How To Beat the DHS Railroad Job, Part III (C) - The Court Hearings (The Reasonable Person Theory, and Reasonable Efforts

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Hey, we're back....already????  Oh yeah, you know it...

So here, I would have to say that this is not only one of my favorite arguments; that I had with the director of the so-called "Paralegal Courses" I took at our local community college; this also ranks as probably my favorite thing in my case with DHS.  I am being facetious, no doubt...you know me SO well!!  But, as sarcastic as I may be currently...it will most certainly BE my favorite thing about this case...because it is with this subject, not alone, but in a slight majority of a few reasons I will be using TO WIN THIS CASE.

Let's begin with the "Reasonable Person Theory".  Now, according to my teacher, again, the director of my classes, whose teaching style drove me BONKERS...but whom I loved to intelligently "debate" against...mostly because her reasonings, as well as her answers to my questions; usually included some form of the ol' American idiom:  "That's just the way it is!"  I firmly despise anything that even looks like it means this, simply because NOTHING is "Just the way it is"....in no way, shape or form.  "That's just the way it is", and "It is what it is", as you well know, is SHEEP talk.

In our law, the "Reasonable Person" is a time-honored ditty that was founded oh....around 1837.  In our law, America's REAL law in my opinion...COMMON law, we call it; the "Reasonable Person" theory isn't a theory, but a standard...meaning, the phrase itself always means the same thing, and doesn't change, even though the circumstances of 10 similar cases might vary, for...various reasons.  It doesn't really refer to anyone in particular, it is a fictional person that is supposed to represent "Joe Average", if you will...but at the same time doesn't either (??)  "What would Joe do, if he were in this pickle?"  Get it?  Good, because you know how I really feel about our system of law anyway, and I really and TRULY despise this.

So, I'm talkin' to my law "teacher"...and she starts talking about the "reasonable person" standard again, and how it applies (a little differently too) in contract law.  Now I've heard her babble about this before, when she taught the ridiculously ludicrous subject of "Introduction to Law"...and I say ludicrous, because her style of teaching, mixed with the AWFUL text book she chose to use for the class, were both about as helpful as an umbrella is on a sunny day.  NOT helpful at all.  Just another pain in the arse, where carrying it around is concerned.  So, remembering the thoughts that had entered my mind and stuck there like glue the last time she talked about it, I brought up this:

Who exactly is it, that, during the course of any case, decides who the reasonable person is?  Her answer to that was "Nobody, because the reasonable person, as far as actual people are concerned, doesn't really exist."....and I said "Oh..."  Then, after a bit of uncomfortable silence, I just had to ask this:  "OK, so if the reasonable person doesn't really exist, than why are we having a debate about him/her then?"  She didn't really care for that one.

Needless to say, this stupid portion of the argument (legal debate, she would have said), went on for quite a while.  I don't know if you're familiar with analytical people, but we're the people you hated in school with a passion every time their hand went up...or, you may have been in love with this person too, because this is the kind of person who has to understand every logical nuance of something before he can move on...because, if you DO move on, then he'll never get that...as well as won't get anytihng else he learns subsequently, because his mind has to be able to get past that first thing he learned or he won't learn anything else until he understands it...so, if you're a studious learner, you hated this guy, because he'd hold you up at all times, sometimes even detrimentally to the expense of the whole class, depending on what sort of person your teacher is.  If they were really tolerant, you'd never get more than half-way through your books.  You'd be stuck at half-way, and the teacher would almost HAVE to pass you, because it wasn't in his power to shut this guy up.  Now, you might have loved him too, mainly because this same guy, when his hand went up, would go round and round with the instructor, trying to figure it all out, and, because it was loads of fun watching this person keep the professor hopping with question after question about the same damn thing, before you knew it, the class was OVER, and it was time to go home!!...or to break, or whatever.  And yeah, as to one of those analytical people?  I was one of 'em.  Hence, the hatred of "That's just the way it is!!"  "Them's SHEEP words, Clem!"; BOOM, POW, RIGHT IN THE KISSER!!"

