On any given day I’m not likely to get an abortion. This is hardly an earth shattering revelation since I am male and lack certain attributes that go with that activity. (If you don’t understand, I’ll have the gym teacher explain it to you after class.) Nor do I indulge in pointless self destructive behaviors. For example; I make it though each and every day without domestic violence, excessive gambling, driving while drunk, or doing meth. Apparently I’m a paragon of virtue. Where’s my Nobel prize?
I’m not unique. The vast majority of us can get through the day without imploding and the rest wind up either in a gutter or in Congress. Yet various hand wringers think I perpetually need to be saved from myself. How do I know this? Because these misinformed pinheads keep putting up billboards which bark orders at me from the roadside.
It happens every time I take a road trip. I should be able to roll out on the highway and cruise happily. Instead self righteous simpletons and their moralistic graffiti harsh my mellow. I’ll be informed that abortion stops a beating heart, gambling ruins lives, beating a child is wrong, and meth will mess me up. Recently I was informed (with government money) that going in a boat without a life vest means I’m sure to drown. Also I should walk somewhere. The latter must be because I’m an gluttonous whale who can barely lever my carcass off the couch and I wouldn’t figure out what to do with my feet if the government didn’t tell me to walk? My tax dollars at work.
In theory the intrusive morons with their preachy billboards think they’re doing good. In reality, they aren’t. And they know it. Nobody is dumb enough to believe I’m driving down the road thinking: “I’m bored. I think I’ll pull over, do some meth, beat my child, start a forest fire, and then drown myself”. It takes a vivid imagination to picture a sudden change of mind. “Whoops! It says on the big plywood sign that meth is yucky, it’s bad to beat the innocent, forests are pretty, and life vests float. Who knew? Guess I’ll just continue being a productive member of society.”
Social engineering billboards merely expend money to intrude on my life in the name of somebody’s favorite cause. They can quack all day about “doing good” but really they’re just inflating their ego at my expense. Doing it at my expense is the unforgivable part. I’m all for inflated egos (because I’m totally awesome) but a couple hundred miles of getting a stern talking to by every non-profit that knows how to shakedown a grant proposal and I’m sick of the world. Thanks guys…care to kick my dog and audit my taxes to make my day complete?
Of course this is going to continue. It takes maturity and wisdom to refrain from bossing other people around, especially when you can do it with someone else’s money. But that doesn’t make them any better. My only hope is that blockheads designing the next billboard to “encourage” the great unwashed masses to agree with their particular way of living go boating without a life vest first. From what I’ve heard that’s instantly fatal.
Adaptive Curmudgeon 