You Can't Dabble In Crap ...

Earlier this week, I read an

[THIS LINK NO LONGER POINTS TO THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE]
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/cm/content/view/369/162/

editorial on CapitolHillBlue.com in which Doug Thompson chastised some of his readers who had taken Schadenfreude in the reoccurrence of Tony Snow’s cancer. Doug is absolutely correct in calling those readers down. No reasonable person would wish something so tragic on even the likes of Bush, Cheney or Rumsfield and they certainly should not be happy when it happens to the administration's "press agent". After I read Doug’s editorial I asked myself what makes people act in this way? What brings out this kind of callousness? Some blame it on the anonymity of the Internet. Using a screen name or pseudonym, you call say pretty much anything on the Internet without letting people know who you are. I know that is the case, but all that does is enable. To be willing to say these things or type these things; first you must be thinking them. Therefore I say that the Internet does not cause this kind of mean-spiritedness, it only gives it a venue.

To find a cause for this insensitive boorish behavior you have to look deeper. One of the first things that came to my mind was an old saying my daddy had. He said “You can’t dabble in crap and not get some of it on you.” Really, he didn’t use the word crap, but I’m trying to clean up my act online a bit so I will spare yall the S word. A similar philosophy is presented in the statement; you become like the people and things with which you associate. I could throw out a lot of examples right here, but I am sure that you get the idea.

Don’t get me wrong, I think that there is a place in this world for everyone and everything. I’m certainly not in favor of a lot of laws regulating behavior. But, I will say this; if you spend your time watching network news, reading the stuff in the newspaper and listening to what the politicians and bureaucrats are harping about, you probably won’t end up being canonized by the Catholic Church. Think about it.