Obligation

Actions, consequences, must-do

So we have some dead trees in our yard. We actually didn’t realize this. We had asked the arborist to come take a look at a fallen tree to see if they could turn it into mulch for us. And lo and behold he found a problem in our yard. And yes I trust them. They have worked on our yard for years and have been in business for decades.

Meanwhile, the husband was annoyed that we have to now do something about the trees. It’s not cheap by any means. The hubby isn’t cheap. He’s just really worried about money and the future. His old job forcibly retired him last year and he had to find a new position. So he is scared honestly because we really don’t have enough to retire on and take care of the boys at the same time. He is worried for the future and wants to stop spending huge outlays of money.

The problem is every time we think we have a little extra to put away we are hit with something like dead trees, and a really sick doggo. Yeah, its been weeks that she hasn’t felt good and her regular vet couldn’t figure out what was wrong. But even the vet tech when we ran into her in Costco had said, this dog isn’t acting normal for her. So of course, things came to a head the other day and we had to take her to the emergency animal hospital. (She’s doing fine now and we have ruled out a bunch of stuff. She is feeling so much better. She started playing with her toys again.)

Meanwhile, the dead trees.

Hubby knows we need to take them down. Once told we have an issue with some part of our land, you are required to do something about it. If you don’t and it causes issues, its called negligence. And yep, if your negligence harms your neighbors’ property in any way shape or form you are obligated to “make them whole.”

Well, the trees are situated in such a way that if they fall forward it could take out the power lines, upending everyone’s power in the neighborhood. Plus fall in such a way as to damage my neighbor’s lawn, meaning bushes, trees, ornamental shrubbery-you get the picture. Or if the trees fall at an inopportune moment when someone is driving or walking by (God forbid) and they get hit by one or both of the trees, we are in so much trouble.

So it is better to bite the bullet, as they say, and pay to have the trees taken down.

Yes, we could have hedged our bets and let the trees continue to rot and see what happens. They could after all fall in such a way as to not bother anyone in anyway. But why are we going to take that chance?

See this is what happens when 2 lawyers live together.

You come up with every known scenario where you could get sued and you do your best to avoid having angry neighbors.

It’s also an obligation to make sure that your property is kept useable and not a hindrance to anyone else. That is part of being a good neighbor, and even if it wasn’t enshrined into law, society used to make sure people behaved.

You behaved because society would hold you to account through something called shame. Bringing back “shame” is also now a social movement. Not that we need stocks anymore of course, but you could say the perp walk has taken its place. Unless of course, you murder a healthcare CEO and then you are some kind of Robin Hood figure, or you murder someone at a football game (there is no question of guilt in this case) and your family opens a go fund me page where people send you money because you killed a white teenager, or you have a donor page because you called a little 5 year old the “n” word. (Seriously what is wrong with people? All these pages have received hundred of thousands of donations. It’s as if we are truly becoming a nation of psychopaths. )

I guess that is the issue today isn’t it?

There seems to be very little consequences to actions. In fact, people make up excuses why someone is entitled to be a little shit. It just drives me up a wall.

Society can’t function unless we are all on the same page about how we are to behave. Ok, so you do get outliers. There always were. That is why there is this little thing called the Ten Commandments back in biblical times. Today we have much of those laws encoded into our way of life. No stealing, no murder, coveting is a sin but there is no longer laws against it, except anti-adultery laws still exist in some states, and you also don’t get put into the stocks if you don’t go to church on Sunday.

In the Jamestown colony they actually had laws about missing church. The first week you miss church you are publicly admonished by being put in the stocks, the second you are flogged, the third you are executed. My mother used to laugh that as Jews we wouldn’t have lasted very long in the New World. (By the way, can we say New World anymore, or is it not politically correct? Are we supposed to say the colonized Americas, but are we even allowed to say Americas anymore? I get so confused with language policing. Every day it changes with a new outrage even if there is the woke right trying to garner liberal tears. I swear some people could set your hair on edge.)

It’s the same with this “Land Acknowledgment” crap, too. If you are not going to give the land back to whomever, shut up about it. It doesn’t make you a better person. It makes you a hypocrite, especially since those with the land acknowledgment requirements don’t acknowledge the Jewish People’s indigenous association with the Land of Israel. It seems Land Acknowledgments don’t apply to Jewish history.

