Behaving Badly

[isobars]

[boggsman1]

Isobars.... a decent post on your part.....there is hope, after all. I call the dilemna, the age of entitlement. Full blown disregard for common decency is rampant and will settle down as people go broke during the recession. right of way, parking, etc.

Boggsman

[swchandler]

I'm curious johnl, why did you only tell part of the story initially, especially since much more really happened. Why withhold information in a scenario like this? Maybe you can comment on that.

[johnl]

Well for a couple of reasons.....

1. I wanted to get an opinion about the initial contact. Because if I was completely off base, I would instead have to do a deep re-evaluation of my morals and standards. I'm not proud of how it ended up. Although the contact was completely accidental, if I had let it go, it would have never happened. Of course I can say the same for his actions, but I ended up colliding with him, so I felt responsible.

2. It was going to be a LONG story if I put all the detail into the first post. And that would have made for a very long post. It was long enough as it was...

3. Also I felt if I told the beginning of the story, let people read it and think about it. Then tell how it ended up, it would be a learning lesson. Some may have thought, crap, that could have happened to me, or then again they could think I'm a moron. Either way, it shows consequences of actions and reactions.

Thanks to my upbringing and career choice, I feel very strongly that we are all accountable to each other. If one is acting dangerously or way out of line, it is up to the rest of us to say something. If not, they will continue to do it and think it is okay. Granted, there are that 1 - 2% of hardcore bad people that won't care, but perhaps some will....

But taking such actions has consequences.

[swchandler]

johnl,

Thanks for your candor, it says much about your character. Nonetheless, it must be remembered that some, knowing the extent of your ordeal, would have agreed that the jerk got his due, or just karma. On the other hand, others might have thought you might have pursued this a bit too far, hence your later accidental collision and its potential risk.

Overall, there are still two sides to the coin. A tough dilemma.

Frankly, my preference would be to get the full story up front, regardless of the length. No strong criticisms or judgments from me though. I'm only being honest with my opinion.

[johnl]

Okay, next time (I really, really, hope this is a one time deal) the entire mess up front

I agree a bit to the Karma as it ended, but if it had ended worse, I would not. While it's nice to be sitting on the sidelines saying he got what he deserved, it's not so nice to be the once who caused him to get it......

[bludyell]

Maybe the problem is that when this type of situation occurs we don't actually involve the thinking areas of our....brain, or whatever.
In fact, when (males in particular) get wound up in search of the stoke, many things can ignite the hormonal soup the brain floats in, to cause less-than-admirable behaviour. Speaking theoretically here, natch.
Add some adrenalin to the mix and ..well, we all know how that can get out of order.
Add some alcohol & crap things can get really ugly in a rush; then knives, guns, God help us....
Which might mean we should all practice counting to ten or something before we get blood in the water....

peace out etc

[jfjfjfjf]

There could be another side to the story. Maybe he was a jerk but was set off by having someone jibe right in front of him without checking for traffic behind them first while practicing his duck jibes. It was near the levy and he needed to jibe too but the guy fell in front of him and there was not much choice from his point of view other than to jibe around him. Being yelled at as if the person in the water is completely innocent probably didn't help either. It's easy to misjudge the situation and get pissed-off by jumping to conclusions before knowing what the full story is.

[ShreddinEd]

[coachg]