Dumbass Sayings: “Respect Your Elders”

Sometimes when you push an old lady in a Wal-Mart parking lot after she was talking shit during a dispute over a parking spot, onlookers shake their heads and say “You should respect your elders, punk!” There’s this belief across much of the world that you have to respect elderly people automatically even when they’ve done nothing to deserve the respect from you directly. The way I see it, respect has to be earned. When I meet an elderly person I have no way of telling how much respect they’ve earned over the course of their life. Now maybe if they’re covered in military medals and shit then you can safely assume they’re very respectable, but if they’re just normal old people then there’s no way of telling who they are as a person. Yeah I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt, but as soon as they start disrespecting me then that’s open season for me to fight back. Just being old isn’t really a reason to respect someone. You should respect them more than a young person, but that’s not saying much. Being elderly only shows that you’ve lived more life than most people. If you’re super old then you’ve been very lucky in your life to get as far as you have. Maybe you earned that right then again maybe you didn’t. An elderly woman could have had every single thing in her life handed to her and even after 90 years on this planet she might still not know how to respect others. You want me to automatically respect someone like that just because she’s old? Fuck that. If she treats me with respect, I give it right back, but being old doesn’t give you the right to fuck with people. You already hit the longevity jackpot, don’t push your luck trying to disrespect me, bitch. I treat people equally. I don’t see AGE. If you step to me with an attitude whether you’re 1 or 100, you’re getting put in your place. Maybe if more people treated you like that you would have learned a thing or two by now. Who you think you are taking my parking spot you wrinkly old asshole...

Either you grow old or you die early. We respect the dead, so we're supposed to respect you either way? That doesn't seem right.