This morning my wife and I departed on a trip down memory lane. I grew up in the Los Angeles area, and my father owned a fish and tackle shop, a restaurant, and two whale-watch boats at Berth 55 (a.k.a. Queens Wharf). I spent a lot of time at that fish and tackle shop playing the "Chicago" Pin Ball machine, eating a lot of fish and shrimp at the restaurant, and going out on ocean trips as tourists gathered around hoping for a brief glimpse of a whale surfacing near the boats. Sometimes, too, we went out on other boats to go deep sea fishing, more often than not with big names in the sports fishing world.
Now, after 35 years has passed, I decided it would be fun to go back to the old berth and see if the buildings remained intact.
The fish and tackle shop is now divided in half. Half is a smaller fishing shop, and the other half of the building is a fish market. The restaurant has a bar, and is an extension of the fish market where, if you order food at the market, after it is prepared you can take it over to the restaurant to eat it.
It is nothing like the highly efficient, popular night spot that the restaurant was when my father owned the place.
We drove around the piers, checked out Queen Mary Way, and finally made our way back up the freeway, and headed home. On the way home we stopped in the city of Corona, which is where as a kid my folks (mom and step-dad) moved to once they finally decided it was time to get away from the Los Angeles headaches, to pick up some sodas and other items in preparation for tomorrow's big football game. I usually have gatherings of local acquaintances for the big game, and tomorrow will not be much different.
After shopping, as we approached my truck, I immediately noticed that someone (and this isn't the first time) had vandalized the bumpersticker in my back window.
The bumper sticker says "NOBAMA" with the NO in red, the BAMA in white, and a very dark blue background.
Someone had taken a black marker to the bumper sticker and blacked out the N and the slash that crosses the center of the O. Now the sticker simply says OBAMA with a red O.
This vandalism of anything anti-Obama is a common occurrence among those that I have talked to, and I am not just talking about here in Southern California. This is something that is a problem across the nation. However, of my many liberal acquaintances, aside form Ballbuster (of which I don't believe what he says half the time anyway), this is not a common occurrence among those that have pro-Obama signs and stickers.
The same kind of vandalism was happening with anything in support of Proposition 8 (supporting fundamental marriage) I had as well. My "Yes on 8" signs were removed from my yard regularly, more often than not during the light of day. I was assaulted for having a "Yes on 8" sticker on my big rig (assaulted from a distance, anyway - the coward threw something at me and it hit me on the side of the head - called me a f***ing bigot as he drove by).
I am willing to bet the No on 8 crowd didn't have nearly as many instances of this kind of vandalism or attacks.
I am not saying that all people that agree with Conservatism are not capable of these idiotic kinds of actions - I am saying that these kinds of attacks and vandalism are more prevailent among liberals. But then again, what did I expect from a group that proclaims that moral standards are outdated, and that relativism and pluralism is the way to go?
As with what I have said in the past about extreme measures regarding sex appeal, this is a symptom of abandoned morals. I understand these people disagree with me, but does that give them a right to walk up to my personal property and vandalize it? I wouldn't do that to them. My principles and self-respect would never allow it.
And if these are the kind of people that support the president, it gives me large doubts about the stability of our society, and the moral standards (or lack thereof) people practice.
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