Every now and then I have a shot of brilliance. Of all the sparks in my head that dance from synapse to lobe, among the commands for food, drink, more drink, and stimulus of a more primal nature, every now and then something ignites a eureka and electrocutes my attention. It’s too bad that a spark doesn't shine for too long.
How often do you witness witlessness and needless stupidity in your daily life? Not even stupidity really, which genetically isn’t always the fault of the owner of dull gray matter, but ignorance.
Ignorance is in fact the scourge I have in my crosshairs at this moment. The guy on my wanted poster is not the subject of hereditary misfortune, but a behaviour that each of us has chosen in our weaker moments. Some would argue that the word implies a lack of exposure to certain knowledge and thus a 'get out of jail' freebie, but I see the word as a lack of the interest to self-inform. That's bad. Make no mistake, every ignorance that we commit or are forced to endure is the result of a choice. I say we penalize that choice.
I think there should be a tax, an admission charge to the outside world if you get into your stupid shoes and your dopey hat, and decide to wear them in public.
I believe we can negatively enforce people into smartening up.
Not every ignorance can be opposed. Some are a lifetime encumbrance and have ascended past choice into habit. These habits are spots on a leopard’s back that cannot be changed. Others should be changed, can be changed, and will be changed… with the proper incentives.
What gets through to people faster and better than anything? What cuts to the core, to the root of the matter faster than sensory deprivation, stern correspondence, and corporal punishment? Wallet punishment. Give those succumbing to their ignorance a ticket for being ignorant and fairly soon you’ll have people who finally think more than once about the foot going forward that's left to follow the left.
So what do we ticket? We all have our opinions about the behaviour we see in others that they should have to pay to exhibit. Stupid Tax is a given for many driving quirks we all witness that aren’t quite criminal but certainly aren’t thoughtful: For following too close, gratuitous horn use, leaving that space on either end of your vehicle that’s too small for another in a treasured free parallel parking zone. Though it’s behind the wheel that we mere mortals seem to most commonly take leave of our senses, it certainly doesn’t hold the exclusive rights on ignorami.
I would personally campaign for the addition of certain cosmetic bells and whistles that people add to their cars in the interest of an adopted racecar identity. If you put a trumpet on the end of your vehicle’s exhaust pipe to make it sound stronger, you my friend deserve a ticket, and if you have decal on your window of a cartoon character urinating on another cartoon character, you deserve to pay. Distinctiveness should not make my eyes sore.
For that matter, superfluous and pointless accents of many, almost any discipline tend to be deserving of this dubious distinction. Bells and whistles, when not found officiating hockey games or jingling on the side of a one-horse sleigh, are playing a cosmetic role that the owner can likely do without, and do far better without in the surrounding opinion. If you wear colour contacts, inject and augment certain features of your body, wear an ornament that hurts your body, call attention to yourself through some meaningless symbol, or make an incessant noise for the benefit of no one, than you should be paying the tax.
That bell and the accompanying whistle can indeed also be found on your cell phone. In our digital age these devices of mass irritation must be messaged. Certain cell phone infractions fall under this shadow, hiding from the thought and brightness of public decency. People who use the two-way radio option on their phone to hold a conversation that the entire room is forced to audience, take it outside, get in your car, or pay a fine. If your phone, or your app, or your text message is more important than general courtesy to those around you... in traffic, in the supermarket, or heaven forbid, in the movie theatre, then you are supporting the tax.
If you deliberately use bad grammar, replace ‘s’ in your correspondence needlessly with ‘z’, can’t think of a better title for your movie sequel than the original followed with a ‘2’, make generalist statements about people you don’t know, force others to be sensitive to your politics, talk on your cell phone when your attentiveness and silence is required, abuse your neighborhood garbage removal, treasure your toys more than your home, and discuss your personal politics with strangers, gratuitously play the race card, gratuitously use gratuitous… gratuitously doing anything, disrespect your parents, leave a toilet paper roll empty or the toilet seat up, you deserve to pay.
The next natural question is: who awards these medals of moronic distinction. As much as I would like to be a one-man force for thoughtfulness, I can’t do it all myself. Should the criminal justice system bear this burden? Do they then have to carry another ticket book? Will they want to issue me one of these tickets for issuing them more work? Where do you show up to dispute the charge, and should doing so merit another bigger ticket? Is it stupid to assume we could spare a cop or two?
We need to take ignorance out the hands of the people that abuse the right to be voluntarily stupid. In doing so, I’m not suggesting any Orwellian removal of basic freedoms. Lets face it, every once and while we relish being dumb, and rightfully so. We all deserve the right to let loose, be fallible and learn from our mistakes. Therefore along with my proposed Stupid Tax I suggest The Stupid Mulligan. In the spirit of immaculate imperfection, we all deserve a break.
Be a fool once shame on you, be a dumbass twice… pay up.
Stupid Tax is a principle that goes hand in hand with all of the other ways we penalize each other for our moments of vacancy. The crime is that we have let these less tangible acts go on this long. Though we should be allowed to be fallible, there is no reason to feign ignorance of ignorance. Keep the things you do unto others that no other deserves in privacy of your own cave and feel free to have your thoughtlessness echo through the ages, where no one else can hear.
Thoughtfully Yours,
Patrick