So anyway, back to this....this....TEACHER...or whatever the Hell she was claiming to be that day...she goes and freaks out on me (after a while of this) when I come at her with this:

OK, so what you're trying to tell me is this, then...Let's say we get an immigrant from Turkey over here...we'll just call him Abdul, for intermediary identification purposes. Now, in Abdul's country, if you steal something, you get your hand cut off...unless you were determined to absolutely need that something...you know, like a loaf of bread to feed his family, whatever.  Now, here in the states, what happens here when you steal something (which is probably why theft is so big here in our country), we usually, depending on the amount of the item stolen, call it a "5th Degree Theft", or to call it by its common law name, "shoplifting"....usually with a standard value range of around 0-200 dollars in value, and only requires, upon your first offense, an overnight stay in the local county jail, and a fine that will probably equal around 4x the value of what you stole.  The reasonable person, then, as defined by our "common law", wouldn't steal at all...so you deserve to have the book thrown at you.  Nine times out of ten, however, this is pretty much kiss my ass behavior, and a lot of shop owners will, against all reasonableness, let that theft go without calling the police, especially if the item was $5 or less.  Now, get up around $100, and this is something we need to look at a 2nd time.  Now you're not NEARLY as reasonable...Anyway, to Abdul, this is TOTALLY unreasonable, and, where he comes from, the reasonable person, after Abdul stole his $4 loaf of bread to feed his family, would have said "Fly, be Free!!", and that would have been the end of it.  "My NEW reasonable person...who is actually not reasonable to me anymore, says I have to pay $16 for my loaf of bread, spend a night in jail for my first offense, and go ten years without a job that comes anywhere near a job that you'll be able to steal on....Turkey, HERE I COME...BACK!!"

So now, we get back to Abdul.  He steals something he REALLY DESPERATELY needs for his family...let's just say it's a lawn-mower, priced at $150.  Oh come on already, he did pick the cheapest one, didn't he??  Isn't that reasonable, at the very least?...anyway, so Abdul, kinda sorta new to this country, gets off with a fine and time served...I mean, it is his first offense, and he is from Turkey...

Here's where I had my problem with this theory though...let's just say Abdul, in his home country, is allowed to murder someone, if the argument gets to a screaming volume level, and screaming, at least by the person opposite your argument, is offensive.  So the non-screamer is now allowed to kill the offending screamer, and he can therefore get away with it, because screamers are generally idiots, and the law of Turkey smiles every time you knock off one of those guys.

Then let's say he's killed himself 2 or 3 screamers over in Turkey...he then goes to America on vacation.  He hears a scream coming from the woods..(Prey!!).  He runs after his screamer, and then kills him.  The police, of course, are close up behind.

Now, let's say we go with a judge's chief saying...."Ignorance of the law is NO EXCUSE!!"...."Yeah, but isn't it different when Abdul kills off someone, regardless of why?"  Damn Straight.  Because, you see, Abdul is now an American, and is about to meet someone for the first time.  The fictional "reasonable person".  The only problem now, is this:  See, Abdul's reasonable person, the person he knew in Turkey, the one that used to hate screamers, has changed nationalities.  Now, Abdul's reasonable person's name is Archie.  Archie says Abdul must DIE!!

Here's the other problem I have with that theory.  Abdul DOESN'T kill anyone here, but kills himself a screamer in his own land...only now, the reasonable person isn't named Abdul anymore, his name is Achmed, and Achmed only kills mockingbirds...and to kill anything else, means Abdul must DIE!

Even more reason to hate it is the thing that drives me the craziest, and that I just can 't wrap my mind around.  Who IS the reasonable person, who decides what that reasonable person does, says, hears, thinks, etc.  I mean, the CONCEPT of the person never changes...only the circumstances as they apply to each thing...but if the reasonable person doesn't think spinach and liver is legal, and Frank absolutely loves the stuff, well....whaddya do then?? The whole basis of that theory is, quite simply, this..."what would the reasonable person do under the same circumstances?", right?  But if the reasonable person would jump off a bridge in those circumstances, do we have to do the same thing in order to not end up in jail???  I just don't understand it.

