It’s rant time, folks…

A recent article, Polar Bear Attacks Woman in Berlin Zoo, has a sub-headline of “Are Zoos Safe Enough?” next to the video. If you watch the video, one of the news commenters talks about how we need to keep mentally unstable people safe from themselves (towards the end of the vid). He says, “Seems like you need better standards to help deal with people who seem to have a mental issue than what’s going on at the zoo”.

Really? Are you kidding me? Please tell me you aren’t serious. Please.

Zoos should have to do even more to keep stupid people from Darwinning themselves? I agree that zoos are 100% responsible for keeping animals IN the enclosures. However, they are 0% responsible for keeping adult humans OUT of them. Frankly, they are 0% responsible for keeping your children out of them, too. Watch your own kids.

I’m sorry, last I checked, adults were supposed to be responsible people with at least a bit of common sense. If someone is so messed up in the head that they think swimming in the pool with the polar bears is a swell idea, they shouldn’t be in the zoo.

I am reminded of those commercials with Susan Powter where she screams — STOP THE INSANITY!

TAKE SOME DAMNED RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR OWN ACTIONS.

“Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”  — Benjamin Franklin

This attitude is becoming sickeningly common in my world, and it’s making me very angry. Always trying to blame others, never taking responsibility. It permeates everything I see, from computer programming to dog bites, from hiking to zoos. Someone else is supposed to prevent them from diving where they shouldn’t. Someone else should warn them not to insert things into various orifices. Schools should be raising their children. Sin taxes for cigarettes because it makes people quit. Same for those pesky, high calorie sodas that are making people fat. We’ve made it the law to protect yourself, from helmets to seat belts. Big Brother in the name of public safety.

“If guns kill people, then pencils misspell words” — t-shirt wisdom

When will enough be enough? When everything we do is controlled by someone else? When we never stop having someone to parent us and protect us from ourselves? How totalitarianistic would you like your America, all in the name of public safety, health, and protecting citizens?

Please, tell me I am not alone. Sharing this article is sharing a little sanity — please bookmark it or share it on your favorite social site.