Front Porch Chats #8\Second Pint RFS

“To whom much is given, much is expected.” – Luke 12:48.

I’ve been thinking about that quote all week, and then I came across this article. Don’t mind me, I’ll just sip this beer while you read it.

West Coast Grocery’s Window Shopper IPA is what’s on; a beer I literally picked up window shopping. The hop nose is prominent, which is good, but it fades pretty fast, which is less good.

The finish on this beer is vegetal. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that they canned beers that were in the keg and getting old, in order to recoup the losses of having a pandemic fuck everyone over.

On the one hand, it’s hard to blame them for pivoting their beer into a product I can purchase.

But the beer is vegetal.

So, done with the article? Cool.

Responsibility is a word that gets pushed around quite a bit, especially right now.

What’s interesting are the people talking about responsibility, not actually start taking responsibility.

When I said last week that we deserve better, part of that better is the shouldering of a responsibility we have to others.

Because no matter what the technology we have, it isn’t magic. It has consequences and we really do need to think about should not just could.

Similarly, the rights that we have, those are magic freedoms. As my Mom said to me today “everybody wants to talk about their rights, but nobody wants to talk about their responsibilities.”

If we deserve better, then we are responsible to and for each other. Not wholly; I’m not your dad, folks.

But because I want to live in a society that functions and supports people and is one that we deserve, I am responsible to take all the actions I can to protect us. It means wearing a mask, it means staying away from people (some of whom I like quite a bit), it means not getting to pet dogs I encounter on my walks (something I miss very much), but it means one thing more than anything else.

It means doing the work. The work that it takes to suss out charlatans who want to manipulate people for personal gain, and set those people in a mental corner. And do the right thing for people, even when I’m inconvenienced. Which is all that it is: an inconvenience.

Work isn’t easy: If it was easy it would be called fun. But the work is what we are responsible for. Not my rights. My responsibilities.

But I can put it in terms of rights, too; its my right to not be exposed to reckless people who will get me sick without thought to the consequences. It’s my right to live a life free from the persecution of fascists. It’s my right to legitimate information about what is happening, so that I can make the choices that are my responsibility.

Go ahead and substitute “my” in those last three sentences with “everyone’s”.

Now the responsibility comes in; because its my responsibility to not expose people recklessly, to stand up to fascists and tell them to get fucked, to demand the truth from leaders in their field and hold them accountable to THEIR responsibilities.

Oregon’s primary vote ends tomorrow, folks. You have to deliver your ballot personally, if you didn’t put it in the mail by last Thursday. I hope you vote(d).

Today’s second pint goes to Run For Something.