It sounds to me like folks as just as careless down there as they are up here. And if seems to me that many people are selfish and self-centred to the point where they don’t CARE whose family member gets hurt — as long as THEY get what THEY want. I see the same attitude on our roads and on our buses/subways. People will push their way through and expect others to get out of their way — even when it’s a car too impatient to wait for a bunch of pedestrians to finish crossing.

And there’s no shortage of snobs up here either. Many have high public profiles about how wonderful it is to do things that are good for society and the environment — as long as it doesn’t personally limit their own freedom to do as they please (regardless of the cost to others). And the snobs are often major hypocrites too.

I’ve noticed that extreme self-centredness leads to people treating other living beings badly, as well as treating the world around them badly, and eventually leads them into self-destructive behavior as well.

There was recently an offensive ad campaign promoted by our government. It cost half a MILLION dollars, had a tagline of “Flick Off” whose graphic made the “li” in “Flick” look like a stylized “U” and implied that our province would never have any more brown-outs or black-outs if it wasn’t for those stupid-lazy-wasteful teenagers leaving their tvs-and-computers on and the fault of teenagers’ mothers for not policing their teens’ actions enough. It was especially offensive since Statistics Canada data clearly shows that residential power use is the sector with the SMALLEST rate of consumption (very, very far behind commercial and industrial) and is ALREADY the sector with the most responsible consumption.

Even small-and-generally-friendly towns (like mine and where some of my friends live) are polluted by people who act as though they’re entitled to hurt others as they please. And I’ve noticed an increasing number of times per year where I’ve had to be VERY explicit about facing off with guys who I’m sure are stronger than I am, and convincing THEM to back down. In a ideal world, I’d always be able to enjoy a party WITHOUT having my evening soiled by some drunken ape who needs to be convinced to stay out of my space.