Something to Think About for April 30, 2014:

A recent news story reminded me about a question I had to ask close to fifty years ago.  I was a teen driver getting around in the suburbs south of Chicago.  My first vehicle was a Honda 50 Sport.    That was replaced by a Volkswagen "bug" with a soft sunroof.   I worked at an after school job, and sometime ended up traveling home between eleven and midnight.  The late 60s and early 70s were turbulent times in the US.  My area was not exempt.  I used to ride by Dixie Square.  It was one of the earliest enclosed malls built in our area.  Later, after it closed, it starred in the "Blues Brothers."  I shopped in some of the stores Jake and Elwood trashed in the film.  I remember riding by the mall one night knowing that earlier that evening one of the stores had been robbed.  The take was a supply of guns and ammunition.  Other nearby businesses were burned and/or looted during those troubled days.  One of the tactics of some more radical demonstrators of the time was to block a road.  The barrier was not concrete or wood.  It was people.  A group of people would congregate in a street and stop a car.  Usually, what ensued was people surrounding the car, slaps on the top and sides, insults, and maybe something written on the windshield.  On a few occasions--at least according to the news that came my way--things got worse.  People were dragged out of cars, and beaten--even killed.  It was a time when fear ran high.   Recently stories have been published about encounters at the US-Mexican border.  On one side are rock-throwing youngsters.  On the other are armed guards.  I have no idea who is right and wrong, but some of the youngsters, allegedly rock-throwers, have been shot.  Rightly, there has been outrage. I remember the conversations of half-a-century ago.  "If they try to stop me, I'm stepping on the gas instead of the brake." said some of my more militant friends.  (Not a lot of comfort for a rider of a tiny motorcycle, or even a VW driver.)  The scenario has hung around my psyche for a long time.  "What would I do?"  "What would have been the right thing to do?"  I have no doubt that similar conversations take place around the troubled border.  "If one of those rocks . . ." If I had a clear answer the ugly--and thankfully for me, imaginary--scene would not have hung around in my mind for so long.  The perversity of the situation on the border or the street eruptions of my youth is that the decency of one side is used as a tool against them.  The self-restraint of one side becomes the encouragement for the other side's complete lack of respect for life and law.  But if that decency is abandoned, what is there left? It's messy out there. If you are looking for a clear answer, I'm sorry to disappoint.  This is indeed something to think about.  As close as I come being definitive is this:  The respect for life is so valuable that my protection of it, may, at times, put me in danger for my own. Like I said, It's STTA. (Sorry to be so dark.  I'll be watching for something lighter.)