Kicking the can down the road

That's a commonly used metaphor for what's happening with some of the government entitlements and such right now: instead of addressing the problem that we really don't have the money to cover them, we write "IOUs" and pass them on down the line.

(And by "we," I mean "the people we put in office." Well, maybe not all of them, but obviously a majority of them are doing it.)

Our children (and by "our," I actually mean "your") will be paying for it. And I'd think most parents would find that upsetting.

Another metaphor - and what made me think of it: throwing your trash in your neighbor's yard means you don't have to look at it any more.

Yeah, I'm going to probably have to have a chat with my neighbors to the north. Their adult son was visiting yesterday (that was the one difference from a typical day) and then today, when I went out to look at my back garden, I found three crumpled-up pop cans.

And while, in the grand scheme of things, it's not that big of a deal for me to pick them up and put them in the trash, I should not have to.

I shouldn't have to deal with trash someone else generated, but because they weren't responsible enough to put it in their own trash can, they figured it was easier (and probably more fun) to lob it over the neighbor lady's fence.

And okay, it's true: my garden is a lot "wilder" looking than the typical garden on my street. But it's still my garden. It's not the municipal landfill, it's not a trash can.

I know I get overly bugged by things like this, but really, it's the whole "broken windows" mentality: if you let small crappy things go, they escalate and become big crappy things. The litter problem in my town is absolutely monumental - I've griped before about how a couple times a year, an army of volunteers goes out and picks up trash, and sometimes between times we get trusties from a minimum-security corrections facility - and still the town looks like crap.

And I don't know. Perhaps I'm too good at seeing the metaphor in things, but it seems that litter is metaphorical for a lot of stuff in our society: someone doesn't want to take responsibility for their stuff, so they - figuratively speaking - throw it out their car window, where they become everyone else's problem. And then other people see that happening, and they say "Screw taking care of MY problems, I'm gonna do what HE just did!" and they chuck their problems out into public. And we get "too big to fail," and people wondering where their bailout is, and we get laws that wind up nannying at the responsible people (I heard a news report - I don't know all the details - but apparently a schoolkid was given detention for having candy in her lunch. Because she violated the 'zero tolerance for junk food' policy. OKAY. I hope that school has solved ALL the problems in re: students failing, bullying, stuff being stolen out of lockers, vandalism - because going after a kid for sugar is excessive.)

And also, it breeds resentment - just as I felt towards my neighbors' kid as I picked up those pop cans and walked over to my trash can with them, muttering irritatedly under my breath all the while.

It's a small thing, but small things build up. The straw that broke the camel's back didn't break it because the camel was weak or because the straw was so heavy, but because it was one straw too many on an already giant load. And I suspect that's how a lot of Americans feel right now, in terms of taxation, new laws, and just stuff like TSA inspections at the airport: things seem to becoming increasingly miserable, and no one can reasonably explain why it should have to be that way.