Look at me I'm fighting crime, part II - The Subpoena...

Yup. 
 
You spend your quiet life walking the straight line, mindful of the law, to a T - even those rules which you think could/should legitimately be questioned - being considerate of others yet minding your business. Anyway, 99.99% of the time, you don't mind the rules half as much as you mind the people who think that those rules don't apply to them. (To this day, I'm convinced that that's where most of our problems come from).
 
The single most important lesson your mother thought you was: treat people like a gentleman would. "And if that doesn't work, punch them in the throat as hard as you can, you wussy" - said daddy, opening another beer...
 
So basically, I'm the guy who never takes the shortcut across the grass even if it means taking the long way around , I'm the guy who'll walk half a mile under the Vegas sun in the parking to bring back my grocery cart because, well, the world isn't mine - or else it wouldn't work like this, trust me...  
 
In the end, all I want is peace and quiet, and as little interaction w/ the outside world as I can, so that I can focus on what matters - my wife, my music, my training, my cats. My whole universe.

Then a couple of bad seeds run into your backyard and you have to get involved, call 911, up the security. And then the dreaded subpoena arrives. 
 
All of this for a guy in his 20's who's been caught and did time for the same offense once before. Who broke parole. Who has a kid who'll probably grow up to be just as useless.
 
The guy will probably do a few months again. Make some good contacts on the inside. Learn the ropes, gather tips. Perfect his skills as a criminal. That's what we pay for isn't it?
 
And then they'll let him out on the street... Talk about investing our money in all the right places. Find it so grim, so true, so real...

I don't know man. If you steal bread for your family, I can get that. I'll give you bread. But to act like a worthless parasite and to try to make a living stealing from people who spend 40-60 hours a week working their butt off? 
 
 
I say the sentence should mirror the offense. You wanted to enjoy the fruits of someone else's labor, to steal what they had to give away hours of their life to acquire? You planned on breaking into their home so that you could go on w/o working? Alright then. How about hard labour? And since this is your second strike, no mercy - lifetime. I've seen high schools sentencing honest 16 years old to a lifetime of miserable jobs w/ less remorse than we have for criminals...
 
Musical Sidenote...
 
When I grew up, we had no shortage of relatively bad examples in terms of musicians. But looking back, they were good guys. Golden hearts. Maybe they fell into illegal things like drugs or looked like bums, but the vast majority wouldn't have done a thing that'd hurt someone else.

If you were really bad, you ended up shooting heroin and marrying a Japanese woman - but you'd still write a few insanely sweet songs like Because... You'd get arrested for pot, not for shooting the guitar player in another band. The worst thing you could do was to kill the Hanoi Rock singer in a car accident while driving under the influence.  You could seem like a of misogynist, but it only made you sound like a ****ed pig, not a potential aggressor... 

The bad guys didn't advocate stealing from people, shooting them, stabbing them. They didn't make a name disrespecting their lady - at least not as badly as some of the stuff I've seen recently.
 
 

"the "entitlement mentality" that most people seem to have these days....."
 
How can you say these days?
 
 
When we were both kids a lot of folks thought they were entitled to vote while lots of other people weren't.
 
When we were both kids a lot of folks thought they were entitled to go to certain schools while lots of other people weren't.
 
When we were both kids a lot of folks thought they were entitled to drink at certain water fountains while lots of other people weren't.
 
That was when we were kids.
 
 
 
 
When My Grandmother was a kid she thought she should be entitled to vote.
 
 
 
When 4 of my great grandfathers came down on their "tour of the Southern States" in the 1860s it was because some people thought they were entitled to own other people.
 
 
 
For thousands of years many people have felt entitled to use this planets resources as if they are last generation to have need of them.
 
Situation normal!
 
 
 
Who invented this whole notion that the impulse towards "entitlement" is some sort of recently evolved phenomenon?
 
I think it's the folks who know they are entitled to say what ever they want.
 
:-)
 
 
all the best
mike
 
 

My feeling is that human nature has always been the same.  You chose the person, you want to be.

People.  We are the only virus that sickens ourselves.
 
I think I got that in a fortune cookie once.  The place was later closed by the Health Department.

I think there are two forms of 'entitlement' that get confused.
 
On one hand the 'entitlement' is based on one's rights.
 
OTOH based on one's possession of something someone else desires...for $$$ or whatever. To me it is this thing that drives me buggy.
 
Look...someone just stole some tools out of MY driveshed recently. This, to ME, indicates that someone feels 'entitled' to MY stuff...uh uh...this is not working...