What I'm saying, I suppose, is that the reasonable person, protected from all harm from us simply by being fictional (however, NOT so fictional, if you're the one that's guilty/going to jail...not so fictional now, EH CHRISTOPHER???)...is not ever going to be you.  You know who the reasonable person is, though no one will say it.  The fact-trier...the guy who is currently in charge of your destiny...and if he's on the take?  Or biased?  You're SCREWED...yes, the new "reasonable person" in YOUR life...is the JUDGE!!....oh, happy day.  THIS is the person who truly decides who that reasonable person is, and then decides if you measure up to that figment, and what'll happen to you if you come up short.  You can almost look at it this way...what would the reasonable crowd do to this newly-found reasonable criminal??  (somehow, I can hear the queen saying OFF WITH HIS HEAD!!!)

Now, let's get back to the very thing that's driving YOU the craziest...what the Hell does all this have to do with DHS???

There's where we're at.  I KNEW I'd find myself...

Sooo...we're gonna jump right over that bridge, and plant ourselves on the other side, over on the "Reasonable Efforts" side of things. (arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!!....you see now why I think the law needs a serious revamp?  Should have been pretty obvious by NOW!), and the reason that we're bypassing the reasonable person (for now) and the reason I hate the theory ULTIMATELY will be very obvious in a few minutes after that.  REALLY, I PROMISE!!

So, you've been through the Removal Hearing...Part one of our court hearings, remember?  The one you probably don't remember because they had it 7-10 business days after your child was stolen, and you hadn't even processed that fact as yet?  Well, if you WEREN'T still reeling from the punches, would have felt a "PING", and you would have slowly started to realize a feeling... that your life....the way it used to be, anyway...was now no longer your own, and things started to get dark, and gnarly....you don't know why really, but everything is just so....CRAPPY!!  You...you feel just like you felt, right after you got married, and your husband's mother needed to come and stay with you for a few weeks while her house was being painted....AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!

And it hits you.  Your life, as it was, is now no longer your own, for REAL.  Now?  You belong to DHS, and there's nothing you can do about it.  Now, you live, breath, s***, eat, have sex with....you get the picture.  These people have now moved into your home, and aren't planning to leave for 6 whole months...until the permanency hearing.  And the first thing they want from you, is PAPERWORK....and tons of it.  "Sign here, initial there, fill this out completely, turn this in before your next hearing, file this, here's a copy of that...and this one is that..."...and you wonder how you ever lived without all this before...

As I mentioned back in part (A) of this part, this is to keep you trippin' until the hearing for removal, and when it comes, that hard hitting D.A., whose sole purpose it is to make you look horrible?  She's on it like flies on **** already, and has already accused you of not seeing some paper you supposedly didn't remember, didn't remember reading, signing...ANYTHING...but supposedly? "It was the most IMPORTANT PAPER IN YOUR LIFE....AND YOU DON'T REMEMBER SEEING IT OR SIGNING IT???  HUH?  what's WRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOONG WITH YOUUUUUUUUU?????"

And now you know....such is the game at its inception, and at its most cunning.  You really MUST remember, these folks have been doing this FOREVER...and you're a removal virgin.  And, from here, to expert is...well, it's Hell, back, beyond and sideways, because you are now dealing with the "take your children specialists!!..."  And that's why you're headed for TPA...and for no other reason...unless you're either a really good hoop-jumper or a breed of sheep they like.  Then there MIGHT be hope, a chance you might see your babies' little smiles again...hold them to you like they're actually yours again...someday...maybe...

Next, and the star of our show, is the in between stuff...family team meetings, visitations with F.S.R.P...or whoever your state's version of the outfit that handles your children's visitations, is.  Ours, as you know, is Children and Families of Iowa, and your Visit Slinger is an F.S.R.P. worker...and another snake in the grass that you CANNOT and SHOULD NOT EVER TRUST!!  Now where was I...oh yeah, FTM's, Visits, Confirmation of those visits, free transportation assistance for 3 months (or 3 months worth of bus passes), your drug assessment (if drugs were alleged), your mental evaluation (if they think you're mental...which, from what I understand, they always do, whether you believe you are...or whether you ACTUALLY are or not), oh, and what did I just get in the mail honey?......SCREECH!!!!!!  "oh...the removal social worker's assessment my lawyer finally got in the mail, that I haven't seen anything of yet...wonderful...oh, and something else too?  What's that?  Did you say the Asian Petition?  What?  The China Petition?...OH....the CINA PETITION...oh yeah.."

