you make some good points here, as do the other commenters to the thread.

It takes real work to be nice to others, and little to no effort to be an asshole. I should know, it comes naturally to me.

I remember once, many years ago, when I worked at a Napa Auto Parts store running deliveries. One time I was out delivering some stuff to a guy who lived out in the boonies a bit, and it had snowed the night before, so the roads really weren’t good at all. Anyway, as I’m going down this gravel road, some asshole in a Ford truck flew past me, and almost made me run off the road. It really pissed me off. About a mile down the road, there was the asshole with his truck in a ditch, and he was stuck but good. I couldn’t help rolling down my window and relaying some “useful driving tips”.

Years later, I told this story to my wife, and she told me that I was an asshole, and that the guy might have been driving so fast and recklessly because he was on his way to the hospital to see his wife who was in labor. I thought about this for a moment, and then asked her if that was the case, what the fuck was he doing so far out in the sticks where there are no medical facilities?

She again stated that I had been an asshole and that was it. Oh, well.

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I try to remember that for all I know, a person I encounter may be having the worst day of their life. We have no idea what is going on in the lives of strangers and they have no idea of our lives either. I think the far majority of people are decent to others. It’s hard to keep that in focus though when the assholes, like the squeaky wheels, attract all the attention.

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However, every-so-often I am forced to live by the credo, “Do unto others before they do you in.” That one is a lot more fun, and sometimes far more satisfying.

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Often, in today’s society, such generalizations are denigrated as “racism” or “bigotry” when–again, often–they are no such thing but simply observing like behavioral characteristics of classes and assessing individuals–one at a time–against generalizations drawn from experience.

Bigotry is actually the opposite; it is creating classes from arbitrary, superficial characteristics and plugging people into classes without first observing and classing according to bvehavior.

Generally, I do class people according to behavior into two general classes: assholes and not-assholes. Further refining of the asshole class yields politicians *spit*, Mass MEdia Podpeople, pubschool administrators and the like. Once a person places themselves into one of those classes, the onus is on them to demonstrate that they are atypical of the class.

I am always leased to find someone who is atypical in an asshole class (semi-drivers who obey traffic laws, or who simply drive safely, for example, since I have seen so few of them in my *mumble-mumble* more than 40 years of driving). Such exceptions that test the rule are delightful.

BTW, the cultural differences among different “races” can result in some valid trait classifications, though I’ve not seen any that usefully inform my primary paradigm (assholes/not-assholes) for classification of humans.

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