Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Idiots; Paint; The Rule Of Law

     So, inartistic -- and generally inarticulate -- ijits have been spray-painting other people's walls at what may be a greater incidence and with possibly a greater proportion of racial or religious or hookedy-crossedy sentiments?

     First off, where were you since "tagging" started to be a thing, outside of your nice little whitebread communities?  Second, if you've spent the last eight-plus years telling little Tommy and Billy and Susie the Republicans are, to a man, The Debbil and warning them that if they don't eat up all their bumbershoot and carry vegetables when it rains, the Big GOPper will get 'em, you're part of the problem -- because when those kids reach the age of rebellion, some of 'em are gonna go paint the nastiest, vilest things they can think of on walls, and some of 'em will be especially brazen about it if they figure Pure Evil is in the catbird seat.

     Thirdly: kids, I know you think you're just badass as can be, but about the first time you cross paint streams with a gen-u-ine gang-type tagger, they are going to mess you up.  And if they don't, remember those wicked, nasty, heartless Republicans you are figuring will wink at your petty-ante wickedness?  They've got their flaws but most of them are foursquare in favor of property rights having mondo precedence over your right to express yourself on other people's walls.  Cross paths with, oh, the police, and you'll be lucky if Community Service is all you get.  Cross paths with the wrong householder and it could be worse.

     It was rude and illegal to paint stuff on walls that don't belong to you last year.  It's still illegal.  It's still nekulturny.  --And if you are minded to paint stuff on your own walls and blame punks, to score points or get fifteen minutes of fame?  Why, that's illegal, too.  So let's everybody play nice, or play a tune on the jailhouse bars with a battered tin cup. -- At best.

3 comments:

Guffaw in AZ said...

One of my pet peeves...
Insisting that criminal damage be viewed as non-threatening, because it's 'artistic'.

I remember seeing a Politically-Correct Dictionary in a bookstore (back in the early 90's), and thought it was a joke book!
THEY WERE SERIOUS!

The defined Grafitti as 'people's art', conflating criminal damage with the idea no one really owns anything...

GRRR!


gfa

Anonymous said...


OK, are you sure these are wanna-be taggers and not a lightweight local 'youth association' with higher aspirations?

Roberta X said...

I got no idea, chum. I judge 'em by their output. --But, mostly, the ones who write on walls don't have a lot of overlap with the ones that will lurk to beat up innocent-but-disfavored folks. Gang vs. gang, sure, happens all the time; I wish it didn't but at least they all know what they have got themselves into. Skinheadish creeps vs. people they despise is way less common -- and usually without paint-scrawled forewarning.