And here it is, the Adjudication Hearing is now upon you...and you get through that, and you hear this strange foreign-sounding phrase...You've heard the words before, just not the two together...in that way, they sound very familiar too..."Reasonable efforts..."...."reasonable efforts, reasonable efforts...REASONABLE PERSON....ARRRRRGGGGGGHHH!!!...Yes, it is has been found, whether you were aware of it or not, that reasonable efforts (remember, I said you'd come to hate this one?) were offered to you in order to help you "reunify your family".....what?  Really?  I'm sorry...could you repeat/explain that, because all I've seen is chaos and confusion...thanks!!

Now, here's the fun stuff you are gonna strangle someone over...all those hoops you've been hoppin' through?  The mental Eval, the drug assessments (which, by now, have turned into drug TREATMENT, more than likely...ok, DEFINITELY THEN...), the family team meetings?  These are now called "reasonable efforts, made, to you, and for you...from us, the loving folks of court central and DHS, to help you in your quest to reunify your family...just like OUR quest for you!!"......BULLS***!!!  Do NOT fall for this crap y'all!!

This is the beginning of a very sick and twisted friendship between you and the courts, as well as DHS, because now, you have become the victim of the system...just like your baby...except your baby is probably having a good time and an awful lot of fun with his/her new parents...something you won't be having again until this is over...if it's EVER over...and hopefully will once again include your child...whose life, that you're SUPPOSED to be enjoying life with, is enjoying that life with people he/she doesn't know very well...YET...If she's a newborn?  Plan on missing all of those experiences every mother looks forward to...her first steps, her first smile, her first laugh...THEY'RE NOW SOMEONE ELSES WONDERFUL FIRSTS...and you just missed EVERYTHING.  Oh...oh thank you, DHS, for saving my life, by showing me the evil of my ways, and giving me oh so many "reasonable efforts" in which to make us whole again..."

You see, America, if you've been a bad girl or boy, these probably are reasonable to you...they should be things you should be doing...if you really and truly love your children...but to those of you who have done NOTHING wrong?  Who just...are?  Are, yet accused of things you would never even consider, but because they are DHS, and you aren't?  Well, you're guilty of all they accuse you of, and you're just WRONG.  How REASONABLE is that??

Worse yet?  If you're right (WRONG), and you're mad about them telling you you're wrong?  You just...can't...do that.  You can't fight city hall.  You have to do what they say, and just get them out of your life..you MUST jump through THE HOOPS!!!...IF YOU LOVE YOUR CHILDREN, DO WHAT YOU GOTTA DO AND GET IT OVER!!

This is the lie they feed you...and I don't just mean DHS...I mean EVERYBODY...your friends...your relatives...your attorneys...EVERYBODY...because all those people that aren't DHS/court related, they're on your side...but they're sheep, more than likely...trained...brain-washed.  I suppose, if you wanna go along with all of that, that's you.  I will tell you this though, one...more...time.  You MAY/MIGHT get your kids back if you play ball, guilty...or innocent.

Here's the thing though...this madness?  Reasonable people and reasonable efforts made?  THIS HAS GOT TO STOP!!  This isn't the way to fix you and your child's problems...this most CERTAINLY isn't the way we used to fix our OWN problems...No, this is, quite simply, a governmental intervention, meant to eventually brainwash you into sheep-typical behavior, to slap you in the face in order to remind you that you WILL OBEY, or...you won't get your kids...or our reasonable efforts...you'll....just...be...terminated.  And yet, what you really DON'T realize as yet, is that they WANT you to terminate...because, they have other sheep...other good sheep that obey...and THEY'LL get your children, if you don't act right...they can afford them...YOU CAN'T...they can take care of them...YOU CAN'T...understand??  IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT FOR ETERNITY AMERICA????

