WHERE ARE THE MEN AND WOMEN?

            As lawyer, primarily a criminal defense lawyer, my customers (clients) are a needy breed.  Inevitably, they blame the system, bad luck, bad people, bad girl-friends, bad boy-friends, alcohol, drugs, most everything with the one exception almost always being themselves. This trait is not limited to criminal defendants. It is endemic in our society today and it is destroying us.  There is an adage of mine that I often repeat to myself.  If you want to see your real enemy, look in the mirror.  The truth of the matter is this:  When I trace the cause of all of the monumental screw ups in my life, and there have been many, it always comes back to yours truly, me.  But this is a good thing.  It’s good to know your enemy and your enemy is you, at least I think it is.  I will put a qualifier on my contempt for my clients.  Deep down, most folks are good people.  We all want the same things for the most part, a home, family, financial stability, a sense of purpose, affirmation and hope.  Fortunately, these goals are attainable by most everybody if they just do the work, which isn’t easy, but it isn’t impossible – and it’s a lot more fun than the alternative, being without these things.  Remember, the road to success is not difficult to figure out, it’s just difficult to follow.  Think of digging a ditch.  It is easy to understand how to dig a ditch, but hard to do it.  That’s life in a nut shell.       

            Sure, life is difficult.  That’s the first sentence of M. Scott Peck’s book, The Road Less Travelled?  The book is a four-point guide to a virtuous actualization of life.  Discipline, love, religion and grace are the four points.  It’s a good read.  But the point here is, life is difficult.  As the actor, John Voight, said (or was said to him by a higher force during a breakdown he was having), “it’s supposed to be.”  Of course, it is.  What would be the joy of life if it wasn’t a challenge, if everything was a given, if success was guaranteed?  No thanks, right?   Would you do an end zone dance if the entire defense laid down and let you through?  Probably not, well, unless you are a modern day woke-flake brimming over with entitlement and privilege, then you might.  But anyway, we all know that life is difficult, a royal pain in the ass at times. 

            And the world is having a difficult time of it right now which leads to the question; why?  Here’s the simple answer, we don’t have enough men and women.  Now, I’m not talking about human beings with male or female genitalia.  How could I be?  In today’s woke world, a pair no longer means you’re a man and a vagina no longer means you’re a woman.  Apparently, having a penis or vagina between your legs means nothing at all now-a-days.  It all depends upon how you feel about yourself, how you identify, is what we’re told.  A man can be a woman.  A woman can be a man.  You can be gender fluid and alternate between the two, unbridled by the reality existing in your underpants. What I am talking about is people with guts, people with stamina, people who take personal responsibility for themselves, people who don’t blame everybody and everything other than themselves for their woes.  This is who we’re missing. 

            We have become a culture of whiny self-indulgent sissies beholden to equally sissified leaders who provide us endless cover for the failings of our lives.  Don’t believe me? Take a stroll down Facebook Road.  Of late, the only thing I see folks taking responsibility for is being white and privileged.  Regardless of our problems, whatever they may be, our current leaders assure us that none of it is our fault, it is somebody else’s fault.  We are poor because of the rich.  We are unhealthy because of the system.  Our race isn’t doing that well because of the racists.  Our career isn’t going so well because of sexism.  Our kid’s baseball team is losing because of that awful practice of keeping score.  My kid can’t get into Harvard or Yale because of the Asians.  The black urban neighborhoods are dismal because of white suburban neighborhoods, white supremacy and white privilege.  Murder rates are soaring because of guns, not murderers.  I can’t afford a house because of a housing crisis.  My ill positioned rickety shack got blown down in a hurricane because of climate change.  War is caused by climate change.  I’m fat because of our processed food supply.  Nothing is anybody’s fault.  Everything is somebody else’s fault.  That is the world we live in today and it is despicable.  And our leaders are exploiting it to accumulate a dangerous level of power and control.  “Just vote for me and I’ll fix your life” seems to be the predominant campaign theme now-a-days, “because your life’s failings are not your fault,” there’s that too.  It’s bunk, total unadulterated bullshit, bullshit that needs to be called out.

            The blame game, the collective projection, and the irresponsibility of Americans needs to end or we truly will devolve into a socialist Marxist miasma of despair and mediocrity.  We, this nation, needs a rebirth of men and women, people who look within for answers instead of to the government or other people.  We need people with discipline and resilience, people with courage.  We need people to stop complaining and blaming.  We need people to be honest, to stop suffering fools, and to be unafraid to live by their principles.  It’s important.  Our nation and any hope of a bright future for the world is dependent upon it – seriously it is.

            That’s my Reetzality for the day.

            Brett Reetz