Start Date: April 21,2023

I just returned from the bank. There was a woman customer there with a large un-neutered male German Shepherd with no leash.  Given his, the dog’s, lack of control of the situation I would say that his manners were impeccable.  The owner not so much. No one said anything.

If you knew me you would know that I love dogs.  I love dogs more than people most of the time. I can fall in love with a dog at first sight. Still?

I guess it started in Target. Well for me. I was at Target and I saw someone with a dog. My Target has a grocery section. It has fresh produce. Again, I love dogs but the grocery store isn’t the place.  I began to see a dog almost every time I would go. Once, and only once, it was a legitimate vested “Canine-Companions-For-Independence” aid dog being trained. I spoke to the woman trainer but did not approach the dog as he was on duty and needed to be singularly focused. The others have been everything from dogs in purses or carts or on leashes. Once a dog urinated and the staff had to close off an area to clean it before someone fell. But no one seemed to say much. I wonder when a dog fight will break out in aisle 9.

A particularly notable incident took place when I was at the food court of a local mall with a friend. A white Labrador with no leash casually sauntered along.  Had I ever taken my late beagle to the Food Court he would have done his best to clear the counters. So again the dog was showing amazing restraint as he strolled by. But how could someone be so irresponsible? A lesser outcome was a group walking a small dog in the mall. The dog had to squat and defecate on the floor. They didn’t have any doggy bags so they just laughed slightly embarrassed and walked on. Remember, it isn’t the dog’s fault.

But the strange thing is that for all the “No Pets” signs on the doors, all the guards who checked your masks or spritzed you during COVID, you virtually never see a store employee inform someone that the rules actually do apply to them.

I think here, in California, it may be a reflex.  If you don’t like the federal drug laws you can pretty much ignore them. If you don’t like the federal immigration laws you can ignore them and pat yourself on the back for being a better person. Years ago, then Mayor Newsom of San Francisco encouraged same sex weddings before they had legal protection in the event of divorce. Assuming gay marriages don’t have better success than straight marriages, roughly half will end. Whichever side had more leverage could deny child custody and alimony because the marriage wasn’t legal. But no one cared about the rules when walking down the aisle.

Lately it seems that much of America has decided that there are all kinds of things to which we can’t say no.

You can’t say “No” to kids rioting, smashing windows, spinning cars in the streets, looting mini-marts and terrorizing the employees, who don’t have any more and have to work for what they have. We are told the looters are protesting, though we are not sure what.

You can’t say “No” to the dude who went into a YWCA and watched little girls shower, or to the Goliath who wants take a girl’s spot on a team, or spike a volleyball at your daughter’s head, or go into a girls locker room naked and stand next to freshman girls showering in their swimsuits. Yet all of this happens. But don’t say “No” or you are transphobic.

Don’t stay “No” to China buying the nation’s farmland or taking over factories or spying near military sites.  Go there and you are “xenophobic”

Don’t say “No” you can’t teach alternate, or for that matter any, sex practices to a five year old. That makes you “homophobic”.

Don’t say “No” We have a process for immigrating to this country. A million or so people use it every year. So no you can’t cut through and step over them as you surge in.  The world likely has 4 billion or more people who are living in conditions lesser than low-income Americans.  But 330 million people cannot support billions. Somehow we need a procedure to sort through it all.  We need to know who they are and preclude human trafficking, sex trafficking, drug smuggling, and supporting the cartels. You may even wish to know if they are vaccinated, maybe for TB or polio. You thought COVID was bad, you’ll love a tuberculosis epidemic.  But you can’t say “No” or you are racist.

You can’t tell them to not mob the Apple store, smash and grab the jewelry store, or shoplift at Home Depot. You can’t tell them to listen to the teacher or visiting speaker, to respect the police and the firefighters.  You can’t tell doctors that they can’t cut up a minor child and try to remake them like Frankenstein. 

The 1943 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “Oklahoma” featured the song “Cain’t Say No”.  It is about a girl who is weak to the charms of men.  It is set in 1906, so it is a subtle innuendo.  But then again I guess we also can’t say, “No”, it won’t help your life much to get pregnant as a single teen, and “No” if you get a girl pregnant you can’t disappear, and No” if you are the guy you won’t be the one who is pregnant.

So as Ado Annie said in Oklahoma,  it seems we just “Cain’t say No”