I guess what I'm saying is this...I have dubbed myself your champion.  I plan to take the dragon down...just about any way I have to.  Once again, I do this...not just for me, but for you as well, and for YOUR children.  Remember, it never hits home how bad things truly are with this sort of thing...unless it happens to you...and there is nothing more destructive to your psyche, or your soul...then when you cry wolf..and all of a sudden, if you don't conform, like your side is telling you to?  It's funny how short the conversations about your problem get...how, as you start talking about how they're doing you TODAY all of a sudden?  Your mother has to run to the store for sommore prune juice...your dad has to sweep the garage...your best friend has to go pick up HER children from the playground.

If you're a fighter in this, it's a damn lonely fight at times...but please, if you will?  Stick with me.  'Cause what I'm doing RIGHT NOW is fighting for us ALL.  Whether you think so or not, depends on how you feel AFTER you're released from your Matrix bed, and you are, once again, part of America.  The America I intend to get back for you.  See you for part IV, the endgame, coming soon...:D

Beating the DHS Railroad Job Part III (B) - The Court Hearings (The Reasonable Person Theory and Reasonable Efforts)

Hey guys!!  Sorry.  You know I have things to be.  People to do.  Bizzay, Bizzay Boy.  My apologies.

So where were we again??  Oh yeah.  The dispositional hearing.

Like I said, you have this one at around 3 months in.  Now, you might notice some things to be somewhat...different.  First, the hammer D.A., the one DHS needed to make sure things went their way?  They step down, and someone either a lot nicer or more easy going (less experienced) comes in.  A new player.  Why?  Well, because "the Hammer" has already done her job.  Thanks to her, there's no way you're gonna get out of the water you're currently drowning in (she thinks..).  You're a horrible parent and person, and all charges have, like I said, been written on your criminal nametag as a description of what you've done and the evil parent you really are.  She's done HER job, and DHS is pleased that all is going according to their plan...eventually terminating your parental rights.  Now, you might be lucky.  Could be that they've got their quota, and you could be the one who gets her kids back...but then you might not.  Maybe DHS needs babies for their adoption drive this year...or maybe they need more money from the federal government...who really knows the mind of our state department of gods/godesses, right?

Now, the dispositional hearing's purpose is to "find out how you and DHS are getting along...", and to find out if you're acting like a good little sheep and playin' nice.  If you're not?  If you are?  Please don't forget, this all depends on several things:  If DHS likes you, if your worker likes you, and if the Judge likes you...but if they've got a h****n for your kid(s)?  They'll rule against you yet again.  This will be more than likely.

So, after yet another disappointing loss?  You then head towards the baddie of the bunch, just one little step away from the Termination of your Parental Rights, which, since I haven't gotten there yet, I'm guessing comes almost immediately after this...the Permanency Hearing.  This hearing, I'm guessing (but I think I have more than enough proof that it most certainly is about this) is that this is where the Judge decides where the kid should be....PERMANENTLY.  With you, or with foster care/up for evenuual ADOPTION.  If it's a newborn, she'll probably be offered, first to the parents currently in force as taking care of her, and if they want her, they'll get her.  If they decide they've got more than they deserve already, and if you have relatives that aren't all as wicked as you, they may offer the child to them.  But I think that sometimes, they just go right to adoption...at least, in my case she will.  Yeah, I believe they have been coming up a little short at the Adoption Drive of late, and need a few more prizes for interested people to win for themselves.

This hearing will...no, MUST occur, by law, at 6 exact months.  Some Yahoo in congress, more than likely at the state level, passed a law stating that 6 months is more than enough time for people to decide what's more important, winning their case by whatever method they BELIEVE no one has tried yet, in an effort to get their children back some other way than playing this game; or your kids.  If you go for option one, you're more than likely gonna lose...from start to end.  It's already been decided.  Why?  Because they pick and choose their children...as well as their losers.  These people have been doing this forever, remember?  They know, a mile off, who the kids they want are, and which parents are guaranteed losers.  Here's the deal with that though...some of these idiots think YOU'RE an idiot.  As a matter of fact, most of  go out of their way just to prove you are, just so they can assess you ahead of time to see what they're up against, I'm guessing.

