I was watching a morning show this Sunday while exercising on my stationary bicycle. There was a segment on a
daredevil show in Omaha Nebraska. They were interviewing the brave (foolhardy?) men who crash burning cars into other burning cars and engage in all sorts of pyrotechnic derring do. I was watching it with a minor feeling of sanctimonious revulsion (you know, "I can't, but I want to, look away from these morons") when I remembered my Dad taking me to the crack up derbies at Freeport Raceway near my hometown in New York. The bigger the crash, and the louder the explosions, the more we cheered. If someone was taken away on a stretcher we would clap for his bravery and pray for a speedy recovery so he could come back next month and do it all over again. Well, if unrelenting agitated nattering is a synonym for praying then perhaps our solicitations were indeed heard.
It was not the sudden nostalgia for my own youth that got me to write about my feelings toward the repugnant voyeurism of reveling in pageants of masochistic showmanship. It was what the world's greatest stuntman, Spanky Spangler (a Green Beret and Vietnam vet), said to the crowd after his death defying stunt that got me to thinking and writing this blog. He said, and this may not be an exact quote but the sentiment is accurate; "Being a daredevil is a sign of freedom. We should remember how lucky we are to live in a country that has freedoms that allow us to do things like this". Really? That's what Thomas Jefferson was talking about when he said we have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? The freedom to light yourself on fire and jump from a window five stories up and get paid to do it? Well you know what? That is exactly what he was talking about. The right to be left alone and to live our lives as we choose so long as we don't prevent another citizen from living their life as they believe. So now my question is how many of Spanky's fans in the Nebraskan Heartland don't mind if two men get married? Or if a woman chooses to have control over her own body just like Spanky?
It was not the sudden nostalgia for my own youth that got me to write about my feelings toward the repugnant voyeurism of reveling in pageants of masochistic showmanship. It was what the world's greatest stuntman, Spanky Spangler (a Green Beret and Vietnam vet), said to the crowd after his death defying stunt that got me to thinking and writing this blog. He said, and this may not be an exact quote but the sentiment is accurate; "Being a daredevil is a sign of freedom. We should remember how lucky we are to live in a country that has freedoms that allow us to do things like this". Really? That's what Thomas Jefferson was talking about when he said we have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? The freedom to light yourself on fire and jump from a window five stories up and get paid to do it? Well you know what? That is exactly what he was talking about. The right to be left alone and to live our lives as we choose so long as we don't prevent another citizen from living their life as they believe. So now my question is how many of Spanky's fans in the Nebraskan Heartland don't mind if two men get married? Or if a woman chooses to have control over her own body just like Spanky?
Wow Richard. Great post...
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