Friday, April 23, 2010

There's not as many 'victims' as you think...

I pulled onto River Drive last night and peered down Jefferson Boulevard.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6... 14. 14!

GPS', Satellite Radio receivers, iPods, cellphones... From where I sat I could see 14 cars with glowing lights on their dashboards or windshields that indicated there was some little spiffy piece of electronics ripe for the taking.

C'mon people! If you're not going to watch out for yourselves... why should I??

Stuff like this gets me thinking about the whole 'victim' concept. And THAT thought usually dances in my head while I'm filling out forms that have places to list one person as the VICTIM.

If it was MY decision, I would just replace the word victim on our forms with a large blank space where I was free to label the person as I saw fit.

The teenager I knew as Bob has finally been listed as an Overdose Victim. It should have been: Snotty, dumbass rich kid who should have succeeded.

Margaret is listed as a Fraud Victim. I'd rather list her as a Stupid Lady that gave away her money. Her live-in boyfriend used her checkbook and ran out all of her savings. Margaret wasn't sure of his last name or his date of birth even though they had lived together for nine months.

Terry is in a wheelchair and listed as a Drunk Driving Victim. But since HE chose to drink all night before running his car into a tree... a simple title such as Dumbass should suffice.

A lady that I know as Betty is often listed as a Domestic Violence Victim. But I would rather label her as: The lady who chooses to be a punching bag. We've exhausted every resource on her and she will probably be a future homicide victim before the end of the year at the pace we're going.

Sure, there are some victims... but for the most part people who are called victim are actually people who have made poor decisions and are forced to pay the consequences of those decisions.

1 comment:

  1. Wise words once spoken to me, "Those people have been making poor financial decisions their whole lives. What makes you think you can change them"?

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