Right & Wrong

Right & Wrong

Let's be honest. You can be right some of the time, you can even be right most of the time, but you can't be right all of the time.

I have always gone by the rule to "do the right thing."

Now, I'm not sure that my idea of the "right thing" is always what anyone or everyone else might think is the "right thing." Sometimes, in certain situations, people whom I know and love will make it abundantly clear that I have done the "wrong thing."

I guess the "wrong thing" is the opposite of the "right thing," but sometimes the difference between "wrong" and "right" is simply a matter of perspective, a condition of one's point of view. What I may see as "right," you may see as "wrong."

Of course, I hate that kind of shabby thinking. I hate when people say things like, "Hey, works for me ..." Just because something seems to fit into someone's life experiences does not make it universally right. Something may "work" for you, and at the same time send me into apoplexy. Not real sure what apoplexy is, but it's a good word. Works for me ...

In some cultures, "right" is right, and "wrong" is wrong. Some countries have a pretty strict list of rules, and if you don't follow those rules, well, you could end up with you head chopped off.

Here, in North America, we like to believe we are free to think, say and do pretty much anything we please. Oh sure, we have some laws, like it's not a real good idea to kill your noisy neighbour, but most of us aren't prone to go to such extremes. When that noisy neighbour is pounding out some kind of weird Country 'n' Western rap song so loud that the earth is shaking, we might say, "Gawd, I swear I'm going to kill that guy."

But we never do.

Big things, like murder, are pretty clearly "wrong" to most of us.

Little things are a bit different.

Say, for example, you hear that all your friends are having celebration of some sort, and you discover that you have not been invited. You feel miffed, to say the least. You can't, for the life of you, figure out why you have been left out, and you feel so excluded that you start to ponder whether or not you should just march on over to that celebration, despite the fact that you have not been invited. You know that doing so would be so embarrassingly wrong, but you also know that you have been "wronged" as well.

Yes, yes, we have all learned that "two wrongs don't make a right." Or do they? A mathematician will tell you that the combination of two negatives creates a positive, so wouldn't the same rule apply to human behaviour? Wouldn't the law of "to do a great right, do a little wrong" come into play? Showing up where you are clearly not wanted might be exactly the right thing for you to do. Who cares what everyone else thinks? All you have to do is tell yourself that sneaking off to the clandestine celebration "works for me ... "

When you discover that the whole secret society gig was because someone was planning a surprise birthday party for you, well then, you will feel like an idiot. As the saying goes, you'll have "egg on your face" — poached, scrambled or over-easy — doesn't really matter, because it will be all over your face, even up your nose. Sometimes doing what you think is the "right" thing is clearly the "wrong" thing.

It's funny, however, how some people simply never believe they have ever done the "wrong" thing, because they live in the belief that "it's all about me," and so the rationalize every "wrong" action they make and turn it into a "right" action."

That's the American way, because no one in this country is going to chop off your head if you decide that "wrong" is "right."

Hurt someone's feelings? She deserved it. Steal some batteries from Walmart? Well, we're always being ripped off by corporate America, so why not? Cheat on your taxes? Ha! The government is so corrupt that we shouldn't be paying any taxes at all.

Should we do something wrong, there is always an excuse. Wanna know why? It's because we refuse to accept ourselves as anything less than perfect. We refuse to acknowledge that we are actually blundering through life, screwing up constantly, and wreaking chaos and havoc wherever we go.

OK, that's a tad harsh. But I am always amazed at how people refuse to accept imperfection. Wanna know why? It's because we don't pay attention to decent villains anymore. Nope, all we see are heroes ... oh, the brave firemen ... oh, the brave soldiers ... oh, the brave women with breast cancer ... oh ... oh ... oh ... and you end up with a whole whack of different coloured stickers in the shape of ribbons on the back of your car.

This is not to say that we don't have villains in this country. Man, we have more antiheroes than antibodies floating around. But, just as we refuse to accept ourselves as wrong-doers, so too do we refuse to accept that any really bad ass sociopath is "wrong." Disturbed? Yes. Insane? Yes. But absolutely, 100% evil? Never. Just needs saving is all. We're so, so good at turning a wrong into a right.

Unless, of course, that person is Muslim. Muslims are always somehow suspiciously questionable regarding right and wrong. I'm not sure why, but I have heard people say that "nothing saves a Muslim. " Well, there is that bomb-strapped-to-the-belly scenario, a stroll through some busy marketplace, followed by a quick trip to Jannat al Firdous, a Bon Voayge! send off to paradise where 72 virgins, rivers of wine, and boys like pearls are waiting. For some reason Muslims are hip to villainy in ways that most of us simply will never understand. We fear them most because they don't fear us at all.

Uh-oh, you're going to start to think that I'm a little prejudice. That would be really, really wrong, right? Pffft ... in America, we are so damn politically correct that people really don't get to say what they want to say. In the land of "freedom," we're all walking around with a muzzle on our thoughts, because Heaven forbid that we might upset some so-called disenfranchised social group or culture. Prejudice? Yes, I hate how I am manipulated by the word, which has come to mean, "Hey, mofo, I'm not wrong, you are, you damn white racist pig."

Some days, I wake up and think the world has gone mad. So many people are continually bending over backwards to make so few other disgruntled people feel "right" and happy. Wanna know why? It's because we've been brainwashed into believing that doing anything else would be "wrong."

Prejudice is wrong. Discrimination is wrong. Sexism is wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

It's a wrong, wrong world, full of wrong-thinking people, so wrong, so wrong, so wrong. So wrong that we sacrifice what we know is right for fear that other people will think we're intolerant, maniacal, reverse-reverse racists, Nazis even. Oh, it's fine that all these parasitic cultures living in the underbelly of society hate and want to annihilate every last individual who is not like them in appearance or belief, but heck and gosh, Abner, we all don't dare feel the same way back.

I think it's time we put some spit and fire into the gruel that this country is becoming and burn off the malcontents — you know, the ones that act like we should be damn happy to have them floating around in whatever drug-addled state of consciousness is currently popular.

Maybe that's one of the problems with North America. Maybe we need to purchase a few hundred guillotines and set them up in the Walmart parking lots across America. Line up the gangstas, the pimps, the drug dealers, the politicians, the lawyers, the pedophiles, the basketball players, the fakes, the flakes, and people who will kill and plunder just to get past the crack-cocaine shakes, so that we can have a "Heads-Off" sale. We won't just be rolling back the prices, we'll send heads rolling down the aisles, and at the same time, we'll be rolling up the stinky carpetbaggers who have exploited a culture guided by the belief that we must always be merciful. It's not so ... seriously ... the days of mercy have to be put behind us.

Well, now you're thinking that chopping off people's heads in some willy-nilly fashion would be terribly wrong, and maybe you're right.

Then again, you could be dead wrong ... or maybe you'll just end up dead ... just another victim without even boys like pearls to look forward to ...

© Copyright, Kennedy James. All rights reserved.