That makes perfect sense to me...they ordered a mental health eval on me almost immediately.  The funny thing though?  They said they don't need mine.  You wanna know what's even funnier though?  Every bit of my "Long standing mental issues"; as the courts and DHS are trying to prove me as having?  They don't exist.  First, for the longevity part of my "Issues", they fell onto the fact that I was in a mental institution when I was eight, for 8 months.  There wasn't anything wrong with me.  I was one of the first gens of kids to experience the beginning epidemic of ADD/ADHD.  Om, I was a button pusher, of that there was no doubt, AT ALL.
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As to your methods?...it's BEEN tried, and it's BEEN done...maybe not PRECISELY like you're doing, and maybe not with the same kind of players...but damn close, I guarantee it.  Unless you have something so unique...like I do, and some more...I'll just say "Unusual quirks" and special interest/circumstances"?  You're headed right to TPA, believe it.  So.  This is what it's going to come down to.  You're gonna lose your children, or you're gonna play by sheep rules and MAYBE get them back.  And because you only have one shot at this, and only 6 months to do it in...being totally ignorant (until now anyway) of how this all works, and your attorneys are actually on the side of the state, and the judge is against you before he even hears a single word out of your mouth?  It'll all be over before you even know what happened.  You lucky person you, you're gonna choose which road to travel.  I'm going to repeat this though.  To keep these people honest, and MAYBE win, if you're lucky enough to have things not so kosher happen during the course of all of this, RECORD EVERYTHING...texts sent and received, all interactions...and if you know what you're doing, you might even be able to get your court hearings recorded too.  Either that, or you will have to pay for the DVD of your little hearing...for around 300 dollars...any way you have to do it, make sure and record all.  This is the ONLY chance you have, and your chances of winning just on any one injustice alone, done to you, could be the way you can win those children back, goes way up, trust me.

There will be one more installment of this part of the series, Part III (C), concerning the Reasonable Person Theory and Reasonable Efforts...and one more whole part IV...and it will be coming soon enough.  After I win, of course...also coming soon enough.

The American Pie (The Destruction of the Lower Crust)

http://saramakessoup.com/2013/05/07/spicy-mushroom-chicken-potpie/img_4013-chicken-pot-pie/

So.  You're a wealthy capitalist...is that correct?  Thanks to the latest tech surge, you could be very well pulling in a few cool million a year.  You drive the best of automobiles, your house is filled with all you ever wanted or needed (along with an awful lot of what you don't), and what you wear becomes who you have always strived to be.  Life is good.

So.  You're the best the middle class has to offer.  Sure, you have some sizable bills to pay, but you're comfortable, your family is fed, clothed and has the perfect roof over your head.  You can honestly say you've worked hard to get where you are.  Your marriage is a happy one, your kids are a joy, and the neighborhood is to your liking.  What more could a guy ask for?

You, my fellow Americans, represent the upper crust, as well as the delicious pie filling.  We Americans, here as your bottom crust; here to hold the pie together, to make our great nation complete; are more than happy to have you aboard.  We salute you, and all you have done for us.

There's only one little itsy bitsy problem...

See, we here at the bottom are a bit unhappy with you of late.  As you upper crust folks enjoy all your easily obtained comforts, your feet are sorta on our necks down here.  You of the pie filling, well, you're so incredibly busy with your so-so lives, that you don't really see (or care to see) the problems that plague your lower brothers on a daily basis.  Our problem?  We're dying...and it's because of the rest of you that this is so.

And this concerns you how?  Why should you care, you ask?  I'd say closing your eyes to our plight, and plugging your ears to our cries of "foul" may just be your undoing, if you don't notice.  In your reach to the higher rungs of the American ladder in order to obtain the ring - whatever metal it might be made of these days; as you look up with your self-help attitudes and your ambition in achieving the American Dream, you're overlooking only one important fact.

Someday has to clean up the s***.

Someone has to dig the ditches in which to put the foundation that will someday support that house with the white picket fence attached to it.  Someone has to build the skyscrapers that sport your business's name on the door.  Someone has to unplug the toilet, construct your cities and clean up the mess.  The worker ants.  The lower class.  Those of us, here, at the bottom.  And we are dying...and you see it not.

Oh, you know our plight...yet you plug along, attending your little business meetings and social hours.  They say the middle class is disappearing...and that may be so.  But your foundation, the crust that holds the pie together?  We'll go first, of that you can be sure.  That one, you're more than happy to see go.  "Good Riddance to bad rubbish, I say."

