#854 Bully Pulpit

I need to get on my pulpit here and talk about bullies. And how they are ruining our roads.
I was walking along the roadside yesterday and watched an older feller in a car going the speed limit put on his turn signal as he approached a right turn. He then slowed in a perfectly appropriate way and negotiated said turn.
The young buck behind him honked his horn, pounded his steering wheel, flipped him off, swerved illegally around and accelerated down the street.
Forget about the young guy’s traffic infraction, the old guy about had a traffic infarction.
I was amazed. Nothing in the old driver’s behavior called for that kind of response. The young driver was just a bully.
But what struck me most was his complete lack of awareness that he was the one in the wrong—that cocky consciousness that immediately puts the blame on the other person for daring to get in his way.
People like this frustrate me more than any other type. I hate to even acknowledge they’re human. Where is the capacity for empathy? Where is the putting yourself in someone else’s shoes? Where is the acceptance that sometimes you’re the one that’s wrong.
No, it’s just all bluster and bullying. Your car’s more powerful, so other cars should get out of your way. You’re in a hurry so move aside. Why? Because you can. Might makes right and all that stuff.
People say there will always be bullies until someone knocks them down. But you know, I’ve never known that knockdown to stick. The bully just gets up, starts shouting about “cheating” and “sucker-punching” and walks off grumbling.
Then he finds another weak person to pick on.
You wonder what the survival value of a bully is. How that misdirected anger DNA stayed in the species.
Because it’s not like bullies are ever in the front lines in the military. Bullies aren’t brave, they’re just opportunists.
Maybe that gene was good in hunter groups, for picking weaklings off the back of the herd of prey animals. Maybe that balanced out the annoyance of having them in the tribe.
And they’ll keep at it. Cause dammit. It’s their road to ruin.
America, ya gotta love it.