 
"But the minute you effectively decide that certain rules don't apply to you, you're no longer legit."
 
Who was it that said that?
 
Stalin... or was it Mao?
 
It wasn't Nietzsche... or Jesus, neither of them would have said that.
 
I think it was Stalin, or maybe St. Paul.
 
I could be wrong... or mixed up.
 
;-)

In all honesty Mike, I fail to see the humor in the situation and I don't feel the need to argue semantics or philosophy.
 
The police caught 5 worthless scums trying to break into a house nearby. At least one of them is on his second offense - first time he broke in he had a deadly weapon on him. He also broke parole.
 
2 of those guys were in my backyard and now I have to go to court as a witness.
 
Because of those guys, I've been sleeping w/ one eye open for the last 2 weeks. Moving out isn't an option and I do feel responsible for my wife's security. 
 
They broke pretty much all the rules that need to be broken for someone to be labelled a worthless criminal, they dragged me into this situation because they decided that they could earn a living w/o working or contributing. I don't feel like trying to justify their sense of entitlement. Anyway, they do have a lawyer to defend them, and a whole bunch of people who'll do anything to make sure that they are seen as poor victims.
 
So label me Mao, label me Stalin - I'm a lifetime reader of Nietzsche and, in my native language, I could discuss philosophy with you, talk laws and rules and society, and all that fun stuff. But that's philosophy. At the end of the day, I live by the rules.
 

Incidentally, a few more reasons why I'm not seeing the humor...
 
The house is rented and the landlord will not allow dogs. 
 
Security systems tend to cost an arm and a leg, unless you go w/ a x years plans. But since we don't know for how long we're here, we can't sign a 3 years contract.
 
So it'll probably cost us a decent amount of money. In terms of entitlement, I'd like to think that I live in a world where I don't have to waste our hard earned cash to keep parasites out. Not only does it cost us to send them in jail, but it cost us when they're out - either because they steal you or because you pay to prevent them from stealing you.
 
 

backwoods
You'll be fine Rain. It sounds like you handled the situation very well indeed.
If you want a bit more home security get a gun.

Thanks, man. 


Not sure a Canadian on a visa can legally own a gun. I do have plenty of other devices though.
 
I also think that I'm probably not the type of "customer" they were expecting in this neighbor- At 6'3", 200lbs, head shaved, a beard and tattoos, I'm definitely not one of the little old ladies who live around here.

Rain
I also think that I'm probably not the type of "customer" they were expecting in this neighbor- At 6'3", 200lbs, head shaved, a beard and tattoos, I'm definitely not one of the little old ladies who live around here.

Damn.  There goes the image I had of you! 

I think there are a lot of really decent people here. I too take the sidewalk, even when the grass has been worn down to dirt. I figure it is a "slippery slope" so I try to be respectful. The last store I was at was the "Dollar Store" down the road... needed eggs and milk. A 20something girl had just left her cart on the sidewalk in front of the store, maybe 25 ft from the cart corral in front of the store. I got out and took her cart and three more, stuck them together and rolled them over to the corral by the door while she and her friend were still sitting there in their car... I figured maybe... maybe something would take in them and maybe in the future they will do the same.... maybe one day. Doing the right think never hurts. People can see someone taking shortcuts and being disrespectful anywhere. You just might influence someone with your actions and never even know it.
As we say in the south Rain, "you done good"!
 
J
 

 
 
Roger that.
 
 
best regards,
mike

Rain

craigb


Damn.  There goes the image I had of you! 

Turning 40 and living in the desert, one needs to give up on the Edward Scissorhands look at some point anyway. ;)
 
I'm actually just as surprised. I never managed to gain weight or mass no matter how hard I trained before.

As long as you don't look like one of the local little 'ol ladies.
 
I just heard from the guy who makes my custom guitars about an hour ago.  He's finally getting around to working on the one that's been on hold for over FIVE years!  It's got me thinking about starting to play more that's for sure! 

Dogs are good about that. I don't even need a door bell, they let me know someone is outside long before they reach the door.

Not sure if that is true for Beagles, however?

MakeShift
Dogs are good about that. I don't even need a door bell, they let me know someone is outside long before they reach the door.

Not sure if that is true for Beagles, however?

I love dogs, man. All of them. My first choice would most likely be a Dobberman (or 2), or a Rottweiller (or 2) or a Boxer. Maybe a Bullmastif. Something big I can wrestle with and/or trust to bite their butt off if anyone is trespassing. 
 
But then if just for me, the whole house would be like an episode of the Osbournes, with cats and dogs everywhere. I love my little furry pals.