Constructive Alternatives
Published Fri, Jan 23 2009 12:17 PM
The left has got a legitimate complaint. There really are pressing social problems that need to be solved in our country and our world today. There really does seem to be a serious problem with our national economy, as well as the world economy. Despite the fact that America has finally elected its first black President, racism still runs rampant throughout our society. There's a growing perception among some that we are destroying fragile ecosystems and ruinously altering the very fabric our world is made of with alarming consequences.
And “the right” is out there obstructing every effort to address these problems. According to some all conservatives and Republicans do is obstruct progress and never offer any solutions of their own. Conservatives whine and criticize without engaging in constructive dialog. Considering that, I've decided to try and offer some positive, constructive ideas for how to deal with the problems that face us today. Lets start with just one of them.
Litter and The Environment
Let's face it. To say that people are pigs is actually an insult to pigs. Reports of the mounds of garbage left by celebrants after the Presidential inauguration on Tuesday don't surprise me at all. Nor am I surprised that this litter pile was left by a crowd that most likely was dominated by members of the party of the environment, Democrats. To be fair, the same sort of mess would probably have been left behind by a crowd consisting mostly of Republicans too. I recall well the mess left behind by celebrants at several Christian religious festivals I attended that were held in the Orlando area during the late 1970s. And we know how the left feels about the “religious right.”
Cigarette smokers are another group whose behavior with regard to littering is deplorable. In Seattle, arguably one of the “bluest” of “blue” cities (the Seattle area dominates the politics of the state of Washington, effectively countering the “red state” nature of that part of the state east of the Cascade mountain range) it is not possible to walk down a major street without seeing cigarette butts on the sidewalks, or in the gutters. Areas around designated smoking areas are literally covered with them.
Often, while driving home at night on the freeways I see people in the cars ahead of me throw lit cigarettes out their windows, despite the fact that the state imposes a $1,000.00 fine for throwing burning material out of a car on the highways. In many western states, this particular behavior has been responsible for starting wildfires that destroy homes and seriously damage thousands of acres of “fragile” ecosystems annually.
Can you think of what group or groups of people are most publicly active regarding the expansion of wilderness areas? You would think that these people would be most concerned with keeping our recreation and wilderness areas clean, as they're presumably the ones that will be using them. Why is it then, that just about every time I go for a hike in the woods, I leave carrying more trash than I carried in with me?
So, as I said, I want to offer some positive, constructive ideas to solve this problem. Obviously laws and regulations intended to deal with such deplorable behavior don't work. Perhaps public humiliation will serve to address this problem. I'm seriously considering carrying a video camera with me wherever I go. I've got a relatively nice one that can hold seven hours of video. I've got a tripod so that I can set it up in my car as I'm driving. The idea here is to have it continually recording the actions of the people around me as I'm out walking and driving. When it catches someone in the act of littering (a fairly common occurrence) or tossing a lit cigarette out their window at night, publishing the video to YouTube and sending a copy to the local police, complete with license plates, might serve to get the message across.
What? That's an invasion of privacy? It's not right to expose the hypocrisy of so-called environmentalists? Then YOU come up with an alternative idea.
I'm sure you've seen those signs on the roadsides, “Adopt a Highway.” This is a pretty good program. People and organizations volunteer to clean up a stretch of highway on a regular basis. The problem with this, is that it leaves the responsibility for cleaning up the environment to someone that's not responsible for creating the mess in the first place. It actually encourages littering, because “someone else will pick it up.” Another problem with this is that the volunteers expose themselves to danger while picking up other peoples trash right next to speeding traffic, and volunteers never have enough time to clean up after other people on a daily basis.
The best solution to the problem of litter, and other forms of pollution is for the offender to clean up after himself. If people would stop just dropping their trash wherever they feel like, we'd have a lot less trash to pick up. If smokers would take to carrying plastic bags with them to hold their butts after they've put them out (just as dog owners are required to do to clean up after their dogs when they answer the call of nature) there would be a lot less non-bio-degradable garbage lining our gutters and sidewalks. If they used the ashtrays in their cars instead of disposing of their ashes and butts by letting them blow away in the wind of their car's passage down the road, there's be fewer wildfires. If Starbucks swilling environmentalist hikers carried their empty latte cups out of the forest instead of dropping them on the trails I wouldn't have to pick them up for them when I go for a hike.
So, this is my first real recommendation to solve one of the problems we face today. Pick up after yourself, and if you see someone else littering, pick up after them as well. You might want to also talk to them about it, if you can do so safely. Some people are just plain obnoxious though, especially hypocrites that like to think of themselves as saving the planet while spreading their own pollution. If you see trash on the sidewalk, pick it up. It doesn't matter whose mess it is, pick it up. If we really want a cleaner world, the first thing to do is to take positive action to clean it up.
A few months ago, I saw a commercial on television that emphasized this concept. A man was walking down the street when he observed another man throw away a coffee cup. He stopped to pick it up. Several more similar incidents happened over time. At the end of the commercial, the man that was picking up after our littering friend approached him and presented him with a sculpture — made out of the discarded litter. Now that seems to me to be an effective way to clean up our streets and to get the point across to the offender.
It's a start anyway.
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Stanford Matthews responded with:
 | As for embarrassing offenders by taping their actions, to quote lines from the Law & Order series, there is no expectation of privacy when one is out in public.
Being a smoker and a member in good standing to the group of 2nd class citizens only held in less disdain than perhaps sex offenders (but that's not confirmed) I offer this report.
Since smoking became almost as offensive to some as terrorism I advanced my conscious effort not to annoy anyone with the only vice I have left. I never smoke near anyone else. If I am not at home the 'butt' gets extinguished as it reaches the filter. (that takes a while) The remains go in my change pocket or the original package.
