Discover Politics

Life is Risky

The warning label on the large white plastic five gallon bucket stated an important message for which I have taken the writer’s liberty of paraphrasing:  “If you put your head in this thing for a long time and it is filled with some sort of liquid you will most likely drown.”  While any thoughtful reader of this cautionary text cannot help but agree, the tome provoked for me a furrowed brow.   This is what happens to me when I really don’t “get it”; I furrow my brow.

In this case what I really didn’t  “get” is the need for such counsel.   All I wanted to do with contents of the bucket was to, as quickly and neatly as possible, get it out of the potentially deadly cylinder and  on my house before winter set in.  Honestly, I had no intention of sticking my head in it for a long time.

Let’s consider, then, the foolhardy nature of  this warning label and warning labels in general in America today.

Our bucket is a good place to start.

My thesis is that all warning labels should all go the way of the Ivory Billed Woodpecker—hunted to extinction.   Maybe the Ivory Billed isn’t a good example because it may not be extinct (according to a few toothless Louisiana gator poachers), and it did have some natural use before it got blasted to oblivion.  Warning labels, on the other hand, have no positive natural use.  In fact, they are counterproductive to good natural selection.  Let’s face it, if I, having read the caveat decided to test the theory thereby expiring  gruesomely and gurgling for air, it would be a good thing if my genes were eliminated from the possibility of further procreation.  Further because I already have four kids all of whom can swim, but it seems are unable to help paint because of prior commitments.

In other words, warning labels, if they even did work only keep pretty dumb people alive, their DNA in the genetic mix, and, oh yea, Mongol hordes of trial lawyers happily employed.

That really is the crux.  Trial lawyers, in evil conspiracy with an ever expansive government, have mandated the use of warning labels on everything from football helmets (it appears you can get hurt if you are hit with a football helmet; use caution), to ladders (you can fall off and get hurt), to 16 ounce straight-claw hammers (you can hit your thumb and get hurt), to air bags in cars (you can get hurt if they are set off in a car accident to prevent you from getting hurt in the car accident), etc., etc., etc.

Trial lawyers like, no verily love, warning labels because they can sue if you use them, and they can sue if you don’t use them.  This is their perfect world: damned if you do; damned if you don’t.  As such, they worship at the altar of the Warning Label God.  Uncle Sam likes, no verily loves, warning labels because they represent what a modern bureaucracy does best:  looking for a reason to exist.

I don’t like warning labels; so much so that I have made it an obsessive practice to rip them off wherever I see them (only from property that I own).  It is hard to rip warning labels off.  Trial lawyers and an ever-expansive government make these things to stay on.  They are a tentacle-like symbol their all-seeing protective omnipotence, and damn it they don’t want you to remove them.  I am persistent, however, and I get them off.

My four kids and their comely mother all study the pugilistic art of karate.  There is a good deal of gear (quite expensive) associated with karate.  There is even a foam rubber helmet with a black steel cage in the front so combatants don’t get their teeth knocked out, or their eyes blackened.  There is a warning label on the cage that says:  “You may get your teeth knocked out or your eyes blackened even if you use the head gear.”  I removed the labels on all five helmets, told my kids and comely wife to keep their hands up and defend themselves at all times.  That’s what an old boxing coach told me a long time ago.  The notion made sense then and it still makes sense  now.

I am pleased with myself that I have passed this wisdom down to the next generation.

Then something happy happened weeks following my discard of the karate head gear labels; slowly but surely, more and more of the ninja-wannabees came to class unstickered!  I guess they figured that since they were learning to defend themselves (beat other people up) that it was kind of sissy (none of my three girls are sissies) to wear a warning label.

There is hope for America.

I remove warning labels because I have decided to be the warning label for my family.  That is what parents and spouses are supposed to be:  living, breathing, vigilant warning labels for the ones they love.

Let’s face it, life is risky.  There are countless ways to break a finger, get an eye poked out or come to an untimely end.  All of these are bad things, and I wouldn’t wish these afflictions on anyone—even trial attorneys.  The best protection, however, is not a yellow super-glued sticker codifying all manner of dos and don’ts.

That’s my job.  That’s your job.

Until later, Winston Smith.

Winston Smith observes life, or as he puts it “The Slow Parade of Lemmings, ” with a 12-year old single malt scotch in hand, and a Fuente Fuente Opus X in the ash tray.  He scratches out his thoughts on parchment with a well-dipped fountain pen.

In his spare time, Winston enjoys swimming the English Channel, and tinkering in his basement medical device and pharmaceutical shop.  He is currently working on a cure to help the millions suffering from the scourge of political indifference.