A matter of perspective
Published Fri, Nov 9 2007 6:41 PM
Today as I was driving to work, I turned off the radio for a while to think. Normally, when I'm driving I try to stay within the legal speed limit. There are occasions though when I'll throw caution to the winds and drive a bit faster.
Someone once said that a moron is somebody that is either going so slowly that they keep you from going as fast as you'd like on the road, or somebody that is going faster than you are. It's all a matter of perspective.
I think it's a pretty safe bet that most of us ignore speed limits from time to time. We get in a hurry to go somewhere and rationalize that "hey, 5 miles per hour isn't going to hurt anyone". It's probably even a safe bet that a lot of us ignore the speed limits most of the time.
The people that sell radar detectors aren't really likely to be making their money just because people want to know when the local grocery store is using microwaves to detect when people approach their doors are they? Why spend hundreds of dollars on a radar detector in the first place unless you're going to use it to reduce your risk of a citation due to speeding? Is curiosity really that big a factor?
In most jurisdictions, it's probably safe to say that the police are outnumbered by a wide margin on the roads. There's simply no way that they can catch every speeder. It's also a likelihood that the police aren't interested in the typical speeder who is only going a mile or two (or even five or ten) above the speed limit. They're generally looking for the truly reckless and dangerous drivers.
Anyway, given all of this, it's fun to observe other drivers, and my own reactions to the various ways people drive. For instance, why is it that whenever a group of cars is traveling down the highway, everybody seems to slow down five to ten miles per hour as soon as they see a police car on the side of the road with it's lights flashing? Even when everyone was already obeying the speed limit?
I wonder about that. Could it be that the people in the front of the line are so used to driving over the speed limit that they reflexively slow down whenever they see a police car? "Cheeze it! It's the cops! Better slow down so they don't waste my time with a lecture and a ticket!"
The law in the state of Washington says that generally you must drive on the right half of the road. There are signs on many sections of highway that say something to the effect of "State Law, Keep Right Except To Pass". So why do we see so many cars cruising along in the left lane?
On many of our highways, at least in rural areas there are two separate speed limits. One is for cars and the other is for "trucks", by which is meant commercial vehicles over a certain GVWR. On major freeways (in the state of Washington) the speed limit for cars is 70mph and for trucks it's 60mph. This would tend to explain, at least in some cases why you'll often see cars cruising along in the left lane. It's to avoid having to continually change lanes to get around the trucks.
Unfortunately that means that sometimes there will be otherwise law-abiding citizens traveling in the left lane that are traveling slower than the people behind them, who wish to ignore the speed limit, would like. And so we see people start passing on the right, even though that too is a violation of traffic laws.
These people, and I freely admit to on occasion being one of them are often irritated at the "slowpokes" in the left lane. Some have even been observed to display obscene gestures while passing illegally. Do we honestly need to be in that big a hurry?
I also, and I'm sure that other people as well, get irritated when I'm on a four lane freeway going up a hill and some gigantic semi pulls out into the left lane in front of me and then proceeds to slowly creep past another semi in the right lane. I understand the trucker's desire to get around the slower trucker, but really! It's irritating. The speed limit for me is ten miles per hour faster than for that truck and he just slowed down a whole lane of faster traffic.
What about two lane roads? By "two lane roads" I mean roads where one lane of traffic is dedicated to travelers going in one direction and the other is dedicated to travelers going in the other direction.
That's an important distinction, because there are such things as one lane roads, where traffic going in both directions shares the same lane. One lane roads are rare, but they do exist. They are also the only place in Washington State law where it is occasionally legal to go faster than the posted speed limit.
Anyway, how often do you get irritated by a "slow" driver on a two lane road? Like I said before I like to try to drive within the speed limit. That means if the speed limit is 60mph, I'll be going 60mph. If the speed limit is 55mph, I'll be going 55mph. I also try to keep to the right though.
Invariably that means that I'm going to irritate somebody by going too slowly for them. Like today. Today a woman in a little car was following me down SR 18 Eastbound, coming down Tiger Mountain. The speed limit there is 55mph.
I was going 55mph. She was about ten feet behind my car, swerving to the left side and then to the right side of the lane, flashing her lights at me. At least she had the decency to not honk her horn at me too. As soon as the road widened to three lanes, I moved over into the right hand lane (often referred to as the "truck" lane) and she blew by me, giving me a dirty look as she went past.
I've been in her position before too. Like I said, I usually try to stay within the speed limit, but sometimes I don't bother. And quite often during those times I've thought of those drivers that are driving just at the speed limit as morons or worse. Especially when they're blocking my progress. As soon as I've had the opportunity it was pedal to the floor to get around. It's all a matter of perspective.
So why do I drive the speed limit? Well, for one, I don't want to have to pay traffic fines. The typical speeding ticket, for less than 15mph over the limit, amounts to around $100.00. That's not a huge amount of money, but it will buy a couple of tanks of gas and a lunch or two. It doubles in "work zones" too.
Technically that's only supposed to happen when workers are present, but sometimes the police like to "pretend" to be workers. I wonder if when they're doing that if the fines double then too? Anyway there are altogether too many construction zones between my home and where I work, most of which stretch for miles, with only one or two people working, and often none.
I know that the typical police stop isn't going to be for going even five mile per hour above the speed limit, but why risk it? All it takes is just one irritant too many in the policeman's life and what might have been a warning could turn into a traffic citation. And legally, they can pull you over and cite you for as little as one mile per hour over the limit. The fine is still the same.
I'm not afraid of speed. In fact, I like to drive fast. I just do it on the race track instead of the roads.