Society, by creating obligations, tells people what is expected of them and then generally outlines the consequences of these actions. But only if they are actually applied. Unfortunately, I think that there has been an erasure of behavioral norms over the past few years. There is generally no shame by so much of the population. It’s as if they feel entitled to act any way they please. Knowing that there will be no retaliation for not following structures they break societal rules with abandon. It’s why shampoo is locked up in drugstores.

But that is more the fault of the powers that be because they refused, for whatever reason, to enforce the norm. It’s not supposed to be though shalt not steal anything worth over $1000. It’s supposed to be thou shalt not steal, period. (Failure to prosecute petty criminals is also why more conservative district attorneys are being elected nationwide.)

So many of the must-dos we have in our society seem to be seen not as obligations but oppressive requirements, which need to be upended. Listen every generation wants to do away with the old. (Not necessarily the old people, although some want to do away with elderly humans just ask Ezekiel Emmanuel one of the architects of ObamaCare. He thinks anyone over 70 is no longer useful.) They want to try to figure out a new structure for how they want society to work. This is the real interesting part though. They do it by trying to tear down the norms that had come before. This is also not new. Socrates wrote eons ago:

“Our youth now love luxury, they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders, and they love to chatter instead of exercise. Children are now tyrants not servants of their household. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.”

The problem though is systemic in our day and age. It is not just the youth who want to tear down the pillars of society. The so-called pillars want to destroy everything, too. I don’t know if COVID upended things so badly that no one has faith in societal norms anymore, or we are going through what sociologists would call a true societal upheaval. But most historical upheavals were predicated on major events, like a pandemic, causing economic or societal chaos. These previous upheavals were caused by external factors and stresses upon the community. (Granted we just went through a pandemic, but it was not as devastating as any that came before.) Today, though it appears that the churning of society is mostly due to mental health, or personal individual internal issues.

Listen, for a society to function in a way that it maintains order and provides for a future for its children, there has to be obligation, actions with consequences. We do need to rely on each other in order to facilitate a future. Many say that because society is in a population deficit that people simply don’t care about the future so they do what they want. Well I disagree. I think people do care about the future. I think that is why we argue so much and so vociferously.

(I also still remember when we were told to stop having children back in the 1970s when there were only 6 billion people on Earth. Now there are 8 billion and we are told there aren’t enough people. I do wish the social scientist would make up their damn minds. Or are they upset because it is the wrong kind of people not having children? Yes, low population growth bodes ill for the future, merely because so much of the social safety net for the elderly is based upon a ponzi scheme where the youth pay for the retirement of the old.

Remember, “retirement” was a fallacy created during the Great Depression to remove people from the workforce in order to get everything back up and running. Retirement age was also created based upon the life expectancy of the 1930s, where the average person lived to be 62. That is why retirement was set at 65. You would pay into social security, but never live long enough to reap the benefits, thus leaving a windfall for the government. Little did anyone who created that fiscal monstrosity think that the largest growing population in the US would be octogenarians. And there is no politician alive today who is brave enough to honestly tackle the problems with the program.)

Meanwhile, the arborists showed up this morning to cut down my dead trees. They are going to turn the trees into mulch leaving it on my driveway so the boys can distribute it later. Hubby insists that mulch keeps the plants healthy and enriches the soil. I have no idea if mulch does anything, but it makes him happy when we put it down. I think he likes how it dresses up the lawn. (curb appeal) I don’t care if we have mulch or not. I don’t know how the dyed black or red mulch I see in my neighbors’ yards is good for the soil. It’s dye after all, and yes it’s probably environmentally safe now, but still it’s dye.

Meanwhile, at least I know that the dead trees can’t be uprooted in a storm and destroy my neighbors yard, fall on the power lines, or make a passerby go splat. That is obligation enough for me today.

Ok, I will follow the other societal obligations as well and not shoplift shampoo out of the CVS even if its not behind lock and key.

IT IS DAY 582 OF THE HOSTAGES BEING STARVED AND HELD IN THE TERROR DUNGEONS OF GAZA 🎗️

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