem taxes are fucked up and stupid, there immediate consequence is that they typically go into a fund which in theory should improve the quality of life in your county and in your state. If we did not have them, you would just be taxed some other way.
2. Having to affix a sticker to your vehicle to prove that you have a clean slate with the tax man is stupid, and not worth the cost of man hours it requires to go through this process since every state requires you to have a license plate in the first place.
3. I went to court cause I did not aggressively seek to confirm that the proper colored sticker (one square inch in size) was on my car. Doom on me.

The bailiff comes out and he gives us the breakdown, it is in plain language, he is neither hard assed or patronizing, but he does have a twinkle in his eye. This police officer makes probably thirty five grand a year, not much to most, but the work isn't so bad, being a officer of the court, he spends much of his time, admonishing and then handcuffing fairly tame people. There aren't too many Courtroom terror attacks, and if there were you'd hear about the violent epidemic plaguing our court system. So every few hours a new bunch of alleged lawbreakers are ushered into court and he gives them the two rules.

Rule 1 The Cell Phone must be turned off or on vibrate. if it goes off in court, you are in contempt and will serve 1-2 days in jail and be served a fine.

Rule 2 No hats or stockings on the head, this is an old school thing show some respect folks. Of course it'd be great if maybe he should mention that, you should be respectful and mindful of the judge.

After this, he goes into a long speech about how the judge is a great guy and if you go pay your ticket right now, he won't give you any points against your license and will discount the ticket. Pay the fine folks and you are free to go. Of course I sense the lightly menacing undertone that if you stay and fight it, you will get hit with the bigger fine and points, seems pretty reasonable to just run on down and pay the eighty bucks huh?

Then he hands it over to the one of the court assistants, she's more amiable and is all about how if you are in fact innocent and this is just a screw up, you can come on up real quick and show her proof. This is when seventy percent of the court stands up to have their chance. Seventy five percent of this group is admonished to sit back down. There innocence Is debatable…Would they instead like to pay the ticket or see the judge. You are again advised not to see the judge.

I am innocent, I have proof, I show her and I am then free to go. So I leave, I did not have to pay anything, but I have lost two hours of my life and all I have to show for it is the framework for this piece which I jotted down in my palm pilot while I waited and observed the people around me.

Each time I have ever been in court; it always seemed like eighty percent of the people there were stupid. Stupid is not my word, let me instead say that they were seemingly ignorant simpleltons. Many of my friends would say "stupid". Saying people are stupid is the seemingly polite way that many of us have taken up to conveying that we are better then others. It's code and it means that that the people you are referring to, those "stupid folk" are beneath you.

I not only observed these stupid folk but I immediately felt a snug contempt for them. I sure did, they all looked dumb and poor. Cause you know, you're dumb if you're poor right? It's true or at least that is the undertone I get when I talk to the "Haves" about the "Have nots". For the nature of this piece I will consider myself " A Have who knows better then to think the Have not's are just stupid"

The truth is maybe more sinister and might have something to do with Mr Darwin. Charles was so intrigued by how species of animals dealt with things differently and seemed to take on different characteristics to better handle needs; we of course get the notion of evolution from this and the redundant notion of "survival of the fittest". Charles of course to sum him up in his own words said

"As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive, and as consequently there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of survival and thus be naturally selected."

So what happens when your proverbial beak doesn't evolve in better fashion to help you dig for worms and you find yourself starving and hungry and cold, Well then you are judged stupid and grouped with the other stupid folk and left to become poor.

Right? Surely that can't be the answer, something else must happen. This much is true and it's why some parents are so focused on getting there kids together and other parents are oblivious to what being "involved" with there kids lives is all about. Some parents think that feeding, sheltering and clothing kids for eighteen years is enough. Some parents want there kids to have a better life then they did and so they insist on higher standards from there kids, so that they don't have to end up like them.

I heard that one a lot. No adult wanted me to end up like them when I was growing up. The notion was lost on me in some respects.  I still lacked a lot of common sense back then and did not have any fears of growing up stupid. But I get it now and it does explain why at night I am filled with anxiety and think I have already fucked up my whole life. Should I say fuck it, have a kid and teach them better????? Or should I not breed and continue on the dumbness, so I can tell some dumb fuck offspring "Don't grow up to be me"

I need a therapist. I want to sit on a couch and talk about all of this.

Let's get back to stupid folk..

The people who looked so stupid to me, were the struggling folk, the working class. I realized, as I sat there and pecked away at my PDA, these people were not idiots, I mean some of them were, but its like that everywhere; some people are dumb, some are not.
What many of the people here have in common is that we all had an error in judgment, each one of us. A redneck with wry wit, A dimwitted immigrant Indian man, unkempt and out of money. A tired and weary black woman, who had that look of "I may lose my job for being here" anxiety. The Hispanic guy who has literally drug his brother to court to clear his name. Myself, busy and not too concerned with the proper color of my tag. Court is a random sampling of people who were caught making an error in judgement.  The police do not catch many of us, as a matter of fact it is unlikely that they get more then five percent, if even that many of us.

My father, god bless his soul was short on wisdom, he was a reserved and quiet man, or that's what I always thought of him. And he didn't leave me with a lot of wisdom, just a handful of statements that I've had to base a lot of my positions on life from. One of these sayings my dad constantly and literally thunking into my head was that I should not do anything shitty if I didn't want to have pay the consequences of it. It was hard to fathom that as a child. But I am glad he continued to hammer it at me cause eventually I understood, or at least I took away the calculating notion, that life should be led with a measure of thought in relation to the consequences that may befall you; after said action. Of course Robert Blake in his Beretta persona just said "If you can't pay the time don't do the crime" And that's about how my dad put it to me. That I understand or least.. I became smart enough to both become a sneakier person and ask myself meaningful David and Goliath questions, right before I did stupid shit like set trashcans on fire or spray paint peoples property.

Cause I'm not stupid, I make mistakes but I like to think that stupid people make the same mistakes. But what if you 'became' stupid because you made a mistake, which led to another mistake, which led to another one and then the next thing you know, you're telling your kid not to be stupid like you, cause you finally understood life and realized there wasn't much you could do to change your lot. I will throw myself on the line as a person who is still likely to be not only an elitist but worse yet an apologist for the poor stupid folk. I mean, I'm not writing this piece cause I want to tell you about going to fucking court. Let's get something more from it.

Of course those people with me in the courtroom, them poor stupid, working class folk, don't read KungFu. This is for us, those of us who take for granted that we're so damn smart. Cause I bet you that most of us will do the same thing when we get kids. We'll say "Don't be like your old man, I'm a dumb old sod, I coulda done more with my life. Make something of yourself dammit" The problem is that kids aren't going to understand that, I didn't -for the most part and I'm pretty damn smart and so I sit here, having not finished my degree, a little nervous about the economy and what "all of this" means and I only wish that someone had taken more of an effort to make me get it, so that this site would be more Tony Robbins like, with flashing teeth and epitomes about success rather then perspectives on how to learn from all the mistakes I make and continue to make.

It does take a village to raise a child, but what about the adults who didn't get raised and now they're working at Burgerland and what about all of us so called smart folk, those of us who go "Man my life would be so much better if it wasn't for all these stupid folk who keep holding me down". If I had a nickel for every time someone smart said how it's the stupid people of the world who make things like they are…well I'd have a whole lot of fucking nickels.