Driving the speed limit doesn't mean that I'm any better than anyone else on the road either. Once upon a time, when I was younger I thought that it did. Man what an attitude I could develop when other people sped by me as I drove the speed limit. I even recall at times when there would be people getting together (back when the national speed limit was 55mph, and don't even get me started on a national speed limit), and blocking all lanes of traffic by driving 55mph to make a point. Now THOSE people were really irritating.
Self righteousness is a waste of time though, because we're all sinners. And what good does it do to follow one aspect of the law, and a relatively minor one at that if we ignore a different one entirely, at least where righteousness is concerned?
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others." Matthew 23:23 via thetithe.org
Yes, there is a judge and He will consider these things. There are also judges appointed by men whose business it is to enforce the laws, or to decide the penalties we pay when we're caught. But the rest of us aught not to be in that business.
That's really where I've been going with all of this. None of us are without flaws, and as long as that's true we have no business judging other people for their flaws. I used traffic and driving attitudes as an example, because it's an example of petty self-righteousness when we judge other people for going too fast or too slow, or for failing to signal a lane change, all the while ignoring our own larger transgressions.
This doesn't mean that it's not appropriate to speak out against things that we perceive to be wrong. It does mean that it's not appropriate for us to judge others that engage in practices we perceive to be wrong though.
For example, I'm personally a pro-lifer. I think that abortion is a horrible wrong. I'm going to speak out against it from time to time as I have. I'm going to try to convince people that there isn't a constitutionally protected right to an abortion, despite what the National Abortion Rights Action League says.
I want to see the issue returned to the states, and I'd like to see those states where the people don't want abortion on demand to be the norm to be able to ban it, or to at least put reasonable restrictions on it.
Does that mean that I think I'm better than a woman that has an abortion? Hardly. I think that it was the wrong choice to make, and I don't support that choice, but it wasn't my choice and it's not my place to judge her.
As another example, I don't believe that homosexuality is normal or desirable. I think that there are a lot of things wrong with it from a social point of view as well as my own moral point of view. I think that homosexual behavior is dangerous, that it exposes people to all manner of diseases, such as AIDs, and that it dehumanizes some people.
Does that mean that I think I'm a better person than someone that happens to be a homosexual? Certainly not. Does that mean that I think that all homosexual people are evil and that their rights should be suppressed? Definitely not. They are no more evil than I am, and their rights aught to be upheld just as I'd expect mine to be.
I happen to have quite a few friends that are homosexual. These people are good people. They care about other people, they give to charities, they work hard and they respect me and others. Why should I treat them any differently than they treat me? It's not my business to judge them, even if my idea of right and wrong is different than theirs.
When it comes down to it, I bet you'd find that a lot of conservatives and religious people think as I do on this. It's quite natural to speak out against an attitude or a lifestyle that you disagree with, but that does not mean that you judge people that hold that attitude or live that lifestyle.
That's what tolerance is really about.
This is what I find so strange about "the left", and about Democrats, or rather the Democratic Party leadership. They're big on multiculturalism and tolerance. They want us to accept other cultures and other lifestyles, and tolerate their beliefs.
That's all well and good. I want them to accept my culture and my lifestyle and to tolerate my beliefs. But, to tell you the truth, I don't think that they do.
I don't think that it really matters where a person is from. That's why I don't understand (well, I do understand, just not agree with) when people insist upon referring to themselves as African-Americans, or Italian-Americans, or any other kind of hyphenated Americans. What's wrong with simply being an American?
Multiculturalists tell us that we have to accept these differences between peoples. I'm all for that. But why emphasize those differences? Why should we separate ourselves into little cliques or enclaves of hyphenated people? If we're really accepting one another why do we need the extra labels?
For that matter, it seems to me that a lot of what I've heard about multiculturalism and tolerance really aren't about accepting one another, even as equals. It really amounts to denigrating what one race and culture (white, Anglo-Saxon, Christian) is in order to elevate another (black, African, Muslim). Some multiculturalists even go so far as to say that only white people can possibly be racist.
It seems to me that the Democratic leadership's idea of multiculturalism only leads to self flagellation rather than tolerance and acceptance. It seems to me that rather than focusing on what makes us different, we really need to focus on what makes us the same. We are all imperfect human beings, each of us with our own flaws.
Democrats are known as the party of tolerance. When you think of "gay rights", which party comes to mind? Why then were they so gleeful when they outed Mark Foley? Could it possibly be that Mark Foley was a bit of a hypocrite?
"3Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is the log in your own eye? 5You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye." Matthew 7:3-4
Mark Foley was well known for his stands on morality. Then he was caught in a scandal for having sent suggestive messages to a House page. The Democrats were gleeful and quickly denounced him for his immoral "gay" behavior. He was forced to resign in disgrace over mere words. Interestingly enough, Gerry Studds was also a gay Congressman. The difference between them? Gerry Studds actually raped a House page, plying him with liquor to facilitate his crime, while Mark Foley only sent suggestive messages. To this day, Gerry Studds is honored as "the first openly gay member of Congress". Mark Foley is merely reviled, although rightly so for his hypocrisy.
We are, each of us flawed. That doesn't mean that we can't take a stand against what we believe to be wrong or evil. I honestly believe that it is better to have high standards and occasionally fail to meet them than to have no standards at all and revile others for not meeting them.
This is, to me the big difference between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.
Republicans often have high moral standards, and often fail to meet them. I know that I have high moral standards and that I often fail to meet them. I try again and again though to get back up and reach for them. By doing so, and with God's grace I've overcome a lot of my weaknesses and moral failings. I still have a long way to go though.
Certain Democrats (by all means not all of them, nor even most of them) on the other hand have low or no moral standards. They don't fail to meet them, because the standards are so low. Call them out on it though and they'll attack you for any moral failing you might have.
To me that's not tolerance, it's depravity. It's the pot calling the kettle black. Never mind that they're both covered in soot.
It's all a matter of perspective.
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