That's just my little rant on social exile of smokers not to mention the lesser treatment of divorced fathers. Thanks for inspiring my public rant as venting form time to time is healthy.
But more to the point of your post, there is no getting around the fact that within public affairs and its attendant discourse lives the evil of hypocrisy. |
Perri Nelson responded with: Smokers
 | I don't hold smokers in disdain. I used to smoke and I understand the reasons some people choose to smoke and how difficult it is for anyone that's done it for any appreciable length of time to quit. I also don't believe that the habit is nearly as dangerous as so many people make it out to be. Yes, there's statistical evidence that smoking is bad for your health, but there are outliers. Some people live quite long lives, smoking for most of them with no apparent ill effects. I seem to recall at one time that a 114 year old Russian woman attributed her longevity to smoking a good cigar daily. As for second hand smoke, the link is too tenuous, although I'm sure some of the anti-smoking nazis will excoriate me for saying so. Dear Lord, they're already worried about exposure to third hand smoke. Apparently, evidence of harm isn't what matters to these busybodies. Never mind the well documented effect that minor exposure to toxins results in a resistance to those toxins. All one has to do to see that is to watch a few episodes of the program Forensic Files to learn that people poisoned with Arsenic (one of the “evil” chemical elements in cigarette smoke) are frequently exposed to low doses at first by their poisoners. It then takes a truly massive dose to kill them, because their bodies have developed a resistance to the toxin. But I digress. The real issue as far as I'm concerned here is, as you pointed out the hypocrisy of so many people that seem to be concerned about the environment and yet treat it with disdain in their everyday, unthinking behaviors. People like the crowd at the inauguration, or the “nature lovers” that leave their drink containers on the local trails. And, as I said, I want to offer real solutions that work, so I started small. To get a handle on litter, a relatively minor issue, all we've got to do is start picking up after ourselves, and each other. Thanks Stanford, for taking care of your own. |
ablur responded with:
 | I watch people unwrap what ever it is and simply let the wrappings fall away around them. If you mention it they are completely oblivious to the event. They become so focused on the internal product that all the protection, trappings and packaging simply don't exist.
I saw a couple of boys come out of a 7-11 and unwrap their candy. They were talking non stop and didn't even seem to notice that the wrapper passed through there hands like it didn't exist. I wont bother to tell you about the blank stare and the vulgarity when I pointed it out.
Hypocrisy is rampant in America. Just attacking the litter issue would change the world. |
Marshall Art responded with:
 | Good gosh! As an ex-smoker myself, I admit to flicking the butt out the car window as I sped down the highways. It wasn't a customary action, since my car ashtray was used liberally. But I can't say I never did it. However, the worst I've seen is sitting at a light behind another car, seeing the driver door open, and then seeing the driver dump his ashtray on the pavement! And there was a gas station on the same corner!!! I wanted to ram this dude's rear bumper!!!!
I live on a corner lot. The side of my property is along a well used street. All year long I'm picking up people's crap off the parkway. Beer cans, cigarette wrappers, fast food bags, and once, I kid you not, a spent condom. Litter drives me nuts. I am so much more conscious of my own trash these days. I even clean up after the trash men come and aren't careful on the windy days, of what might not make it into their trucks. I always have a bag for trash in my car.
Public humiliation works for me. |
David responded with:
 | "The left has got a legitimate complaint. There really are pressing social problems that need to be solved in our country and our world today."
Most of the social problems could more easily be addressed if politicians as a whole would simply stop exacerbating them.
As to littering, etc. I like your idea of exposing litterers. Heck, I'd take it further and say we should militate for laws that punish littering by giving each one caught--by a LEO or a conscientious citizen videoing the act--a mile of littered highway to clean up for the first offense, two miles for the second, etc. Better would be to combine both a video of the offense and a video of the punishment and post them in a public place--YouTube, for example. Such juxtaposition of offense and consequence might do more to modify the behaviors of some than huge fines would.
But then, I'm all for broadcasting executions of drunk drivers who kill someone--preferably executions performed with their own cars--or whatever wrecked remains of their cars--dropped on them until they are dead. Heck, I think ALL criminal punishments should be as widely known as possible, and that the punishments should really, truly fit the crime.
Get out the videocams, folks. Video those litterers and make YouTube crash under the weight of all the videos. *heh* (OTOH, we could end up with things like the video I tried to take today: "Low Battery Warning"--crashed camera... :-)) |
Angel responded with:
 | Most of the social problems could more easily be addressed if politicians as a whole would simply stop exacerbating them. ..I second that emotion!:) |
Perri Nelson responded with: Cigarrette Butts
| This is sort of an update. Apparently, smoking bans are causing a new old kind of pollution in Ashland (no pun intended) Oregon. Ron Roth, owner of Geppetto's restaurant, arrived at this month's Planning Commission meeting with a grocery bag and a large tin can full of cigarette butts that he had swept up since the state banned smoking in bars. “Before it was just a minor eyesore, it wasn't a big deal — but thousands of cigarette butts do become a big deal,” Roth said. Geppetto's is next to Beau Club, a bar that used to allow smoking. Now, patrons light up outside. The new law bans people from smoking outside within 10 feet from doors or windows, a regulation that many don't follow downtown because it usually means standing in the street, Roth said. “We should have ashtrays and they should be supplied and maintained by the city,” he said while sweeping up more cigarette butts on a recent afternoon.
I've got a better idea. Repeal the stupid law that nobody will obey downtown without risking life and limb. And let the shop owners clean up after their patrons. |
Perri Nelson responded with: Link
| Doh! I forgot the link for that quote. It's in the cite attribute of the blockquote tag, but that won't help you follow it unless you dig out the raw HTML. So, here's the link. http://www.kval.com/news/local/38543292.html |