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.
 
 

Rain, I echo your sentiments.... however, I will leave the shopping cart in the handy dandy cart return places in the parking lot..... I have been know to occasionally just push them up in front of the car in the rows, but most often , if there are no parking lot collection area's I will take the time to return them back into the store, as I did just yesterday.
 
yeah.... society is pretty messed up with the "entitlement mentality" that most people seem to have these days.....

"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
 
 

I feel your pain, Rain.  I've had very similar circumstances in my life. 

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

The goat herder had his choice when he was caught stealing...they would cut off one of his hands or
he could work for Frank Hopkins and Hildalgo, Franks' Mustang.
 
Just seems like a much easier and smarter way of dealing with thieves. I'd like to think even the
stupid ones would figure out something else to do if they knew that punishment fit the crime.
 
 
 
 

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 find it amusing how many people want things done for them, but are unwilling to do things for others...

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...

Thank you, guys. 
 
In regards to entitlement - in my opinion, if there are some rules you don't agree with, try to get things moving. Protest and take whichever legal action. But the minute you effectively decide that certain rules don't apply to you, you're no longer legit.
 
There's also a huge difference between discrimination which affects a whole group of people and one individual's sense of entitlement. 
 
The kid who broke in that house was no Martin Luther King, he wasn't on a noble mission to make anyone's life better, other than his own.