Society Does Not Have a Duty to Cater to Misfits, Deviants & Disasters

Sink or swim

There’s a lot of old knowledge that most people once took for granted that many modern Americans have seemingly forgotten. One of the bits of knowledge that an awful lot of people, particularly the youngest and most liberal Americans, seem to struggle with is that the world does not revolve around you or me or any of us really. There are many old sayings that tie into this idea in one way or another:

Given how lenient our society is and how customized capitalism has become, perhaps it’s understandable that some people have lost sight of reality. After all, we do live in the age of, “Have it your way,” “Customize your video game character,” and “Don’t judge anyone for anything.”

Kids spend years at school endlessly having their self-esteem puffed up for no good reason. They go to college and are told they need a safe zone to protect them from hearing ideas they disagree with. Then all of us watch videos, play games, and use apps that we personally pick out before we go to the grocery store where we pick from thousands of foods to eat and order exactly what we want from Amazon.

For an awful lot of people, this has created an entitled, narcissistic way of looking at life. They don’t need to adapt to the world, every single person they run across needs to adapt to them and the way that they do things. If they don’t, they have a right to throw a tantrum, play the victim, or demand an apology.

This sort of thought process plays out across social media and society in a wide variety of ways. For example, members of the body positivity movement are now complaining about things like getting stuck in revolving doors and photo booths. Yes! Really!

If you are one of the infinitesimal number of human beings that can’t handle revolving doors and photo booths, that seems like it should be a YOU problem, not a problem for airports, photo booth manufacturers, and revolving door manufacturers. What’s next? “Oh, but what if I want to bring my emotional support elephant with me? If it’s not big enough for both of us, society let me down!”

On a more controversial note, tell me what’s wrong with the framing of this story?

We don’t see all of what happened, but basically, it seems to be that while this kid was walking past this guy’s car, he reached out and broke his hood ornament. The man drove off, realized it was broken, came back, and was understandably upset.

When he walked over to the kid and his sister, the kid responded by laughing in his face. The man smacked him, not particularly hard, and then left. From there, the attitude has basically been, “Oh, that kid has autism, and the guy should have known that, so it’s okay for that kid to commit vandalism at will with no consequences.” Well, that’s not how the world works.

Yes, the guy actually should have insisted that they stay right there until the police arrived, filed a report, and sued them for damages if the sister didn’t immediately agree to pay for what the kid did. However, the kid’s certainly not a sympathetic victim who didn’t do anything wrong. In fact, the kid instigated the whole incident and the fact that he has autism is not a free pass for his bad behavior.

The reality is that in life if you grab other people’s things without asking, break them, and then laugh in their faces when they get upset, an awful lot of people are going to do a lot worse to you than give you a light slap. As an example, look at this guy’s reaction after some idiot, who looks as if he may have mental problems, decided to key his car:

To give you an idea of how deep this broken thinking goes in our society, not so long ago, there was a case involving another autistic kid, 6’6” Brendan Depa. He attacked his teacher and it’s likely he would have killed her if hadn’t been stopped. Much of the reaction to that story on the Left was criticism of THE TEACHER because she actually wanted Depa to be sentenced for his crime instead of just giving him a free pass for seriously injuring her:

It’s wrong to ask all of society to adapt itself to an unstable, violent person like Brendan Depa instead of saying, “Sorry you have issues, but if you can’t stop yourself from attacking other human beings, you need to be locked up for everyone else’s protection.”

Similarly, do you remember Daniel Penny? The former Marine is facing 2^nd-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide charges because Jordan Neely, a homeless man making violent threats, died while Penny and other passengers were restraining him.

Neely was homeless, had mental problems, and had been arrested 44 times previously, including for child abduction. When he died, he had another warrant out on him for attacking an old woman and he was being investigated for allegedly trying to push a woman onto the Subway tracks.

Yet, what was the spin on this from the Left? The system FAILED Jordan Neely:

Wait a second; WE ALL failed Jordan Neely? Why is it that our whole society is supposed to be responsible for Jordan Neely in the first place? Why wasn’t it Jordan Neely’s responsibility to fit in with society? You know, at least to the point where he wasn’t constantly getting arrested and threatening strangers on the Subway?

One of the great ironies of this type of thinking is that you could make a good argument that all of us, to be considered good citizens, have some very basic responsibilities to each other.

On a personal level, I say “sir” and “ma’am” to people. I wave at people I pass in my friendly little neighborhood. I put my shopping cart back when I get done with it. I’m a good tipper. I try to let people in sometimes when I’m in traffic. I throw my garbage in a trash can instead of on the ground. I try to be patient when I’m at restaurants and grocery stores and lines are long. I try to generally respect the law, am polite to police officers even when they’re giving me a ticket and make an effort to get along with my neighbors. I don’t take any kind of welfare and I pay way, way, too much in taxes every year.

None of this is earth-shattering.

In fact, it’s just the most basic level of doing my part to help make society functional. Most people reading this probably generally do the same things. Yet, how often do you hear these kinds of basic responsibilities talked up? You don’t – even though these are the sort of things you’d be taught on the first day of Civilization 101. In other words, we’re not talking about being Scott Presler, cleaning up neighborhood trash piles across the nation here, we’re just talking about a fairly minimal level of good citizenship:

Yet and still, consider this.

Are homeless people sleeping on the sidewalks and crapping in the street living up to that standard?

No.

How about career criminals like Jordan Neely?

No.

What about protesters who loot, riot, or block the roads during their protests?

No, they obviously don’t give a damn about their fellow citizens.

How about the people who want every single person they run across to learn whatever their pronouns happen to be that day?

That’s not a reasonable request for your fellow citizens, it’s a narcissistic power trip.

How about people who are trans? It’s their choice to pretend to be the other gender, but asking for all of society to be reordered to accommodate their choice is ludicrous. Why do women have to share bathrooms and prisons with men while they are pushed off the winner’s platforms by guys who don’t belong there? Obviously, they shouldn’t.

Ultimately, no healthy society can have a set of ever-changing rules that are always designed to screw over the more functional members of society in favor of the weirdos, mental cases, criminals, ne'er-do-wells, and troubled people who simply can’t cut it. At some point, we have to apply the same rules and basic expectations to everyone, stop coddling the failures and let them sink or swim based on their own actions instead of trying to twist our whole society into knots for them.

---