Rant Redux

In a follow-up to yesterday's ill-tempered rant, I wanted to clarify one thing- I was not ranting about "young people these days", not in any sense. Young folks of every generation have always marched to different drum, and tried to disassociate themselves from the norm. That's expected. What I was ranting about was the fact that Americans of all age groups, in ever increasing numbers, have become slobs.

CKW made an interesting point about it being the Freedom to act and dress any way we choose that makes this a great country. True enough. But just because we are all free to waddle our vastly overweight selves down the streets dressed like Bosnian rufugees, yakking on cell phones at the top of our voices while chugging Triple-Bacon GreaseBurgers, does not mean that America is a better place because increasing numbers of people do these things.

One problem is that all lines between private and public behavior have come down. Americans have always sat on their couches in their living rooms in cut-off shorts, sleeveless, ragged t-shirts, and rotting sandals, while slurping sodas, yelling into the phone, picking their noses and scratching themselves in intimate places. That's fine. What I worry about is that we also now do all those things at the supermarket. There used to be a line between private behavior and public behavior, and there does not seem to be one anymore, and that does not make America a better place.

Most Americans claim to take pride in "their country", whatever that phrase is supposed to mean, but their public behavior increasingly fails to show any evidence of it. There have always been a few rude slobs among us. That's not a problem. The problem is that the numbers have vastly expanded. And we do not needs laws to change this state of affairs, we just need people to GROW THE FUCK UP.

And if you are going to be innapropriate in public, at least take a cue from the French and do it with style-