Are You Part of the Solution, or Part of the Problem?

I was walking my two mini Schnauzers yesterday, on their leashes. Why on leashes? Well, first, they're flight risks. I haven't trained them to walk with me. So it's for their own safety, so they don't run out into the street, and so they aren't a nuisance to someone else.

And why haven't I trained them to just stay with me when we walk? I haven't needed to, because the city in which I live has a leash law. So they only go off-leash in our fenced backyard or at the dog park.

When we see other dogs on our walks, my guys go nuts. Charlie and Topher are our fourth and fifth mini Schnauzers, and if we've learned anything about the breed, it is this: you can't train the Schnauzer out of them. They are yappy. They bark at other dogs (but they love to play with them). They bark at people (but they love people too - complete strangers are family to them). They bark at cars driving by. They bark at parked cars. Every situation is Threatcon Orange with a mini Schnauzer.

So on our walk yesterday, Charlie did his business, and I turned around to pull out a bag to pick it up. I looked down the street and saw a couple walking in the street, with what appeared to be a Great Dane on a leash, and what looked like a large Lab mix. The Great Dane was very well-behaved, but the Lab, which was off-leash (the woman was holding its leash, folded up), was scampering around.

My dogs barked, of course, and the Lab took off - it charged us. Now, this may have been a perfectly docile, playful dog that just wanted to come check out some new buddies. But I had no way of knowing whether that was true. I have a friend whose dog was killed by another dog that attacked it, and a relative's dog was nearly killed by another dog. My own Topher needed staples to close a wound inflicted by another dog at a local dog park (and the tough little guy didn't even act like he felt it).

I stepped in front of my dogs, between them and the Lab, and yelled to the people, "HE NEEDS TO BE ON A LEASH!" The lab ran back to them, and the woman clipped the leash on. I proceeded to clean up after Charlie while restraining him and Topher, who were now frantic. People don't understand that dogs behave very differently when they are restrained, but are in proximity to another dog that is not. They go into protection mode and can become aggressive, even if normally they are not.

As the couple passed, the man offered a feeble "Sorry." I didn't respond - what was I going to say, "That's okay"? Because it isn't.

They walked around the corner, past a cul-de-sac, and to the end of the block. They crossed the street, and then -

The woman took the leash off the Lab again. And it went scampering into people's front yards and out into the street.

Now I had intended to go to the corner, turn left, go up the street and then around another block, and then head home. But I didn't know whether they'd be going that direction when we got around the block. So instead, I turned the opposite direction and went back down the street. I didn't just want to take my dogs around our block, because it was a pretty nice day, so I walked on past the street that leads back to our house, and to the corner by the entrance to our neighborhood. Then we turned around to come back.

We got to the street that leads to our house, and turned to go home - and there they were again, coming our way. And the Lab was off-leash. I just looked at them, shook my head, and went back around the block to go home another way.

There was another situation recently in our neighborhood. Our HOA has a Facebook page. A woman posted that she had had a basketball goal permanently installed, set into concrete, in the island of their cul-de-sac (the island is city property, not the HOA's or any homeowner's). Someone called to complain, and some city workers came and said they were going to take it out. The workers also went around the neighborhood and saw several free-standing basketball goals in the cul-de-sacs - in the streets, not on the islands, where they're in the way of trash and recycling trucks and snow plows in the winter. The workers said those had to go, too. The woman actually said that the workers should have better things to do during a crisis, and that the complainant - not she - had put those workers at risk by making them come out to her block.

You'd have thought they had come and seized people's houses, judging from the hue and cry that went up on Facebook. (This is what happens when people are under a stay-at-home order and have time on their hands.) The woman threatened to "out" the person she suspected of calling in the complaint. She refused to believe that it was against a city ordinance to install a goal on city property, even after someone posted a link to the ordinance. One guy demanded to know who the complainant was, and tried to see whether the city would give him the name. I envisioned a scene like the one in Young Frankenstein, in which the villagers are hunting for the monster with torches and pitchforks. Another guy said they should get all the local news stations to come out and film the city workers taking down the goal (which would only make public what idiots these people are).

