The Soapbox: Rants and Commentary: Enablers and Idiots By David Anderson, Jr -- Out Of My Mind Productions(oommp@webspan.net) This is a note from a writer friend of mine who works in law enforcement. He was good enough to allow me to reprint it here. We are a society of enablers. We coax the dysfunctional into becoming more dysfunctional. We love our slackers and weirdos and anyone with no sense of moral or personal responsibility. I know this sounds outrageous, but I see myself as an enabler as well. Here we go. Last Thursday morning I'm driving to work. A gray car cuts me off and pulls in front of me. No big thing, really. People often drive with no concern for those around them; I sometimes do. However, behind the wheel, I see a big head of red hair. Now, there are two women from work I hang with on occasion; Bonnie and Kiki. Kiki much more than Bonnie. Kiki is in her mid 40's and just a jazzy lady. She's smart, witty, well read, sophisticated. A real gem. Bonnie I hang with because, for some ungodly reason, Kiki hangs with her. Bonnie is young, 27 to be exact, a drinker, a loud mouth, a partyier, and wouldn't know a sonnet from a villanelle if you explained it to her fifty times. Well, Bonnie was that red head. I also know Bonnie had her driving privileges revoked and was driving while on the revoked list. This is a serious offense. Bonnie then smiles and waves at me. Now, I'm willing to turn a blind eye to this. Again, the enabler in me. One more thing, while driving on the revoked list in New Jersey, even if the car is insured, the insurance company will not honor their contract if you have a collision. So, she cuts me off, while I'm in uniform, and waves at me. Wonderful. Now, I'm going to go into the parking garage. There is a three was intersection with a stop sign at one of the 'T" so to speak. I'm coming up the stalk of the 'T' ready to make a right. A gray car driven by a red head blows the stop sign, never slows down, and almost hits my new car. Again, Bonnie smiles and waves at me. She's driving like an idiot on the revoked list in front of a uniformed cop. Still the enabler, I'm willing to turn a blind eye. I go up to talk to Bonnie about this, because it is a very serious situation we have here. You see, in New Jersey, liability is such that, if Bonnie gets into an accident and people know I didn't take her off the road when I knew she was driving, as a cop I'm liable. She hits another car and injures people, I get sued, not her. Not only that, but I lose my job because of a little law we have here called, "Malfeasance." Always the enabler, I try to work it out without doing what the law demands. I ask her if we can talk. She laughs and says, "I don't' want to talk to you." Still enabling, I walk away. Now I run her driving record and find it to be seven pages and sixty-five lines long. She's been ticked for driving on the revoked list five times. She's a blatant offender who doesn't show up for court, doesn't pay fines, and keeps driving in the face of the law. I'm still willing to walk away. Then the camel's back snaps like a twig. She tells everyone. Everyone. All the guys I work with are approached by her co-workers asking them why I'm being an jerk and why I'm being vindictive. My hands are tied. I have no choice. Everyone knows. If she drives, and I haven't ticketed her, I lose my job. If she hits someone and I haven't ticketed her, I lose everything else. So the enabling stops and I write her. Now, here's where the rest of the world enables. Now, everyone she works with thinks I'm a jerk and it is all my fault. After all, I put her in that car, put her on the revoked list, laughed, and told everyone. Things do digress from here. The aforementioned Kiki, a friend and someone I really cherished, is gone from my life. She won't speak to me, or even look at me. She's an enabler too. I can't blame her, so am I. Now, enabling societies. Friday, just before the end of the day, I get a call from a police agency just north of where I am. It seems a 15 year old girl has stolen her mother's truck and might be headed our way to bail her boyfriend out of the jail with stolen credit cards. Well, sure enough, she was there and I caught her getting into the truck and starting it up. I pulled her out and asked, "Are you 15?" "Yes." "Did you steal this truck?" "Yes." Her affect was amazing. She didn't care. She just didn't care. This was, as the Beatles might say, just a day in the life. No big thing. So I begin booking her and she asks, "Will I be in the same jail as my boyfriend." I tell her no, you'll be in the Juvenile Hall. "Can I see him before I go?" I'm shocked. I've been a cop for nine years, and it is very rare I'm shocked. I'm shocked now. There is only one explanation. She is accustomed to an enabling society. "Everything will be okay, I don't have to worry about a thing, it will all be taken care of." You know what, she's right, it will be. Here's a good one. Yesterday, Tuesday, was banner day for me. I'm sitting in Domestic Violence court when a couple, who have filed for mutual restraints, come in with their four week old baby. I hear a raspy cry from the baby, which is my first alarm. Four week old's aren't supposed to sound that way. Then I go over to look at the baby. The first thing I see are bruises on the inside of the upper arm. This is a dead give away of abuse. You see, you grip the child hard there to yell at it, and it causes bruising along the soft tissue. Now there's the matter of the baby's head. Flat on the back, with no hair. Flat because it lays on its back all the time. No hair because it moves its head back and forth against the sheet while it is crying unattended. I take the baby and look at it. More soft tissue bruising. Sallow cheeks and a distended belly from neglect. This baby is dying as I look at it. So I took it away from the 21 year old mother and 32 year old father and gave it to our Division of Youth and Family Services (DYFS.) The mother was crying, the father broke down, the grandparents and sisters were shedding tears, and I was the bad guy. I decided not to enable anymore, like I did with Bonnie, and I became a villain again. And you wonder why I want to be writer. Back To Rants and Commentary

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