But who then takes the reigns?  Who unplugs our toilets and cleans the sewers then?  The rest of you would be stuck with that...if any of you would be able to stand getting your manicured nails dirty, that is.

Remember...waaaaaaaay back...prior to all that DHS nonsense...when I talked of legalized prostitution and drugs?  I said something back then, that I'm sure the majority of you missed.  It's not the drugs...those (the natural plants that went to produce them are the ones I mean) have been around for thousands of years.  It's our attitudes towards these drugs, and the people who misuse them that are the problem, and the real reason we have manufactured and prescribed drugs, drugs we never needed before the 20th century.  And, more importantly, what really gets me is?  That some of our largest drug addicts are those of you in the upper two eschelons.  You just have more cash and connections to get away with it, without a ton of jail time.

Well, that...and jails and prisons, lawmakers, the justice system, laws, and, more importantly, your attitudes that create the problems some of us at the end of your lowered vision and snubbed noses have today.  And, as you look down and call the police in order to rid yourselves of the souls that crawl up your doorsteps begging for change, you forget to notice that you're the ones that continue to put them there.

I don't need facts, really.  No charts are truly necessary here.  You don't have to be a genius to see it.  And I'll also say it's not all your fault.  No, there's many more to blame, including the tyrannous government that threatens to destroy all we've worked to achieve.  Let's just re-plug in a few little lights in your heads...the ones that have been burnt out for a few decades or so.

Thievery.  Didn't USED to be a problem...now it's an epidemic.  I remember the good old days...when you bought something, and the next day decided you didn't want it afterall...and you didn't have to worry about looking around the house for 6 hours trying to figure out if you still have a receipt...you took it back, and you got cash back that day, with no questions asked.  Today?  You can't take ANYTHING back without a receipt...nope, you're stuck with it.  Even if you have a receipt, there are actually, honest to God, people that won't even refund your money then either.  Wow.

Gambling.  Reserved for Las Vegas only, back in the day, along with a few old fashioned bookie joints, you were all good...Now it's getting to where there's a casino, generally in the vicinity of your back yard.

Pawn shops open about every half a mile.  Used everything shops are everywhere.  Nobody would pay retail costs if they haven't a choice, or if you're considering a bed or a couch (thanks to the resurgence of the nasty li'l bedbug thingies).

Here's the thing I love the most though, buy it for brand new, still in the box, for 1,000 buckaroos?  It's almost guaranteed, that if it isn't a major purchase, resembling electronics, cars, etc.  You can bet yer sweet bippy that no one on this planet will buy it for more than half price.

Druggies.  Only a problem as long as the attitude towards them and the people who use them have been.  Prostitution...same story.  You get the picture.

Where's all this trouble coming from?  Why is the markup on everything so terrible;  why are insurance bills and medical bill so high?  Why are your banking interests at almost NOTHING for savings, and the charges so sky high?  Why are more people homeless now than ever before, and what, you might wonder, are we so upset about?  I mean, obviously we are.  If you clean bathrooms at a local K-Mart, you might get EXACTLY what I'm talking about.

We used to be more respectful of the upper two thirds of America.  We used to never complain.  If we had problems, we pretty much kept it to ourselves and dealt with things the same way.  But see, corporate greed, pay divergence, and a host of other things have upset the balance of things.  It used to be that we did our job, you did your job, he or she did their jobs, and no one got hurt; now it's not only dog eat dog...it's dog eat dog while stompin' the crap outta some cat and drowning the mice, all at the same time.  You're destroying the balance of things, and your reaction...to OUR reaction goes like this:  You either a.  put them in jail, or b.  call the police to remove the nuisance from your sight.

