Pointless bitching

Just a few things that have drifted through my mind on their way to somewhere else...

• "Common" courtesy -- I've been racking my brain trying to see if I can figure out when parents stopped trying to instil some measure of this trait in their kids. When I was but a wee lad, people were generally willing to make at least SOME small effort to show courtesy to others; nowadays, not so much.
• Thinking and planning ahead -- When the hell did THIS go out of fashion? Do people really not grasp the concept of actually choosing to take deliberate actions to bring about some future result? Don't they realize that if doing "A" results in "B" happening, then NOT doing "A" produces a different result? The honcho types at a lot of financial institutions that jumped on the marginally-legitimate default-swap deals, high-risk investments, and other dubious deals without thinking "what if..." fall into this category, too -- except that the rest of the country got strong-armed into bailing THEIR dumb asses out of the jam they got themselves into.
  
• Honesty/integrity -- By now, I expect that all of us have seen ample evidence of the folks that somehow misplaced theirs. They'd be the ones that "overstated" their income to get a home loan, and ended up getting foreclosed on. As an added bonus attraction, a fair number of them failed the "planning" test, too, and are now living in conditions that they could avoided easily enough.
• Personal responsibility -- Again, when I was just a little guy running around, I was taught that I was responsible for my own actions (or lack thereof). Nowadays, it seems like anyone and everyone in or with any kind of trouble immediately starts demanding protection or compensation or salvation for whatever ails them. Taking an example from the "healthcare reform" situation: does no one realize that insisting an insurance company cover a pre-existing condition (yes, that's something that needs to be more narrowly defined) bears an uncanny resemblance to trying to buy auto insurance for your vehicle AFTER you've gotten into an accident?
• Congress -- they've steadily gotten more and more polarized over the years, and less and less willing to play nice. Whichever one has the majority is more than willing to try and bully the other into doing things their way; then when the situation is reversed, get payback-plus-interest. And THEN the dumb fucks wonder why their approval rating is the lowest it has been in decades. Here's a clue, shitheads: neither of the major parties has a hammerlock on the One True Way™. You dumbasses need to stop thinking "my state/district/party" and do what you were elected for -- imagine that you're there to do work for the whole freakin' country. 'kay?