Someone else lamented that the poor kids' childhoods would be ruined because they didn't have a basketball goal, which begs the question: if you don't want your kids scarred for life, why not put up a goal next to your own driveway, like your responsible neighbors do? Oh, that would be be inconvenient for you? Any more inconvenient than those of us who live in the cul-de-sacs having to dodge all the kids who use it as their personal playground, bike track and skate park, while their parents are inside watching TV?

After the episode with the dogs yesterday, I began to think about the relationship between these two incidents, and to see them in a broader context. And I realized why the coronavirus is not being contained more rapidly, and why our economy is being decimated by mandated stay-at-home orders:

Too many of our fellow Americans are selfish. They think the laws don't exist for them. They don't understand that their non-compliance with the laws only works if the rest of us comply - in fact, they are relying on us to comply so that chaos doesn't ensue.

Leash law? To heck with it. I'll walk my dog off-leash if I want to - but I can really only do that if everyone else has their dog on a leash, so the whole street isn't filled with a pack of dogs chasing each other about, and so that my dog doesn't run off after another dog and get lost, or hit by a car.

An ordinance against installing a basketball goal on city property? I'll install one if I bloody well please, ordinance be damned. But that only works if everyone else in the cul-de-sac obeys the ordinance. Otherwise, there would be trampolines, jungle gyms, skate ramps and who knows what else in the middle of the street.

So if you're one of those who believe the rules don't apply to you, understand that your non-compliance depends on my, and everyone else's, compliance.

How does that apply to the present situation? Simple. As the virus began to spread within communities, the doctors that lead the Task Force to fight it implored people to stay at home as much as possible, and to maintain social distance and practice good hygiene.

Some of us did. But too many others decided the rules didn't apply to them. High school kids hung out together at parks. College kids went on Spring break and partied on the beaches in large crowds. Adults had their friends over for coronavirus parties, or went to bars. We were asked to use our judgment, but too many of us proved themselves incapable.

Stay-at-home order? Social distancing guidelines? I can only violate those if nearly everyone else doesn't.

And people got sick. And they made other people sick. And some people along that chain died.

So the government had to force compliance. They closed the beaches. They closed the bars. They closed the restaurant dining rooms. They closed most retail shops. All to save us from the stupidity of the minority.

And hundreds of thousands of people lost their jobs. That number will soon be in the millions. Businesses that closed temporarily may ultimately fail. People's retirement savings have been decimated.

It's time for an attitude check. We are Americans. We won't hand ourselves over to a totalitarian regime like today's China, or Iran, without a fight. But that cannot translate into an attitude that we don't need to follow rules or laws. We may be a Democratic Republic, but we are still a nation of laws. You can't drive 60 mph through a neighborhood where kids are playing outside. You can't just walk into someone's house and take their toilet paper.

This attitude of, "Aw, heck, I can go ahead and do that, it's not gonna hurt anything," is in effect a parsing of the rules into those that we know need to be followed, and those we think it's okay for us to ignore (again, counting on others not ignoring them so that we can get away with it). The problem with that is that you might think ignoring a leash law or a city property ordinance is okay to ignore. Somebody else might think that, with fewer cars on the road right now, the speed limit doesn't matter. Well, the Kansas City, Missouri Police Department has issued tickets for speeds as high as 125 mph recently. From March 16-30, injury accidents were up 43% vs. the same period a year ago.

Laws, rules, and even guidelines exist for a reason. Some of them may seem stupid, and we may not like them. But if we ignore one, then we're headed down a slippery slope. You may think a leash law is stupid. So your kid sees you walking your dog off-leash, and might think, "If mom can do that, why can't I go to the park and hang out with my friends?" or "Why can't I go on Spring break?" Your neighbor might see the basketball goal you put up on city property and say, "What the heck - I'm having my buddies over for a party."

If you believe the rules don't apply to you, know this: that attitude has resulted in more people getting sick and dying than would otherwise be the case. It has resulted in significant parts of our economy shutting down, in some cases unnecessarily if not for you. It has cost people their jobs and their retirement savings. It has forced all of us to eventually pay the piper, for the trillions of dollars of government spending that your attitude, your selfishness, has required.

So check that attitude. And make sure you're part of the solution, and not part of the problem.