WhatFinger


My great great grandchildren can feel sorry on my behalf.

Apologies R US



It's time to end the donning of sackcloth and ashes to grieve over granddad's gaffes. A couple of decades ago, Bill Clinton retroactively wrung his hands in Africa over the enslavement of what are now, in many cases, proud "African Americans." Bill feels everyone's pain - except Juanita's, Paula's… Obama has been apologizing for everything American since before he was immaculated - er, inaugurated - and has only upped the ante since then, basically giving away the house to pander to, well, I'm not sure to whom he's pandering other than Karl Marx. Justin Trudeau appears to be just getting started.
It isn't just pols, though. Ordinary citizens, like their governments, are also prone to such "collective consolation." We wept over herding Americans and Canadians of Japanese descent into internment camps because our parents and grandparents suspected some of them might have been more loyal to their old country than their new. What seemed to many - including liberals - like a prudent precaution back then seems now, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, to be a crime against humanity. And for that we're sorry. We also apologize – and pay billions of dollars – to "aboriginals" because we displaced their society, when we did nothing of the sort (if anyone did, it was our great great great grandfathers, not us). We act remorseful to murderers because their crimes were really the fault of society – our fault, not theirs (they're depraved because they're deprived, to quote 'West Side Story') – and so we must weep with them and for them. This is silly – not to mention expensive and of dubious value. Heck, if throwing money around to assuage our collective angst worked, there'd be no hard feelings, no hopeless aboriginals, no problems with Islamic fanatics who seem to hold a grudge against us for perceived slights centuries old. As we try to right ancient wrongs we didn't cause, we belly up to the banking machine. And nothing changes. Despite placating "First Nations" with plentiful pennies, many scrape through life in squalor. And as sorry as we are about slavery, bigotry, social injustice, poverty, and many other things, prejudice still exists (been a Christian lately, or a smoker - or a middle aged white male looking for work?).

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Let's issue a "Universal Apology" right now, and write it in stone somewhere

Murderers still murder, regardless of our compassion for them, and bad things happen to good people… It's a never ending cycle that only benefits lawyers and makes liberals feel good (which, of course, is what it's all about with liberals. Well, that and wielding power over you.). It also manages to shut down discussion and disagreement - which is a large part of their point. Here's my solution: Why don't we take a bold, proactive step right now? Let's learn from history – and at the same time protect our children's children's children from undergoing the same "cycle of commiseration" centuries from today! Let's issue a "Universal Apology" right now, and write it in stone somewhere. We'll say how sorry we are for anything that in the future may be judged as bad, and beg the forgiveness of whomever we may someday be accused of having wronged. At whom should we aim this "proactive act of penitence"? For starters, we could apologize for harm we might do to alien life that may inhabit planets we'll visit someday. This isn't as far-fetched as one might think; we may already be responsible for destroying the ancestors of microbes trampled into the moon's face by the boots of Armstrong, Aldrin, Shepard, Cernan and the other astronauts who shamelessly littered the lunar landscape at the dawn of our pending rape of the universe. And just imagine the havoc we're wreaking on Mars and the comets on which we land! I'm surprised we didn't find an unwelcoming committee holding signs saying "Earthlings Go Home" when our first probes landed on the Red Planet. Or how about apologizing to the plankton that might be destroyed or displaced – and the life forms who feed upon them, and those that feed upon them – should we ever truly farm the oceans? These are creatures that, if evolution indeed exists, could one day be us – or better than us. In our blanket apology (and I ask the forgiveness of any blankets I offended in that blanket statement) we should probably include fruits and vegetables, trees, rainforests – all the poor, helpless things humanity (er, sorry, hupersonity) has clobbered in its zeal to remain a viable part of the food chain. After all, it's been said that even plants can feel pain, so lettuce say "sorry" for the sins committed during our species' salad days. Since we can't see the future, we don't know from where the next glimmer of intelligence will come, or which of God's (or Whomever's) creatures feels, like Clinton the Predator, its own special pain. Therefore, we can't know who or what we'll wrong next. So let's cover all the bases: cows, pigs, lambs - dinosaurs! We may not have killed the raptors, but in our rapture we've been exploiting their memories in our museums, movies, sports teams. And making money off of it! That can't be right, can it? I could list potentially pained parties all day, but each keystroke on my computer uses up electricity – and therefore coal (or uranium, fresh water, or whatever) which could possibly infringe on the rights of some blameless creature. And cost the lives of more innocent trees to print it out. Assuming we aren't killing trees already by not emitting enough carbon dioxide to keep sufficient amounts of the gas in the air to feed our flora. That is what they breathe, after all. The drawback to this "uber-apology", of course, is that (since we're admitting guilt going in) some lawyer will ensure there's a judgment against us and the resulting pecuniary penalty could put a burden on generations yet unborn. This would force us to apologize to our children's children's children, which kind of defeats the purpose… To prevent this, I have yet another solution. I propose a special tax – a dollar per year per person should be plenty - assessed globally (and good luck with that!). This should be invested safely – anywhere but the "submerging markets" fund in which I've cached some of my after-tax cash should do it – and allowed to compound until we're deemed to have royally screwed someone or something. By then it ought to be worth enough to heal any perceived wounds in proper style. On the other hand, that would merely ensure that the cycle continues, which would defeat the purpose of apologizing proactively. Ah, to Hell with it. This madness has to end. So I'm going to do my part, starting now. I'm going to take my four wheeled scourge of the environment down to the murdered innocent species store, then fire up the non-renewable-resource-wasting outdoor cooker and chomp down on some brisket of blameless bovine. Maybe with a side order of culled chicken children salad and washed down with the contents of a flask of fermented juice of trampled to death grapes. My great great grandchildren can feel sorry on my behalf.


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Jim Bray, CFP Automotive Editor -- Bio and Archives

Jim publishes TechnoFile Magazine. Jim is an affiliate with the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada and his careers have included journalist, technology retailer, video store pioneer, and syndicated columnist; he does a biweekly column on CBC Radio One’s The Business Network.

Jim can be reached at: bray@technofile.com

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