I wish that folks in politics understood the ‘painter principle’. You see, painters possess knowledge that common folks (and those they choose to lead them) just don’t seem to have. It’s a principle that was hard learned and well earned.
Sounds Simple Enough
The first part of the painter principle works like this: Start at the farthest point in a room and work your way to the door. Sounds simple enough, now don’t it? Yet, somehow most folks get it all backwards and end up painting themselves into a corner.
Such is the situation with lawlessness. You see, folks want crime prevented and punished, but they don’t want anyone’s feelings hurt – especially those committing crime – so the crimes go unpunished and the less that they do to deter crime, the worse the crime becomes.
This is where the second part of the painter principle kicks in: If you do happen to stupidly paint yourself into a corner, admit your mistake and paint your way out of the room, fixing your mistake as you go.
It’s The Law!
I bring this up because the entire legal system paints itself into a corner on a daily basis, with all the participants throwing up their hands exclaiming, “It’s not my fault, it’s the law!” And I reckon that to some extent they’re right.
On the other hand, when it becomes glaringly obvious that the laws force them to do wrong things in the wrong way, over and over and over again expecting to make them right – and they choose to repeat them ad nauseum, they’ve moved way beyond being fools and deep into the realm of being complete and utter dumbasses.
The bottom line with crime is that victims always get hurt. Victims hope that the police will protect them and in the event they don’t, that the courts will at least serve justice on those who wronged them.
The Current Justice System Aids, Abets And Enables
But, as if being victimized wasn’t bad enough, the current justice system aids, abets and enables the criminals to continue victimizing. Instead of locking their butts away, judges send them right back out the door to victimize the hell out of people all over again, citing “It’s the law.”
Well, perhaps when the law gets itself to the point where it’s working against the people, it’s time to get rid of the law instead of compounding its stupidity to infinity.
Compounding Stupidity
For instance, right now it’s perfectly legal to take someone’s life who’s feeling bad or sad, but it’s illegal to take the life of someone who murders people. How frigging insane is that?
Right now the justice system will lock away a shopkeeper for years for apprehending a shoplifter, while the shoplifter’s lucky to do more than few hours before being released to go right back out shoplifting again.
Right now if a 5 foot, 97 pound woman is attacked by an 8 foot, 400 pound man and uses ANY kind of a weapon other than herself in defense, she can and will be charged for using unreasonable force – according to current law.
World Peace
Hello? Laws ain’t supposed to hand society its arse in a handbasket. Playing nice with people who don’t play nice may sound all Zen and like it’ll bring about world peace, but the hard reality is that that people who don’t play nice, don’t play nice.
I know, eh? What a shocking revelation! Burning incense, chanting, exuding positive thoughts and refuting all negativity as a form of crime prevention ain’t working folks.
Neither is filling jails with folks who have no bloody intention of changing their ways. So, I suggest that we learn from those brilliant painters and politicians begin to apply the painter principle to law.
Dang painters…
