I was having a conversation with Migrant P about North Americans not having been trained to take responsibility for their own actions and how Eastern (sorry, Central!) Europe had been kinda nice in that dumb people were forced to deal with their own dumb actions, though granted taking responsibility often meant coming up with the cash to bribe officials into forgetting about your actions.
Pickle and I used to talk about this a lot, with the specific example always being my friend Binman's going away party. Honza got the public waste people to get us a garbage (or bin) truck so that Binman could go pick up some garbage. Now after we did this, we managed to get the garbage (or bin) men to drive along the highway to the restaurant we were going to (where Binman stuck his cock in the mouth of a roasted pig, but that's another story). Binman wanted to ride on the truck hanging off the back of it, which we often see garbage men doing as they drive down the side streets picking up trash, but as it was on the highway with no speed limit, the truck was going considerably faster. But the guys let Binman do it.
That would never happen here because the workers would be too paranoid that Binman would fall off and sue them. In the Czech Republic, if Binman had gone into a court and said "I wanted to hang on to the back of a truck doing 100 klicks and these two guys let me do it so they should be punished," he would have been laughed out of court. It was his own damn decision and if he's so dumb that he doesn't understand the consequences of this action then so be it, it's not the workers fault. There aren't as many laws telling you what you have to do because you're expected to be smart enough to do the right thing without the law there.
Anyhoo, my impression of Europe (especially the rockin' Netherlands) being this wonderful place where people are forced to take responsibility for themselves has now been shattered by the new legislation being considered in the UK. The UK has been considering legislation to control the consumption of junk food and alcohol, as well as putting in ID cards (yes, the same as the US, it's supposedly in order to fight against terrorism) but now they're going a bit too far: legislation against the wearing of hoodies is now being considered. Apparently there was some incident in a mall with some hooded hoodlums and so now they're being considered "identity hiders." It seems many people in the UK think this is ridiculous, and I'm quite glad, but the fact that this is even on the table is disappointing.
Besides which, I'm a wee bit concerned as I head to Scotland in September and everybody knows my entire wardrobe consists of hoodies and jeans so what the fuck am I going to wear over there?
Hmm...actually the idea of not having clothes and being around a bunch of scotsmen in kilts...perhaps not so bad.
Pickle and I used to talk about this a lot, with the specific example always being my friend Binman's going away party. Honza got the public waste people to get us a garbage (or bin) truck so that Binman could go pick up some garbage. Now after we did this, we managed to get the garbage (or bin) men to drive along the highway to the restaurant we were going to (where Binman stuck his cock in the mouth of a roasted pig, but that's another story). Binman wanted to ride on the truck hanging off the back of it, which we often see garbage men doing as they drive down the side streets picking up trash, but as it was on the highway with no speed limit, the truck was going considerably faster. But the guys let Binman do it.
That would never happen here because the workers would be too paranoid that Binman would fall off and sue them. In the Czech Republic, if Binman had gone into a court and said "I wanted to hang on to the back of a truck doing 100 klicks and these two guys let me do it so they should be punished," he would have been laughed out of court. It was his own damn decision and if he's so dumb that he doesn't understand the consequences of this action then so be it, it's not the workers fault. There aren't as many laws telling you what you have to do because you're expected to be smart enough to do the right thing without the law there.
Anyhoo, my impression of Europe (especially the rockin' Netherlands) being this wonderful place where people are forced to take responsibility for themselves has now been shattered by the new legislation being considered in the UK. The UK has been considering legislation to control the consumption of junk food and alcohol, as well as putting in ID cards (yes, the same as the US, it's supposedly in order to fight against terrorism) but now they're going a bit too far: legislation against the wearing of hoodies is now being considered. Apparently there was some incident in a mall with some hooded hoodlums and so now they're being considered "identity hiders." It seems many people in the UK think this is ridiculous, and I'm quite glad, but the fact that this is even on the table is disappointing.
Besides which, I'm a wee bit concerned as I head to Scotland in September and everybody knows my entire wardrobe consists of hoodies and jeans so what the fuck am I going to wear over there?
Hmm...actually the idea of not having clothes and being around a bunch of scotsmen in kilts...perhaps not so bad.
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