Nobody comes around my growing family without a background check!

[unlegendary]

Note to mods: This probably should have been in 'venting or general", but when I started I had a different intent. It just turned out to be a rant instead of something I had intended to be kind of a funny take on a dumb commercial...Move if you must.

OK..to be honest my growing family is already grown unless they're getting fatter..
This is in reference to the commercials run constantly by http://www.beenverified.com/  Have you seen them? This thread's title is one of the lines used in the commercial by some doe eyed young woman whose belly sticks out as if to scream, "I'm THE good mommy and all these BAD people are out to get me..AND YOU TOO!"
Here's why they drive me crazy..The main thing is it gives people a completely false sense of security. Do a background check on everyone you know and most likely they're going to get pissed off at you for prying into their business, but you have to ask yourself..do you REALLY think all people with evil intentions have already been arrested?
Judging people solely on past deeds is risky at best, but mainly just stupid.
It's making some seriously flawed assumptions and sets bad precedent that once someone has made a mistake in their lives there will never be anything redemptive about them the rest of their lives. Do people really believe that? I don't think so.
Take for example star athletes who make a comeback after getting in trouble..We act like it's such a heart warming story that some poor kid from the 'ghetto' got caught selling 'drugs' then straightened himself out to go on to be the big star for the home team, but if your electrician was ever in trouble he can just go straight to hell and never come near you for any reason! GRRRRR!
It's basically saying if you are physically gifted or can entertain us enough then your past is unimportant, but if you just happen to be kind of dull with no real special skills then you can just go rot in hell!
The reason I bring up the athlete story is  because of a Cincinnati football player, Chris Henry who recently died in an incident where he fell out of the back of a moving pickup truck driven by his girlfriend after they had been arguing. A few years ago he had been in trouble with the law, was suspended by the NFL, etc., but by all appearances got his act together and was a darn good pass receiver for the Bengals.
Now had he not been the great receiver nobody would have cared and if he was, say for example a mere janitor nobody would be pretending he was THE face of redemption, the picture of why we should always be willing to forgive those who make mistakes in their youth. Now in Cincinnati there are hundreds of fans STILL memorializing him in their web site signatures and he died last winter.. That's fine they do that, but let's get real here..
If he was a janitor and never caught the wonderful breaks he did would anyone even be willing to so much as consider unlocking his jail cell? I doubt it.
Instead he would have been locked away and there would be a real good chance he would have gone on to reoffend and probably spend a good deal of his life in prison, but we're all so ready to forgive the great athletes and movie stars, but nobody else.
If a kid gets in any kind of trouble he can forget ever growing up to be president of the nation because the other party (either one) would dig up every bit of dirt and exploit it for all its worth and in fact had he even thrown his celeb status toward a politician certain elements would exploit that as well to make us believe our politician friend is also tainted because someone with a questionable background is backing him..OH HOW EVVVIL, huh?
In our modern society people with money or people who people with money like for whatever reason can have shady backgrounds that would completely exclude everyone else from the perks of society, but if you have some "special skill" that entertains people for ten seconds then your petty crimes are completely mundane and we should all live and let live, but lacking those "special" skills or whatever no amount of hard work and dedication to turning your life around will ever be enough and THAT's why these "free" background check companies are such a BAD idea.
I say let he legal community do it's job, but lets stop giving anyone with a credit card the judges robe and all 12 seats on every jury in the nation. There is something to be said about just taking your chances with people. You might get burned, but not everyone who ever got busted is going to kill you for your lunch money and let's quit pretending that's the case.

[Woody]

People don't seem to understand that recidivism is sometimes, maybe even often, caused by the way society treats released criminals. Then there are the self-righteous morons who believe that every prison sentence should be a life sentence. Those same people probably cheat on their spouses and their income tax. I find the hypocrisy disgusting.

Woody

[unlegendary]

You and me too Woody..
I hear people all the time talking about their high falutant (sp) morals and how we need to be even more of a lock em up society and then I get on the highway and drive the posted speed limit and I'm the ONLY one doing it.. Everyone else is scorching past me like I'm sitting still and their excuses? I just have a heavy foot.
Excuse me? Your foot is so much heavier than mine? You were born with a brick in your foot? Well then maybe you shouldn't be driving at all in that case.
We hear it all the time the hypocrisy that pervades nearly every issue. It's as if they really believe that when they say something that goes completely against everything they've been preaching for the past decade we should all just forgive and forget because, well, they have a spotless record.. In other words, they can pretend to be on the moral high ground just because they've never been caught.
Politics is no different.. The hypocrisy on both sides is appalling, but each side thinks only the other side is a hypocritical asswipe. Their own side is full of nothing but moral high ground sparkling clean June Cleaver clones.
Toss in the holy rollerness in it all and toss in "Jebus" and his words they claim to follow so closely, "Love your neighbor as you would yourself." If that's the case then they all should probably be here where we have a steady stream of self loathing because they often treat their neighbors like they would just as soon stick a knife in their eyeballs (EyeScream? You there? lol)
Yes indeedy,, "Ah follow the werds of JaEEEEEZass..except when it's inconvenient for me.."