I'm not sure where this new strategy of our middle and upper classes came from, but all scopes are aimed at the lower class.  They take the blame, do the time, accept the punishment...until enough is about enough, and then you wonder why it is that retaliation is rampant.  If you don't provide what the lowest class needs to survive, you get all this class knows, when it comes to its revenge on its oppressors.  Yup, you guessed it.  Crime.  Crime against YOU, their tormentors.  Then comes scheming and looting and stealing and lying, suing etc.  When company A fires your whole family at the local plant, its survival instinct is now CONTINUE LIVING...BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY.  If that means inhabiting the freeway bridge to ask for change, then so what?  Better than DEATH, isn't it?  If no one will help me pay for my medications under the new administration's health plan?  Then I can always swipe 'em.  Or, better yet, slip on a spot of water on the way out the door without my meds...Ill bet a friendly game of who's got the money will wisen you @#$%^! up.

Now, don't get me wrong...not everyone turns to crime.  I'd have to say there's an equal chance of crime in every class.  No, some of us are good people...as a matter of fact, I'd have to even go as far as to say that MOST of us are not only good people, but REALLY good people...more so than any good the other two classes claim.  For one, we take care of OUR poor, For two, us really good people, we don't retaliate illegally...we pick fights and win wars instead.  These are the folks you need to be watching out for, not the lawbreakers.  Because people like us have been known to, if handled correctly, get laws altered or changed, have been known to change people's way of thinking...and this would be done, unlike the other two's methods, which are aimed at ...nobody but themselves and their own.  The middle class's vision is one direction...forward, with blinders on.  The upper class's vision is also one direction...up, with blinders on.  The poorer class has this vision as well..although ours involves fighting the rest of what you upper classes have brought on us through whatever blinders you had on the day you voted...or passes a law that helped YOU out...but cost hundreds of people their jobs.  Hay, as long as it doesn't affect you, just those ants down on the ground, everything's gonna be ok...isn't it?

No, because when the lower class dies off...mainly because they can't afford to live on what they make these days, and because services are eliminated daily?  Because you eliminate the problems by throwing them in jail and utilizing the police force for stupid things like having those bums moved on away from your small business...because you'd rather imprison the problem then offer it help, you damn the lower class to its inevitable fate...extinction.  The problem is, now someone among the next class up is now going to have to do their work, as well as take on work left slack by the disappearance of the nuisance you considered this class to be before, when the whole reason for them becoming a nuisance was something that YOU did...directly or indirectly.  How?

1.  Voting (for all the wrong people, due to your naivete or the proper use of brain-washing.  Either way, it's not what you want on your resumes.  There's nothing worse than voting for the worst guy possible, then kicking yourself in the RAR for the next 2-4 years.
2.  Suing Corporate America (as well as personally suing those who couldn't possibly be expected to pay).
3.  Cracking down on crime (by lengthening sentences, asking for higher penalties, when all we more than likely need is a revamp of the justice system, or a little compassion in ourselves, with an offer of HELP to solve problems at the ready...all topped with a little TOLERANCE for appeal.  There's a novel idea, huh?

I mean come on America.  What we have done...what we ARE doing, along with what we further plan to do?  Ain't working, today, or evermore.  And unless you like maximum security prisons in your back yards, along with the perennial flowers you planted last year (believe me, the colors don't match up), forever holding the threat of PRISON BREAK over you and all you are and hold dear for the rest of your suburban days...well...you get the high-resolution picture.  We tried...and failed.  Time for some new strategies that don't line the pockets of someone in order to get it passed, but instead..dare I say it...SOLVE REAL PROBLEMS FOR A CHANGE, without getting kickbacks to the county sheriff and his boys if he backs you.  The time of the dishonest politician and his equally dishonest deals are OVER.  I will run for the office of SOMETHING that involves ACTUAL CHANGES, and soon.  If not the biggest one, well, I'll just take whatever America hands me.  And, after I get through, I'll have a minimum of the bottom third of our country behind me.  We're tired of holding you up...and we're tired of doing all the work.  One day, we'll be so tired, we'll just fade away.  That'll be the day the yuppies will have to go out and buy knee-high wading boots, because if they keep looking away and calling the police because they don't care for the stench we carry?  They'll be picking up the shovels next time.  And believe me when I tell you your upper brethren, the ones with the dollar signs in their eyes and their attention tuned to MO MONEY MO MONEY?  You think they're going to waste any effort to get you out the mess you inherited?  Hell no.  Then YOU'll have to fight the battles...even though you've never been trained to use a sword.  It ain't gonna be pretty.

Asta.  :D